Right to reply: Aid is one of the government's greatest endeavours

Heartless P.

Tim, - I catch more than a whiff of mealy-mouthed dissembling.

scottpg

Tim,

Please stop evangelising for this policy.

You have lost the argument in the party.

Only you and our increasingly-detached leadership are in favour of it.

Please have the good grace to acknowledge the balance of opinion in the party and spare us your never-ending advocacy on this issue.

It is tiresome in the extreme.

Jolly Roger

We are borrowing money to give away to other countries. The sheer insanity of that trumps all arguments in my opinion.

Added to the fact that some of these countries have Nuclear and Space programs, I just cant see these kind of International Aid budgets can be justified.

It honestly strikes me that the International Aid budget is just seen as a way of combating the "nasty tories" slurs and detoxification of the conservative brand. However, when canvassing on doorsteps, one of the most common questions I get asked is how cuts can be justified when we are giving away money abroad. I dont think its winning any votes...

Ian Walker

A question for you: is the government of India more or less likely to change their priorities, if we keep helping them to shirk their responsibility to their own poor?

TGF UKIP

Tim Montgomerie, all you are doing is emphasizing the ever widening divide between you lot and the rest of us.

In any case we get quite enough of the pro Cameron, pro metropolitan liberal line from Fraser Nelson and the rest of his Speccie crew. I had hoped for rather better from you, but perhaps you see yourself competing with James Forsyth for that Downing Street job.

Dennis Sewell

Very persuasively put. You certainly haven't lost the argument, though Jolly Roger puts his finger on why this is a hard one to sell. So you better keep on evangelising. Sadly the phrase 'the right thing to do' has been contaminated. But in the end, that's what it comes down to.

JohnBUK

I'm awfully sorry but being told efforts are being made to reduce waste doesn't cut it. This has been going on for decades and I do not believe for one minute any state department will get value for money, the motivation isn't there. The farmer sews his own corm he worked and paid for and therefore is in the best position to determine risk reward where it falls. The government extracts money from others and does not have the same motivation, hence it carries on borrowing money to "give" to others.
Let the people keep their own money and they will determine where to "give" more efficiently than any government body.

Verity

Ian Walker, you know nothing about India. They do not shirk their resposibility to their own poor. They have 1bn people and I think they do a heroic job by them. I don't know the size of the middle class in India, but it's vast and they all pay taxes. Indeed, the Indians are the biggest users of credit cards in all of Asia. The Indian Government approves of and promotes birth control. If it hadn't been for that pontificating communist fool Mohanandas Gandhi, and Nehru his willing disciple, India would be top nation by now.

Instead of developing good highways and ports to capitalise on the developed world's hunger for Indian cotton at that time, Gandhi spent his time travelling around promoting the notion that every home should have a spinning wheel in it so people could spin their own cotton. No highways, no ports, no new factories. Spinning wheels!

I've written this before, but just to reinforce it, India is third in the world in patent applications for new technology, just behind the US and Germany. They are(on the whole)brilliant and industrious people.

Tiberius

That is one of the best pieces I've read from you, Tim, particularly given your usual difficulty in finding good in Cameron's efforts.

Russell

I would rather have my tax paid to starving people and kids getting clean water than £millions on the 'Trade Union Modernisation Fund' (which hasn't yet been scrapped), all the 'Pilgrims' (who are meant to be nurses/firemen/policemen/council workers/civil servants) or on keeping prisoners in relative luxury and pigs in both the HoC and HoL troughing like Prescot and Martin and Mandelson.

Scary Biscuits

Tim's argument for foreign aid is exactly the same as for the EU (which is not surprising because the EU is foreign aid in disguise anyway).

It goes along the lines of yes it's corrupt, yes it's been wasted in the past, yes most of it ends up in the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt politicians, yes it has generally achieved the opposite of what we were promised and the problems have only got bigger but... all that is behind us now. We're learning from those mistakes, we're reforming - continually - and our new formula for giving away your money is so much better. If you believe that, you'll believe anything.

