UKIP pledge to cut foreign aid by 90% to save £45 billion & will pay down deficit
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Maybe it's a good thing. Not because of the deficit, but because much of the government's aid is all about bribing African ministers into opening up their markets and letting the West take over their industries. It's about bringing the neoliberal assault on to poor nations.
There's also the issue of debt repayments, which greatly reduce (in the long term) the ability of the government to fund healthcare, education and infrastructure.
Three, there's a long history of the UK giving "tied aid" anyway, where aided countries must purchase UK exports (usually arms, the UK government has a very close relationship with the arms corporations).
Also, it's a pretty silly way of reducing the deficit anyway - there are so many other ways of doing this. This method of "cutting the probably exaggerated problem of the deficit", just panders to growing xenophobia and deludes people into thinking UKIP know how to handle an economy. If we want to cut the deficit, let's stop giving hundreds of millions of pounds a year in subsidies to BAE. Let's stop arming and training the brutally authoritarian regime of Saudi Arabia. Let's stop committing terrorism abroad while holding hands with the US. Perhaps the world would then be a somewhat safer place.
There's also the issue of debt repayments, which greatly reduce (in the long term) the ability of the government to fund healthcare, education and infrastructure.
Three, there's a long history of the UK giving "tied aid" anyway, where aided countries must purchase UK exports (usually arms, the UK government has a very close relationship with the arms corporations).
Also, it's a pretty silly way of reducing the deficit anyway - there are so many other ways of doing this. This method of "cutting the probably exaggerated problem of the deficit", just panders to growing xenophobia and deludes people into thinking UKIP know how to handle an economy. If we want to cut the deficit, let's stop giving hundreds of millions of pounds a year in subsidies to BAE. Let's stop arming and training the brutally authoritarian regime of Saudi Arabia. Let's stop committing terrorism abroad while holding hands with the US. Perhaps the world would then be a somewhat safer place.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
Go to 2:10
[video="youtube;uWSxzjyMNpU"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU[/video]
Not that anyone actually cares.
[video="youtube;uWSxzjyMNpU"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU[/video]
Not that anyone actually cares.
It does seem somewhat biased, for one it considers the money that multinationals take out of the poor countries, but completely ignores that which goes in. As for the debt that has "been paid many times over", I find the quoted part somewhat dubious, unless the terms on the loans were...interesting...
All in all, it only considers money from aid flowing from rich to poor and doesn't consider many other large flows, but considers several large sums that go from poor to rich.
Not to mention that that 900bn or whatever it was doesn't just plague the very poor countries, but the very rich too. How many businesses have effectively transfered revenue to the likes of Ireland over the years because it has very nice business rates? That's money that the very richest countries are losing out on and given the relative size of the market in terms of spending is in the wealthy parts of the world, I wouldn't be surprised if it amounts to a lot more.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Ornlu
Advances in technology =/= improvement. People were fine with their respective established orders and societies, they didn't need Western countries to 'civilise' them - sounds like the typical colonial hogwash - 'let's educate the savages'...
The same can be said for the Islamic
Original post by Damask-
They could probably cut defence spending to 99% and save the same amount. 
The defence budget doesn't need more cuts, it's already been hugely cut as it is.
Plus foreign aid is around £10b and the military spending is around £32b, which would require around 30% to be chopped off defence budget compared to the proposed 90% of foreign aid. Foreign aid shouldn't be anywhere near as much as a top military budget, let alone just under a third of it.
Original post by Ornlu
Advances in technology =/= improvement. People were fine with their respective established orders and societies, they didn't need Western countries to 'civilise' them - sounds like the typical colonial hogwash - 'let's educate the savages'...
A different age, the strong ruled the weak.
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
GA lot of people on here are taking the stance of we shouldn't be giving money to corrupt regimes. Well there are democratic countries that would welcome some support.
It's not as crude as that, it's rather that policy is the overwhelmingly important factor in producing economic growth. The effect of development aid on growth, if it exists, is so small as to be unquantifiable.
Now if a country is adopting good policies anyway then it may develop quickly, but in that case it doesn't need development aid. If it is adopting bad policies, paying money to those responsible for those bad policies, and making it clear that you will reduce those payments if matters improve, is the opposite of help. Since countries that adopt good policies develop quickly, almost all aid goes to supporting people and organisations that are imposing bad policies.
Development aid is functionally equivalent to offering a cash bounty for adopting bad economic policies.
Original post by Ornlu
Advances in technology =/= improvement. People were fine with their respective established orders and societies, they didn't need Western countries to 'civilise' them - sounds like the typical colonial hogwash - 'let's educate the savages'...
If that were the case, why is there so much voluntary economic migration from poor to rich countries?
Besides, the claim to which he was responding was that the West made poor countries poor; you are saying something more like it is good to be poor, which is an unrelated claim (and, if it's true that colonial empires impoverish people, is an argument in their favour).
