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Author Topic: It is time to cut Britain's overseas aid budget  (Read 14464 times)

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The Prophet

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It is time to cut Britain's overseas aid budget
« on: January 18, 2014, 08:26:36 am »
It is time we stopped wasting money we don't have on overseas aid
You don't need to be a racist to appreciate that British taxpayers are giving too much aid to foreign countries, many of which actually hate us.

We also give £2m in aid to Argentina. This, at a time when everything here in the UK is being cut in the guise of austerity and bringing down Britain's £1,300,000,000,000 budget deficit - this is the amount our elected government spends more than they receive each year.

Whilst in the grand scheme of things £2million does sound that much, it is equivalent to the total tax paid by 597 people earning the average £26,200 salary; or 359 taxpayers if you add the £2,213 they also pay to the treasury in National Insurance contributions (tax).

When will Cameron and his pathetic party realise that "foreign aid" is just a term for throwing away taxpayer's money? As Tony Parson said in The Sun: "Wasting it on foreigners that actually hate us doesn't make Cameron a nice guy, it makes him an idiot"

Britain still gives more in foreign aid than any other G8 country. The amount given in aid has soared 65% in the last ten years to a massive £8.6bn in 2012 - around 0.6% of UK GDP.
In the same year, the proportion of national income given by countries including USA, Italy, Japan and Germany actually fell. The US giving just 0.2% of their national income (GDP) in overseas aid!

Tory MPs and many others from all parties are critics of the Prime Minister's pledge to raise foreign aid spending to 0.7% of national income. (GDP)
Tory backbencher Philip Davies said:
"We're the mugs of the world, we're spending money we haven't got. The only thing more irresponsible than making the promise in the first place is keeping it when we haven't got the money. Much international aid is just taking money off poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries."

UKIP leader Nigel Farage said:
"Britain's foreign aid budget is rising while hospital accident and emergency departments, libraries and other public services are being cut back or closed."

Matthew Sinclair, Chief Executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance
"The increase in the foreign aid budget is equivalent to well over £100 a year for every family in Britain. There is no reason at all why the budget should not be frozen at the level when the government came to power. That would still allow us to help people in other countries facing immediate crises and it would ease the pressure here at home."

"The government are chasing an artificial target based on numbers 40 years out of date. That is driving them to give our money to countries that could finance the projects themselves, corrupt or even dangerous foreign governments, and big charities that waste an enormous amount before the cash even reaches frontline projects."

Click to see which countries receive our aid and how much:

Did you know we gave £86.8m in aid to Somalia in 2012? 
Somalia is arguably the world's most corrupt country and 70% of the aid it receives cannot be accounted for by its government.

Nigeria is set to receive £305m in 2014/15 and is hoping to send its first astronauts into space within two years. India, the world's 4th largest economy, received £860m from the UK government over the last three years. Worst of all China, a country that is lending us money to build new nuclear power stations, is getting £3m a year in "aid" from the UK taxpayers!

Less than a 10th of Britain's £12bn aid budget goes into humanitarian or emergency aid - the life-saving stuff you see in brochures - and the Department for International Development (DfID) has problems spending that. Most British aid is actually development aid of dubious effectiveness, too much of which goes to inefficient and wasteful multilateral organisations or is paid directly into the treasuries of the corrupt or incompetent governments.

Vote to put and end to this in 2015, by not voting Conservative!