And no, we don't trust you to give this money yourselves which is why we extort if from you in taxes. Even though we claim to be Conservatives who believe that people are better at spending their own money than governments, we don't let ideology get in the way of making ourselves look good at your expense.

Mr. Bubbles

Will we ever get a piece criticisng the principle of aid, I wonder? 'Right to reply' - to reply to what exactly?? In recent days we've had three articles all in favour of the principle of aid. We get enough of this rubbish on ConHome, don't start peddling it here as well.

Barry Bilge

If Government minsters and civil servants think charity is a good thing (and so do I!) then let their contributions come from their own pockets not ours.

Tim said: "Finally, of course, it’s about more than aid. The best poverty-fighter ever devised by man is capitalism."

And yet here you are singing the praises of authoritarian enforced contributions. Stop trying to satisfy your consciences with other people's money. THAT's why it is dumb aid - there is no incentive to get value for money because it isn't theirs they are spending.

Why have we been committed to a Maurice Strong target of 0.7% of GDP in aid? Gesture politics and specious target chasing makes for superficial and shallow policies just to make up the numbers.

Baron

Tim, listen, an even better idea to win the argument, let’s do the “£2.22 of taxpayers’ money” per month, who on earth would object to a 20p of taxpayers money going each month to save the lives of so many children in need, agreed?

Jolly Roger and Scary Biscuits sum up neatly Baron’s take on the issue.

wrinkled weasel

Verity is dead right about India. Have you seen Bangalore recently and compared it to say, Birmingham?

FFS they should be sending us money.

Jez

Oooooh Tim...... i love a bit of early evening spin baby!

All these zero common sense policies by our ruling elites, for all this time, all of the time, constantly.

Your bubble seems to be drifting further and further away........ we can hardly see who's pulling off this bullsh*t anymore....

oldtimer

The only foreign aid that should be paid from taxes is that which reflects contributions by taxpayers as in the Gift Aid scheme (ie at 25% or 40% in the £). There should be a total annual cap on the contribution from taxes. If causes cannot attract private donations they should not attract donations out of our taxes at the Minister`s whim. Supportable causes should be carefully and closely defined; countering disease, famine and natural disasters are obvious examples. Projects that are fundamentally economic in character (eg infrastructure) should be funded by development banks, capital markets and private enterprise, not by aid money.

The present policy of raising aid budget when every penny must be borrowed and the country is sinking further and further into debt is irresponsible.

Tim R

yeah Tim - make yourself feel good by spending other people's money extracted by force. joke is - we can't even pay for our own stuff and so have to borrow and then get our children to pay for making you feel morally superior.

You wanna second guess the Indian government - be my guest and send the cash from your own pocket.

Abolish this nonsense and cut taxes and then let's see whether these do gooders with other people's money actually cough up.

Next

Cynic

Charity begins at home.

Verity

Wrinkled Weasel, I think you will agree that India is probably the busiest country in the world. God, the activity! And whatever they're doing, whether they're a government minister, a corporate executive, a sales person, someone delivering packed lunches or peddling chapatis from the back of his bike, they go at it hell for leather.

The (large) stratum that speaks English speaks it more literately than, I would say, most Brits. They also have a quick wit in their second language. And good at puns. Not easy. They leave native English speakers standing at the starter's gate with a straw in their mouths.

Do not belittle a country you have never visited. Even meeting Indians in Britain, or wherever you live, should have alerted you to the high wattage intelligence.

Mohanandas Gandhi was a self-satisfied jerk and wasted at least 60 years for India.

Santorum

Very thoughtful and refreshing analysis from a right wing perspective. The quality of arguments against you in the comments suggest you are right.

In2minds

@wrinkled weasel - Comparing Birmingham and Bangalore. Are you suggesting that third generation English immigrants have their own ghetto in Bangalore? For if this be the case then setting up a pork pie shop would be worth a go.

Boudicca

My wages have been frozen; I am paying 40p a litre more for petrol than I was at the GE; I am getting derisory interest on my savings; energy is going up by 18% thanks in part to Cameron's Climate Change scam.
VAT went up as did our contribution to the EU and to top it all, Cameron is taxing me in order to give money in Aid to India which has a space programme, nuclear weapons, a fleet with aircraft and more billionaires than the UK.