(edited 9 years ago)
The problem I have with it is that Overseas Aid can be seen as a sop to keep otherwise unfriendly nations on your side.
Sure, we could spend half the amount of the OD budget on creating an amazing Thunderbirds-style international aid agency ready to send medicines and tents and sniffer dogs anywhere in the world at a moment's notice. But these countries don't want that. They want money.
Sure, we could spend half the amount of the OD budget on creating an amazing Thunderbirds-style international aid agency ready to send medicines and tents and sniffer dogs anywhere in the world at a moment's notice. But these countries don't want that. They want money.
1) foreign aid is money we as a wealthy nation give to others to HELP THEM, I don't see how this is a bad thing to anyone other than heartless ****s tbh.
2) there are an infinite number of better ways to spend £45bn then the deficit as well, could use it to fund things that help people here.
3) the fact this is their policy tells me two things; one they don't care about people overseas or they wouldn't cut this money & two they don't care about people here as if they did they would use the £45bn on helping people here.
4) UKIP are scum.
2) there are an infinite number of better ways to spend £45bn then the deficit as well, could use it to fund things that help people here.
3) the fact this is their policy tells me two things; one they don't care about people overseas or they wouldn't cut this money & two they don't care about people here as if they did they would use the £45bn on helping people here.
4) UKIP are scum.
We're giving away 13 BILLION QUID a year?! Jesus cocksucking christ. Surely not?! That money should be being spent here, I'm sure you could pick one problem every year and solve it in one go with that sort of money. Anything would be better than pissing it into whichever bottomless pit it's currently going into. How many schools can you buy for 13 bil?
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Jammy Duel
And because there are people in the third world who have nothing means it's okay to ignore those in this country who, in relative terms, have nothing?
Exactly. The British government has a duty first and foremost to British citizens at home and abroad, and secondarily to people in Britain, British or foreign.
It's a shame and an abuse that our governments seem more concerned with serving international corporations than with serving the people who elect them.
Of course the aim of foreign aid isn't to help people at all, it's to grease the wheels of diplomacy and trade in advantageous parts of the world.
Original post by SnoochToTheBooch
We're giving away 13 BILLION QUID a year?! Jesus cocksucking christ. Surely not?! That money should be being spent here, I'm sure you could pick one problem every year and solve it in one go with that sort of money. Anything would be better than pissing it into whichever bottomless pit it's currently going into. How many schools can you buy for 13 bil?
Calm down, it's 250 quid per person per year and we make that back through foreign aid itself, aside from the general business of helping economies you trade with to stay on their feet, it's also a way to give sweeteners to regimes that it would be political suicide to strike trade deals with openly.
Stop aid? Yes please. Charity starts at home, we have countless number of people on the streets without a home to go to, some kids don't even have a primary school to go to because of the over populated and underfunded educational system. So why not fix the problem at home eg build more schools build more shelters instead of going to these developing countries and building them schools snd shelters etc? Our pensioners on average get about £115 a week, as London bring one of the most expensive countries in the world to live in how can they survive on such peanuts? Which results them dying in the cold winters because they can't afford the heat? Yet these are the individuals who have worked to build this economy of ours, so why not take the aid were giving to these countries to help them live a better life, the least they deserve. Majority of these African countries have corrupted leaders who care about their own selfish gain rather than that of their people, take for example the Bukerharam kidnappings, channel 4 went undercover to discover it was indeed the leader who instigated these so call killings and kidnappings, when wuestioned denied it, but where are those girls today? Well everyone has forgotten about them. Now take this an educated AFRICAN doctor will leave his own continent and travel to the west in order to render his services to us, why? Because there's no future for him, most of the African countries are corrupted. So why should we provide Aid that goes into the leaders pockets, which funds the Western education for their children? Take the Yemen/Nigerian boomer, UCL educated his father was the Minster of finance at the time, sent his children all 16 of them to the Western world to be educated and well some turned out to be terrorist fortunately an unlucky one.
Original post by AstroNandos
The defence budget doesn't need more cuts, it's already been hugely cut as it is.
Plus foreign aid is around £10b and the military spending is around £32b, which would require around 30% to be chopped off defence budget compared to the proposed 90% of foreign aid. Foreign aid shouldn't be anywhere near as much as a top military budget, let alone just under a third of it.
Plus foreign aid is around £10b and the military spending is around £32b, which would require around 30% to be chopped off defence budget compared to the proposed 90% of foreign aid. Foreign aid shouldn't be anywhere near as much as a top military budget, let alone just under a third of it.
I dunno, we don't really fight wars much in this period of history, we are all a bit more cautious and prefer to develop trade links or impose economic sanctions. The economy is so globalised these days that there's no point building up the firepower to obliterate the other important countries, because if you tried anything, as likely as not your financial systems and balances of trade are so interdependent that you'll be taking yourself and half the rest of the world down with them.
