What a hypocrite

Originally Posted by martyh

How much good is actually done though .One year we give loads of money to country A ,we save some lives and a couple of years down the line that same country is getting more because they are back to square one .There isn't a year that goes by without some famine or war in countries that have already had millions from us .

I think being able to eradicate the problems is a much more expensive task but we can help do something. Vaccines and medicines save millions of lives, where clean water is installed would help too.

[Sirius]

I wonder how many of these countries that are being given handout's are also spending some of there money on weapons when it could be used to feed there people.

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Damien

Well when we stop continuing to exploit other countries for their oil or cheap labour might be a start. My reason for bringing those up is not that they should be the reasons for our aid but that we cannot pretend that to cut Foreign aid is a moral obligation. The moral obligation would be to stop benefiting from exploiting workforces around the world, from oppressive regimes whose oil helps our economy, and to recognise that we're in a very privileged position to be born where we were. We should also note that part of our wealth and heritage has come from our past conquests of other nations. So when we try to pretend that cutting all help to other countries is moral, well, it's kind of hard to say it with a straight face.

People keeping say we have problems at home and we do, and most of our tax income is indeed spent on these problems. A previous poster mentioned of the horror of seeing news stories of vulnerable people dying of cold or hunger in this country. The reason that is a news story is because it's shocking to us, it isn't a common event, and it means the systems to do actually have to place to help failed. When a child dies in Africa because of easily treatable illnesses, hunger, a lack of water and so on it isn't news. It happens every single day and it happens hundreds of times each day.

We should help them because 1) we can 2) it's a small amount of money that would save thousands of lives 3) because the only difference between us and them is where we were born.

I still think that charity begins at home. I am also disinclined to pay more tax to support the worlds 'poor' since a lot of it goes to countries that either don't actually need it or countries that are poor because of corruption in their government systems.
Whilst one deserving person in the UK suffers because there isn't enough government money for their needs then I am against most (probably not all) foreign aid.

[AdamD]

One major issue for me, of course, is does the money really help? and if so, how much of it?
How much of that money is accounted for and how much of it can be proved that it went to the needy and not some corrupt officials pocket?
I'm all for helping people less fortunate than myself, but every penny needs to be accounted for, if money is going missing and isn't seen again, something needs to be done about it
If 1 million pounds goes to country A, but only 500k is accounted for, then future aid, needs to go through a different route, like, a charity, so the money goes to the needy/poor.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by martyh

It doesn't make any difference where the money is going the foreign aid figures have and are continuing to rise

Why would the government doctor/embellish /lie about figures so that it makes them look bad to their own party and the electorate

When you consider the amount of money given to people coming into the country from these war torn starving countries and those that aren't, shouldn't that be considered as aid ?.All the asylum seekers claiming benefits and taking housing is that not aid ? and how much would that increase the figures .The true aid figures are far greater than the official figures ,you know how i know that ? because politicians are "full of bull plop"

Asylum seekers aren't allowed to work so what would you have them do, starve? And they'd lie about them because the truths even worse, I seem to remember a certain Andrew Mitchell being very critical of lord cairns for turning the international development fund from poverty relief to a tool of privatisation of poor countries utilities and assets.

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Asylum seekers aren't allowed to work so what would you have them do, starve? And they'd lie about them because the truths even worse, I seem to remember a certain Andrew Mitchell being very critical of lord cairns for turning the international development fund from poverty relief to a tool of privatisation of poor countries utilities and assets.

Of course not ,but because they are asylum seekers then by definition the money given must surely be counted as aid .Maybe the government could call the benefits given to asylum seekers aid which would help in attaining the target of 0.7 gross income set by the EU whilst at the same time reducing the benefits bill

see i can think like a politician too

[Osem]

Originally Posted by martyh

Of course not ,but because they are asylum seekers then by definition the money given must surely be counted as aid .Maybe the government could call the benefits given to asylum seekers aid which would help in attaining the target of 0.7 gross income set by the EU whilst at the same time reducing the benefits bill

see i can think like a politician too

Yeah and if you wait a few weeks then reannounce it as new money, you'll have perfected the 'art'.

[rogerdraig]

normaly i would be against cuting aid and i am not against it because we are getting cuts still ( i am disabled and at the sharp end of the cuts ) but i wont suport any charity from now on that doesnt include in its aims the cutting of birth rate in the majority of these countries we help

birth control must be the main priority

[Sirius]

Remind me again why we bother trying to help these people with our Aid

http://news.sky.com/story/1032103/se...thern-pakistan

Gunmen have ambushed and shot dead six female aid workers and a male doctor who were travelling in a van in northern Pakistan.

The group's vehicle was raked with gunfire as they returned home from a children's community centre run by the Pakistani charity Ujala, according to district police officer Abdur Rashid Khan.

Militants in the conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province - where the attack took place - oppose female education and have attacked female students and blown up their schools.

Last month, gunmen killed nine health workers taking part in a national polio vaccination drive in a series of attacks.

Aid workers have frequently been kidnapped or killed in Pakistan, which is struggling to contain a Taliban insurgency and plagued by corruption and violent crime.

[Derek]

Aside from giving aid to countries with their own nuclear weapons and space program's another needy bunch are being supported by the government in times of need.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...crackdown.html

The spending on “technical and advisory services� by the Government increased from £31.7million in September last year to £45.9million the next month.
Miss Greening launched the investigation after it emerged that nearly £500 million was paid to firms working on Third World programmes.
They show that PricewaterhouseCoopers was paid more than £4million in October alone, while Adam Smith International received £5.8million.
Large payments also went to a number of major foreign consultancies, such as the USbased ABT Associates, which was paid £2.1million.

[Arthurgray50@blu]

My anger grows each day over this, we find that yesterday they were planning on what other cutbacks can be made to the police services, which we desperately need and yet they will still pump OUR money into overseas aid.

IF they stopped paying aid to say for example THREE countries, just imagine what that money could be put to. its a staggering figure, whilst this country rots, the coalition will pur money in aid to other countries - its a disgrace.

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Asylum seekers aren't allowed to work so what would you have them do, starve? .

Yes, that will put them off coming in the first place. Lets face it UK in NEVER the first country that they will have reached since setting out.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Itshim

Yes, that will put them off coming in the first place. Lets face it UK in NEVER the first country that they will have reached since setting out.

+1

Why do Asylum seekers travel through all those safe countries to get here, i will tell you why " we are idiots that will give them everything whilst crapping on our own people" that's why

[Mick Fisher]

Originally Posted by Itshim

Yes, that will put them off coming in the first place. Lets face it UK in NEVER the first country that they will have reached since setting out.

Harsh but well worth a try

Originally Posted by Sirius

+1

Why do Asylum seekers travel through all those safe countries to get here, i will tell you why " we are idiots that will give them everything whilst crapping on our own people" that's why

Because this fact is misunderstood. Logically that wouldn't work. In the EU the idea is that they're shared amongst countries so that those on the border do not take all of them and the other member states have none.

This is actually what happens for the most part:

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/sta...20121012123334

France: 57.355
Germany: 53,225
Italy: 34,114
United Kingdom: 26,430
Sweden: 29,670
Switzerland: 23,625