What a hypocrite
 

www.themirror.co.uk Foreign aid.

David Cameron continues to annoy voters, by saying in today's edition that he will continue to give away Billions of tax payers money abroad in oversea aid, and plans to do it for the next twenty years.

He said that his policy is correct, and yet he plans to cut more in defence of OUR country.

He is nothing but a hypocrite who thinks only of his own beliefs, never mind his own voters.

He is even blocking tax breaks for married couple but he is talking now more of gay marriage, what planet is he on.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

He's a hypocrite because he is consistent and tries to act on his beliefs?

Can't find the Mirror story, but here is the BBC version http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21288823

Re: What a hypocrite
 

so wish I could swear but arrange the 2 worst you can possibly type and arrange them in the correct order and you have my opinion

---------- Post added at 13:47 ---------- Previous post was at 13:44 ----------

you look at this and you look at the benefit threads on this forum and it beggars belief that in the time of austerity he would be seen to throw even more money away I despair I really do

Re: What a hypocrite
 

For once we are in agreement.I think that ,although the bill is small in comparison to other budgets** we should spend as much as possible at home first, especially when we aren't supposed to be getting any actual benefit from foreign aid .

**I also think that the figures for foreign aid should include money spent at home for asylum seekers and refugees ,bet the numbers aren't so small then

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Yes, because the question of whether the government should pay benefits so that people can have a spare room in their homes is exactly the same as the question of whether we have any moral duty to help ensure some of the poorest children in the world can go to primary school, or drink water without dying of cholera.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

'We'... I wasn't asked.

I say he should be concentrating on sorting this country out first.

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It so annoyed me that we are throwing money at other countries when our own people are being made to suffer reductions in there standard of living. why is this money not being spent on us. We paid this money to the Government and WE should benefit from it. :mad:

I was never asked if my taxes are to be spent on other countries and if i was i would say SOD OFF

Re: What a hypocrite
 

they breed like rabbits in these countries they hold their hands out and do not help themselves . Morals and government? the two things do not go together

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I think we should be a bit more mercenary about it ,make sure we get something out of it and be open and honest about our intention to give money in return for something we want .
Also make sure we give nothing until we have 100% control on how it is spent and not being syphoned off for a dictators shoes or weapons

Re: What a hypocrite
 

slavery? (only jokin)

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Not that mercenary ;)

Re: What a hypocrite
 

:clap:

---------- Post added at 14:28 ---------- Previous post was at 14:27 ----------

Some would say ok to that as long as we are the ones selling them :rolleyes:

Re: What a hypocrite
 

We actually sell weapons or weapon components to countries we give aid money to .For example we will sell components for weapons ,such as software ,armour vehicles to Somalia ,then give them £63m per year in aid from the DFID .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...st-interactive

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/where-we-work...thern/somalia/

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Trust me i would not want us selling weapons to countries who hold out the begging tray.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

That's what irritates me .We give aid as part of our moral obligation to less well off countries ,fine fair enough no problem with doing that at all.Then we find out that we are in fact partly to blame for the original hardship in the first place because our lords and masters didn't have morals enough to not sell weapons to them

Re: What a hypocrite
 

I cannot believe that Hugh is saying on this forum that Cameron is acting on 'his beliefs'.
What a pathetic response, l am furious that my tax money is being sent abroad to help the dying, what about this country, and l am fed up to the back teeth with members that are saying it is ok to sending billions of pounds to other countries.

In this country we are making severe cutbacks, so that we are suffering, unemployment is soaring, no matter what the figures are saying, the banks are paying big bonuses to there chiefs, electircity are being hiked up, we are now having more and more food banks for the poor.

And yet Cameron is quite prepared to spend billions to countries that don't need aid from this country, we have our armed forces being made redundant, the injured being treated like lepers in getting benefits from the MODand being tolds they cannot get it.

Its about time Cameron realised one thing he is the PM of the United Kingdom and was voted by the Britsh public to look after US, not some damn country thousands of miles away - he is a bloody hyprocite.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Reduction in standard of living vs saving millions of lives from malnutrition and preventable diseases....

Hard choice, I know.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

I see nothing wrong in looking after your own people first or am i in an alternate universe. I want my tax money to be spent on this country not some country that cannot get its act together because its goverment thinks we ae going to fund them..

Here's one, i know they will not be getting any more money off us, WHY were we giving MILLIONS to India and yet they had a nuclear bomb program and a space program. That's the sort of misuse of money that really ****es me off.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Does it save millions of lives though ? we keep going back to the same countries with money because so many are suffering

Re: What a hypocrite
 

and who do you think gets rich off that corrupt governments and pharmaceuticals who if they cared would give the doses free of charge after all they make enough off the west

Re: What a hypocrite
 

We give these poor countrys aid money and the corrupt goverments use it to buy weapons to fuel their stupid civil wars.
Not much of it goes to help the people who really need it

Just one example
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8535189.stm

Re: What a hypocrite
 

I have seen several reports on TV over the past few years that basically said that farmers and traders in those countries we send food aid to are basically so undercut that they have stopped farming altogether. Plus they breed because they have full bellies, not because they need income in their old age to come from their offspring.

