Lead article: Charity, not waste

The British are a generous people. We donate more to humanitarian causes than anyone else in Europe, and by some margin. The average Brit gives twice as much as a Norwegian, three times more than a Belgian, six times more than a German and seven times more than a Frenchman. All told, British households send about £4 billion a year to overseas charities — more than any people in the world, in fact, apart from the Americans. So it is by no means clear why David Cameron believes that, in the middle of a fiscal crisis, he should extract a further £4 billion from us through the tax system and give the money to charities of his choice.

• From magazine issue: 21 May 2011