OK, so some Indians are poor. That doesn't mean we should pay for them: it means we should exert pressure on India to change its priorities.

I now refuse to give to any of the Quango Charities that exist mainly on UK Government funding - Save the Children, Oxfam. I am not going to be taxed to provide aid and then, from my taxed income, hand over more.

Charity should be voluntary.

Verity

Old Timer sums it up ... aid for "countering disease, famine and natural disasters". I would limit aid for disease to epidemics, not endemic diseases, which are the responsibility of the country involved's government, not the Western taxpayer.

Countries undergoing huge natural disasters should be offered some foreign taxpayer money to help them out temporarily.

Africa is the richest continent on earth and is not our responsibility.

The African countries have had 60 years of torrential gushing of aid. That they still have the begging bowl out would indicate that the kind of aid - endless streams of free money - we have been offering doesn't work.

daniel maris

I think we should be more picky with our aid.

India certainly deserves our support. A hug democracy that has embraced much of our culture and presents no threat to us. Contrast with Pakistan.

With countries ruled by tyrants that oppress and persecute their people, we should offer practical aid to democratic opposition groups and set up alternative aid distribution operations. So on Pakistan money should go directly to Christians, Hindus and other persecuted groups; together with any genuine democrats seeking to dismantle Sharia rule.

Steve Tierney

Taking money by coercion and giving it to others is not charity, it is socialism and it is immoral.

If "the people" support aid then they will choose to give it themselves.

There is nothing noble about being generous with other people's money. Particularly not when you've essentially take it with menaces.

For charity to mean something it must be given by choice.

I have faith that if the government did away with all foreign aid with the exception of Disaster Aid (which should be refunded if there is no disaster to spend it on) then the people of the nation would give *more*. And it would be MUCH better targetted.

Mark M

Tim, perhaps the reason people object to the overall budget is because they know that for every £2.22 spent vaccinating 10 children, there's probably more than a tenner wasted by 4x4s for dictators or lining the pockets of whatever fake charity is in vogue.

Noa.

Rather we can see Aid payments for what they really are, the modern Danegeld, being paid by a weak and pathetic Aethelred from the taxes of his own bitterly reluctant and increasingly poor subjects, to placate the twin threats of military hostilities and mass invasion. This is allied to an entirely misplaced sense of guilt and an inherent moral cowardice in being unwilling to fight its traitorous supporters and reverse the status quo.

Verity

In2minds 9:53 pm As most Hindus are vegetarian, I would predict that a pork pie shop would not do well anywhere in India.

Sorry to squelch your sizzling wit, but there would also be no such thing as "third generation English immigrants" as no immigration is allowed. They are intelligent enough to know that they don't need more people, and that they have more than sufficient brain power and money within their own population.

You can't immigrate to India. Go on. Call the Indian Embassy. Ignorant comments are so irritating.

Paul Newman

All of these arguments would work just as well if we doubled or tripled our AID budget. None of it alters the stark injustice of the well heeled elite taxing people who cannot afford their mortgages so as to pat themselves on the back for having such tender consciences.
in fact the real reason for the squander on luxury political issues like international do-gooding , is the detoxification of the Conservative brand , the so called " Nasty Party", probelm

Essentially then we are forgoing holidays extensions and new cars so Cameron can appeal to Liberals for the good of his career and . more sensibly in the hope of permanently occupying the centre ground aided by this tokenist waste.

Iain Moore

Tim at what point do you say an idea has been test to destruction and shown to be a failure? After 50 years and investing $1 trillion? For that is what has been invested in Aid, yet after all this time and money the countries in receipt of Aid 50 years ago are pretty much the same countries in need of Aid now, worse in need of even more Aid now. That by anybodies measure is a failed policy.

What is really striking is the political schizophrenia of our politicians, for while at home they don't believe welfare is a solution to anything they fall over themselves to waste fortunes abroad on foreign welfare, for that is all Aid is.

