Stephen Pollard

that they are the figures which government uses to estimate spending.

When it comes to aid spending of 0.7 per cent of GDP, that means that the amount of aid spending forecast for future years will fall correspondingly from the amount originally forecast in March, when the OBR thought the economy would be growing faster.

That’s a simple statement of the obvious, because our aid spending will be 0.7 per cent of an economy that will not be as big as was forecast.

That’s not a cut – GDP will still be growing. It just won’t be increasing as much as it would have done if the economy was growing faster. To be specific, figures released alongside the Budget last month show that the expected aid budget in 2018-19 will be £375million less than originally forecast, and in 2019-20 it will be £520million less than forecast.

As we have seen, that is because GDP is forecast to be smaller than the prediction made in March. In total, the overall aid budget is now forecast to be £12.3billion in 2018/19 and £12.6billion in 2019/20.

But for Corbyn this is a scandal. In his letter to May he complained that “the UK will now be spending £895million less than expected on the intended objective of aid which

BECAUSE the evidence is that vast chunks of our hard-earned taxes are being thrown down the drain. In what world is it even conceivably sensible for us to hand China – the second biggest economy in the world – a penny in aid?

But we have done just that, handing over £3million to help develop football in China. In a country where the premier league pays wages of £615,000 a week.

Or India, which has a billion pound space programme, with missions to Mars and the moon planned. But that – and the 130 nuclear warheads it finds the cash to pay for – doesn’t stop us handing more than £100million a year to India.

This week, a TV programme alleged that British aid was being used by terrorists in Syria, and was funding a police force that carried out summary executions.

On and on goes the litany of shame, such as the £15million handed over to pay for antismoking classes in countries such as Cambodia, Colombia, Egypt and Myanmar, many of which are renowned for their widespread corruption.

And yet this isn’t enough for Corbyn. Out of all the issues around at the moment, he decided that the most pressing, which merited an angry letter to the Prime Minister, was the possibility that future aid might not be as much as it was originally forecast to be in March.

Few things better illustrate the importance of the Daily Express’s crusade to Stop The Foreign Aid Madness.

Because if we don’t, we are going to spend ever greater sums on wholly undeserving causes.

‘We’ve given £3m to help Chinese football’