Foreign aid madness from the opposition.
 

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/ex...ss-theresa-may

A very good article and I agree with every word he says. We are just throwing money away that would be best spent on health and social issues her in Britain.

I think the Express version of this is ridiculously bias. Its not an opinion piece I just read, its a blog that's trying to tell us how to think.

We give 0.7% or 70p in ever £100 in foreign aid and I don't think that's a bad thing. The bad thing is, we hand that money over to a central body who then allocate it how they see fit. If we are going to give foreign aid, we shouldn't be giving it to Indian housing associations who use it to put air coolers in peoples houses. We shouldn't be giving it to self sustaining countries like China but to countries that don't have clean water, medicines and even food. Money needs to get to the people it should. We need to research and start focussing on what makes a 'real difference'.

So much of it goes to waste, as DR pointed out it goes to the wrong places. Things which foreign aid should actually be going toward (like building houses or making water pumps) falls on the shoulders of charities and/or private donors.

I'd say scrap foreign aid, and those who really want 70p/£100 going toward good causes can donate it from their own money toward charities who enact the things they care about.

Charities are unreliable. Its often on 1p in the pound that actually gets to the end user.

Look at it like this; If you saw a child laying starving in its mothers arms, would you take out your purse/wallet and give that mother what you could or would you walk on by because you need that money to buy chocolate and wine for tonight?

I believe most of us have enough humanity in us to give that mother money. Most of us would forfeit wine and chocolate to save someone’s life if we saw them dying in front of us. But why should it take a child dying in front of us to show humanity? Just about every mother in the world would agree that no mother deserves to watch helplessly as her starving child dies in her arms… NO mother.

It costs a family less in foreign aid than what the average family throws away in wasted food each week.

Chocolate and wine indeed! As you go on about the poor in this country you must be well aware that there are plenty here that could have better lives if the money is used for our own poor. We give enough - we are not the world’s keepers.

giving foreign aid to a country isn't just about the money we send, its about building relationships with those countries, understanding their people. Creating diplomatic ties. One can't easily put a monetary value on that benefit, but it is a benefit to us none the less.

There's no doubt that monetary aid builds diplomatic ties. Its like a bartering chip, we do something for them because we expect some sort of benefit back in the future. I do though, believe we need to plow more money into things like water irrigation and renewable energy for countries that lack both the funding and the know how of where to start and how to move forward and less money into countries that already have things like nuclear energy.

I'm a bit pissed btw as we'v'e just been over to friends for xmas drinks so if I'm not making any sense, I apologize now!!

I feel so sorry for you Brillo.

And they say there's no such thing as 'island mentality'

Be my guest. I don’t need to wear my humanity like some kind of badge of honour. People don’t have to agree with you to care - you don’t get to dictate who is the most worthy of human compassion.

Socialists - think they have the monopoly on compassion and everyone should follow their lead to count as worthy human beings. Pompous nonsence. :snore:

Foreign aid PC madness gone snowflake!

I'm just not going to bother replying or responding to uncharitable people because it just makes this place depressing.

As I said you don’t get to decide who is or isn’t charitable according to where others would rather see aid money go. We have plenty in need here and plenty of other good causes. We keep throwing money at countries in Africa Year after year, decade after decade, but nothing ever changes. People keep having too many children who suffer and die - and yes that is depressing to watch - but the help we give makes just a small dent in the problem which is forever ongoing.

More needs to be done about educating these people or perhaps offering financial incentives to people to have no more than a couple of children. I don’t understand how people can keep bringing children into such suffering. It may be a different culture with different thinking but commonsense should dictate to anyone in such poverty that if they keep having child after child those poor children are going to suffer - you can’t keep conveniently ignoring that personal accountability.

Stop dictating to everyone how to think and act and then try to belittle them because they don’t think/act like you. You do your bit and I’ll do mine - without feeling the need to get on my soapbox all the time. I often feel that people who constantly try to shove such opinions down the throats of others do more harm than good as people tend not to respond well to such people. Good communication is the key - not political rhetoric and insinuations.