Perhaps the most objectionable thing about our political classes fixation with Aid is the racism and colonialist mentality that comes with it. Look at India, they are a democratic country, they had elections where the people spoke and decided their priorities, included in the Indian peoples priorities were a space program, nuclear arms, aircraft carriers for their navy etc, it is not for our metropolitan political classes to tell the Indian people they have got the wrong priorities and made the wrong choices, then march in there with our Aid programs. That is an insult to the Indian democracy, and is just as bad as the 18th century colonialists who decided that the brown skinned savages need saving from their unenlightened ways.

Banquosghost

Is the author going to reply to the comments his article has provoked? As with the other Right to reply articles some bleeding heart attempts to justify the unjustifiable then wanders off with seeimgly no care for the comments.

Is the Right to Reply just the Speccies way of ingratiating more with central office?

Is the author bold enough to read and reply to the comments above? I wont hold my breath.

Next Starfish

I am one of those voters who is strongly influenced by the issue of aid, and I'm very supportive of Tim's advocacy of the policy, especially in the face of what appears to be increasingly hostile opposition.

For me personally the central issue is a moral one - acting to support the eradication of poverty wherever it is in the world - and arguements based on supporting our national interest, or economic expediency are very much secondary.

Of course I fully accept that not everyone shares my view however, and therefore debate and democratic process is the only reasonable way forward. But in the meantime I don't think it's too much to ask that the Government honours it's clear commitment to continue to protect the ringfenced aid budget for the duration of this parliament.

As a social and environmental justice blogger I don't imagine I share much of the same territory as most of those offering critical comment on Tim's peice, but I would hope most would accept the reasonableness of arguing Governments should try to keep their promises regardless of the prevailing political weather.

-STEVE-
from Nextstarfish

HFC

NextStarsystem says:

'For me personally the central issue is a moral one - acting to support the eradication of poverty wherever it is in the world - and arguements based on supporting our national interest, or economic expediency are very much secondary.'

So we should keep our own people poor by bolstering the lives of foreigners - most of which, I suspect, don't even know where the handouts come from. That is provided they are fortunate enough that their government and officials haven't sucked the bulk of our cash into their numbered bank accounts?

Elimination of uncontrolled reproduction may be a better aim.

P.S. Arguments is correct. Your spelling is not.

Next Starfish

HFC
I’m not entirely sure where you’re coming from?

If you’re saying the problem with aid is that it is inefficient and badly targeted – then the solution is surely to improve its targeting and delivery, and combat corruption and local wastage etc.

If you’re saying the problem with aid is that the British people don’t feel they can afford it – I would refer you both to the electoral commitment which gives a democratic mandate and to the results of Number 10’s own recent polling which indicates the British public are supportive of actually increasing the aid budget - http://ind.pn/tzVY7D

If you’re saying that ‘our people’ are too poor to be expected to give aid to others in the world (regardless of how much poorer they are by comparison), then I’d be interested to hear your proposals to recover a greater proportion of tax income to be distributed as aid from those amongst ‘our people’ who can afford it.

Most of all I’m interested to hear you expand on your suggestion to eliminate ‘uncontrolled reproduction’ – in particular what reproduction you feel is currently ‘controlled’, and whose reproduction you would suggest controlling : possible the world’s hungry poor, or possibly the world’s wasteful rich (and it’s likely that we’re both in this later group – relatively speaking) ?

If however you’re really saying you don’t believe that rich people (us) should help poor people, then that’s an entirely reasonable position – and even though I totally disagree with it, I’d defend your right to that view !

I take a view that compassion for others isn’t confined within the boundaries of nation states, and while the poor’s own governments are clearly far more ‘responsible’ than we in the rich world are, we shouldn’t take the view that this absolves us of any moral obligation to act.

I’m glad we’re debating the issue in a reasonable way.

-STEVE-
from Nextstarfish

Paul Danon

Many folk probably think aid-money goes into dictators' pockets. DFID could help them see differently (assuming that the popular view is untrue. BTW, the Indian government is ethically responsible for having a space-programme while its people starve.