Somewhere on the new British prime minister’s desk sits a document. It was quietly published last week, in the dying hours of his predecessor’s government. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s annual report cements how the UK aid budget will be allocated until 2029.Says who? Says Halima Begum, a charity executive who has been chief executive of Oxfam, Action Aid and the Runnymede Trust. She wants to increase Britain's aid spending, because of course she does.
Anyone asking whether the new PM, Andy Burnham, will – or even can – restore Britain’s 0.7% aid commitment should begin with this document, which appears designed to lock in three more years of retreat from the world’s poorest communities before Burnham could take office.
Good - we should be retreating from them, not spending ever increasing amounts of taxpayer money on them when we have a financial crisis looming at home!
The outgoing administration knew the human consequences. To its credit, the Foreign Office’s equality assessment is candid, conceding the cuts will “inevitably have negative impacts”.
Need is no longer the primary organising logic of UK aid. Geopolitics is, with budget cuts going to fund defence.
At last, common sense prevails, because most of the countries to which we have been so generous in the past have been providing the main threats to us in this country.
The idea of additional billions in taxpayer money flowing into unelected institutions abroad, beyond the reach of those who provided it, has proved potent in the recent past – look at Brexit.
Exactly - learn the lessons of that event, and keep the begging bowl you hold out. We have run out of patirnce as well as money.