Are they then to be described as "despicable lifelong career scroungers" :confused:

The sort that Camoron is so against in the UK. :confused:

Re: What a hypocrite
 

:clap:

Re: What a hypocrite
 

I suppose that is one way to look at it ,what's good for the goose and all that

Re: What a hypocrite
 

UK welfare spending in 2012: £117 billion.
UK overseas aid spending in 2012: £8.8 billion.

This, I submit, constitutes "looking after your own people first".

Incidentally that welfare figure includes both central and local government benefits, but excludes the NHS, for which you could add another £126 billion to the tab for "looking after [our] own people first".

Our overseas aid budget is ring-fenced so that as other departments' spending comes down, the proportion of spending on overseas aid goes up ... Until it gets so high that we are spending a mahoosive ZERO POINT SEVEN PER CENT of it on aid.

Again, I make the point that there is absolutely no equivalence whatsoever between the furore over the so-called "bedroom tax" and the question of whether children everywhere deserve an education and whether rich nations have an obligation to help poor nations achieve it.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

that 8.8 billion could still do a lot of good here

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Yes, it could. But it is doing a lot more good there.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

yeah filling the pockets of corrupt officials

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Why have we done so? In India's case I think it's because the goverment have hoped that by giving them aid we would have some influence when it comes to India buying things (such as weapons, planes etc)

India aren't particularly bothered whether we do or don't, and we are stopping aid soon

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-dev...stop-aid-india

Re: What a hypocrite
 

I dispute that ,We are giving £63m per year to Somalia untill 2015 when new arrangements come into force.The country has received Billions in aid each year from around the world with no end in sight .We just keep on giving with no real progress happening.
I question how much good the aid actually does

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Chris

I have never mentioned the bedroom tax in connection with this ;), i personally feel that we should NOT be giving money to other countries whilst we are expected to tighten out belts and is a position i have always had.

I have no intention of changing my mind because i have always said charity begins and ends at home.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Yet, we still have cuts here. That means we need that 8.8 billion here.
Our govt has a duty to look after the population of the UK first. If everyone here is properly provided for then and only then, imo, should the govt be looking around the world for other people to give our money to.
Thinking about it, if the govt has surplus money to give away then they should reduce our taxes. If they don't have surplus money then they shouldn't be giving it to other countries.

---------- Post added at 16:53 ---------- Previous post was at 16:51 ----------

Damn right. If the people of the UK want to give money to overseas aid then they can do so on a private, individual basis (remember Band Aid)........our govt has no business giving our money away....especially in times like these!

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Wrong ... The UK's problem is that we have a structural deficit. That means our ongoing spending commitments cannot be met out of the revenue we raise. Part of the reason for that is that Gordon Brown fostered a culture of welfarism in the UK that has resulted in benefits that are too generous being paid to too many people. Those people feel a sense of entitlement because they have been suckling at the government nipple for so long that they cannot understand the concept of the money simply not being there any more, but the fact is, the money never was there in the first place.

We could reduce our overseas aid budget to zero tomorrow and it wouldn't solve the problem of the structural deficit. To solve the deficit problem we need a permanent change in the amount that is spent, the breadth of measures it is spent on and the number of people who receive it.

Breaking that culture of dependency should, in time, result in more British people working, thus growing the economy more than enough to pay for overseas aid which, if it is targeted at health and education measures, will in the long term also reduce the amount we have to spend invading failed states, stationing gunboats off their coastlines and dragging their citizens off the backs of lorries arriving in Dover.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Every year we give billions in Aid to countries who do not need it, we also give aid of food etc to other countries only for it to fall into the black markets of that country.

We give aid to countries where they show children in desperate need of food and clean water, and we have wonderful charities like the Red Cross that have volunteers in those countries.

We as a country supply troops to these countries to fight the Taliban, and now we are sending troops to Syria to help out France, these troops do not know if they have a job when they come back.

This country spends billions on saving banks where the bosses get huge bonuses.

YET, our government will close hospitals, A&E Depts, they will cut troops, reduce our police service, our troops that come back from fighting in other countries and are injured lose there accommodation, limbs as the MOD wont look after them due to costs, businesses will close due to costs, electricity and gas prices will go up and the government will not stop it.

