Foreign aid is fair for us all
I WAS saddened by G B Norris’s Viewpoints plea, Use foreign aid cash here (September 15). Leaving aside the specifics of the sorry story they refer to, the question about the UK ‘giving ...£14bn in foreign aid’ is not ridiculous.
As the fullfact.org website makes clear, it is only a small percentage of the UK’s Gross National Income. So when we get richer, it increases, and when that falls it will decrease.
That percentage (7p in every tenner) has cross-parliamentary support and was achieved finally after years of inching up to international commitments.
It is there to help the poorest, giving them a leg up so they can develop independence.
Sadly, it is already being abused by the government who have started once more to use it to buy influence, feather the nests of big business, prop up repressive governments, promote PFI-type scams, and for questionable fee-paying private ‘academy’ schools that exclude poor children.
Of course, I want UK Aid spent well and accountably. But if we are a ‘wonderful country with wonderful people, a small island with great pride and tenacity, determination and spirit and generosity’ as they say, we shouldn’t stop showing it by alleviating suffering.
If the government got serious with tax-dodging big corporations and all the other takers-out, we should be more than able to support our own. A member of Global Justice Manchester