Originally Posted by Chris

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.