Is there one law for oversaeas countries and one law for us. Cameron is an idiot and only wants to look after oversea's countries in the hope he can get contracts for this country, and when the come in the MOD give it to another country.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Excellent post. Apart from the bit where you said I was wrong :D .
imo, neither of us are wrong. You are quite correct in what you said & I agree with you entirely. I am merely saying that the govt should not give our money away whilst we actually need it (and really, not even once we have enough either)

---------- Post added at 17:24 ---------- Previous post was at 17:22 ----------

Amazingly, I completely agree (with the bits I understand) :D

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Yes, what an idiot, spending ZERO POINT SEVEN PER CENT of our annual budget in order to win contracts for British companies that employ British people.

If that were the only reason for sending money overseas, it would still be a good one.

This clause is somewhat garbled. Please try again.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Don't you think that the aid budget should be cut along with our own welfare budget ,after all the principle of reducing dependency on other countries works for other countries just as much as reducing our own state dependency does it not ,a policy i am firmly behind ,and since overseas aid is linked to GDP then it should go up if the gov do their job properly whereas state spending should go down ,meaning we will always get less as a % as our economy picks up and countries in receipt of aid will always get more

Re: What a hypocrite
 

:rofl:

Re: What a hypocrite
 

You're not comparing eggs with eggs. ;). In the UK we're talking about cuts in welfare, *some* of which has over time resulted in dependency because it absolves people from the responsibility of looking after themselves and gives them no way out.

Overseas, aid is directed at health, education and commercial development all of which result in time in flourishing states with stable government and a healthy, educated population and a growing economy. We also benefit from that political and economic stability.

For a direct comparison you would need to be comparing welfare spending in the UK with basic food aid overseas, of the kind we should only be dropping in to specific and extreme situations, precisely so as to avoid foreign governments becoming dependent on external funding.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Ditto for the people dependant on foreign aid we, and many others give them, again and again and again and again....

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Thats because they know we are stupid and will give money to them no matter if they try to fix there problems or not.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

difference is cutting dependency is this country results in discomfort, cutting aid results in many, many deaths and much suffering.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

So does selling weapons to these countries yet we are happy to do both ,seems a bit anomalous doesn't it ,feed them then kill them :shrug:

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Charity begins at home. In today's climate, where our own citizens are having benefit & wage cuts, the fat cats get fatter. Our local paper announced that council employees will have their salaries cut by 2K per year, yet the top paid execs pay will remain untouched. Same in government, cut the peoples pay & benefits, but lets give ourselves a 30% pay rise. This country is not progressing, its dropping to the level of some 3rd world countries where corruption is rife.

Money we give in foreign aid is seldom used for the benefit of the poor. Its syphoned off by corrupt fat cats who use it for themselves.

If we as a nation cannot afford to look after our own then we should not be giving any money away. Cameron should realise that Great Britain is not so great nowadays, & our position in the world is not as strong as he thinks.

I have a son in Africa now, serving in the Army. He tells me weapons are so common there with unlimited ammo, corruption & rot is second nature. We are just throwing good money away, a complete waste, Its about time we looked after our own before we look after others.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Lucky the USA didn't think this way back in the 30s and 40s....

Re: What a hypocrite
 

A bit severe I know, but if a lot of them die off they might be able to feed/fend themselves at last. And perhaps they will learn to live within their means and not rely on handouts.

Hmmmm... I seem to have entered Camoron's thought processes by accident.... SORRY!

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Actually the opposite is true. The reasons there are no Einsteins emerging in Africa is in part because so many of those who are born there, die before adulthood. Economic and social development needs to come first; the birth rate will fall naturally once families no longer need to 'replace' those that die of disease.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Sorry but that is a different as they were supporting us in a war they were involved in as well, also did we not pay it back and has any of the countries who hold out the begging bowl paid any of there aid back ?

Re: What a hypocrite
 

The US government paid out $44 billion after WW2 for reconstruction under the Marshall Plan. They did not get it back in direct cash terms but the US economy has benefited many times over from the creation of a stable European market into which it can sell its goods and services. Aid that works creates stable overseas territories into which we can send goods, not soldiers.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Our governments spend thousands of pounds in arranging dinners (very expensive ones at that) to take out important people' of overseas countries in the hope that Britain can secure a lucrative contract for this contract.

And what happens, a vast majority of the time ANYTHING we want in this country, they go overseas to have it done.

Its about time that Mr Cameron realised he is thew PM for United Kingdom, and he is elected to help the British Voter, NOT to be the holder of the money sponge that every other country sponges on.

His idea is Country comes and ans says, we need aid of 4 billion, Cameron says yes' that fine, he decides ' what hospital, care home, police service can we cut now' to give them the money.

Re: What a hypocrite
 

Big ,no ,massive difference in helping to build an economy that is capable of sustaining itself providing trade opportunities .A large part of the problem in Africa is that a lot of the countries we give aid to simply cannot and will never be able to support themselves no matter how much money is pumped in