RandomComment wrote:AlwaysBeBlue wrote:
You cannot give even more in aid abroad when people in the UK are using food banks
I won't comment on the election in general but I will take issue with this.
The UK is an affluent country. A country that could very easily prevent most users of food banks having to use them. (There will always be some that slip through any safety net though - unless we became much more authoritarian). That we don't is partly an active policy decision to tighten up the benefits system with increased waiting periods and sanctions. Food banks are a symptom of the hardship such policies can cause. Perhaps declines in the number of people inactive in the labour market is the 'benefit' of such a benefits policy. (And some would argue it is a good thing in itself to impose sanctions on those not looking hard enough for a job, say).
Anyway, the point is the UK is more than wealthy enough to provide further support to low income people in this country if it wanted to. It seems we choose not to.
We are also more than wealthy enough to contribute 70p of every £100 we earn as a country to tackling poverty and boosting opportunities in the poorest countries in the world. Is some of the aid money misspent? Undoubtedly. But its the most audited and evaluated money the UK government spends. It saves hundreds of thousands of lives. It means hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of children go to school, have safer drinking water, and are less likely to get sick from malaria. It helps farmers and small entrepreneurs access credit and insurance to grow their businesses. Done right, it helps build the capacity of developing country governments to administer their countries and grow their economies, and actually wean themselves off aid. And in the most fragile and conflict-prone states it can make a real difference not just to development but also stability.
To me theres something mean-spirited about begrudging small sums - 70p of every £100 we earn, or £1.90 of every £100 we pay in tax. But its more than that. I'd feel uncomfortable free-riding on other, more generous nations. I feel anger at those free-riding on us (the US, Australia, Japan, in particular). And I think fundamentally we'd be poorer and less safe. Its in our interests that developing countries develop, and in particular, that the number of very poor people, and unstable, conflict-prone regions declines.[/quote
Wait there... so you agree with us sending millions to India, who has a space program while there people live in the slums and also have a nuclear weapons programme ?