Original post by scrotgrot
I dunno, we don't really fight wars much in this period of history, we are all a bit more cautious and prefer to develop trade links or impose economic sanctions. The economy is so globalised these days that there's no point building up the firepower to obliterate the other important countries, because if you tried anything, as likely as not your financial systems and balances of trade are so interdependent that you'll be taking yourself and half the rest of the world down with them.
You may not need the firepower to obliterate other countries (I'm looking at you America), but I believe it's necessary to have the firepower to properly defend your country. No matter how unlikely it is that we'll have to use our whole military force, it's probably best that that it's there to defend or fight for us when ready. Not to mention our defence has created hundreds of thousands of jobs. But I do believe that you don't need to spend hundreds of billions as it would be much better spent on other sectors.
Original post by Quady
As a previous UKIP voter I look forward to seeing the manifesto 
What manifesto?!!
Nigel just makes it up as he goes along, and gets someone to write a 6 page piece of absolute rubbish. That's not a manifesto. Oh...their 2010 manifesto was decried by Nigel as rubbish.
Look at the Green Party's one. Has so much more content...like 50 pages for their General Election 2010 one, and 30-odd pages for their European Parliament one last year. That's a manifesto.
Original post by scrotgrot
Calm down, it's 250 quid per person per year and we make that back through foreign aid itself, aside from the general business of helping economies you trade with to stay on their feet, it's also a way to give sweeteners to regimes that it would be political suicide to strike trade deals with openly.
A couple of things:
1) £250 isn't peanuts in my opinion.
2) Trade deals with countries desperate enough to need aid? What loss would they be if they were alienated?
Original post by jammy4041
What manifesto?!!
Nigel just makes it up as he goes along, and gets someone to write a 6 page piece of absolute rubbish. That's not a manifesto. Oh...their 2010 manifesto was decried by Nigel as rubbish.
Look at the Green Party's one. Has so much more content...like 50 pages for their General Election 2010 one, and 30-odd pages for their European Parliament one last year. That's a manifesto.
Nigel just makes it up as he goes along, and gets someone to write a 6 page piece of absolute rubbish. That's not a manifesto. Oh...their 2010 manifesto was decried by Nigel as rubbish.
Look at the Green Party's one. Has so much more content...like 50 pages for their General Election 2010 one, and 30-odd pages for their European Parliament one last year. That's a manifesto.
Being launched this weekend.
The Green Party one is unreadable for the majority of the population. Its been written be committee, and has very bizzare sentence structures going on.
Original post by bahonsi
Stop aid? Yes please. Charity starts at home, we have countless number of people on the streets without a home to go to, some kids don't even have a primary school to go to because of the over populated and underfunded educational system. So why not fix the problem at home eg build more schools build more shelters instead of going to these developing countries and building them schools snd shelters etc? Our pensioners on average get about £115 a week, as London bring one of the most expensive countries in the world to live in how can they survive on such peanuts? Which results them dying in the cold winters because they can't afford the heat? Yet these are the individuals who have worked to build this economy of ours, so why not take the aid were giving to these countries to help them live a better life, the least they deserve. Majority of these African countries have corrupted leaders who care about their own selfish gain rather than that of their people, take for example the Bukerharam kidnappings, channel 4 went undercover to discover it was indeed the leader who instigated these so call killings and kidnappings, when wuestioned denied it, but where are those girls today? Well everyone has forgotten about them. Now take this an educated AFRICAN doctor will leave his own continent and travel to the west in order to render his services to us, why? Because there's no future for him, most of the African countries are corrupted. So why should we provide Aid that goes into the leaders pockets, which funds the Western education for their children? Take the Yemen/Nigerian boomer, UCL educated his father was the Minster of finance at the time, sent his children all 16 of them to the Western world to be educated and well some turned out to be terrorist fortunately an unlucky one.
Charity starts at home, it doesn't end there.
Otherwise, we'd all just look after people within their household. For me, that just means I look after me... why the hell am I paying for pensioners I don't even know?!? And you suggest I should be giving them more :O
Original post by Ashnard
The same can be said for the Islamic empires caliphates to be honest. The pagans and polytheists (considered savage) surrounding the Arab peninsula were perfectly happy until the invading Muslims felt it was necessary to bring the "light of Islam" to these territories, usually by force, of course.
But they, the Muslims, were there to stay and they didn't have some sort of "motherland" to funnel the wealth into. All the lands they conquered were theirs and they worked to improve them all. It was not some sort of "colonies"; it was the "caliphate".
The European colonizers, on the other hand, clearly had a "motherland", their real home...what they really cared about. They might have developed their colonies a bit but that was all to make it easy to funnel the wealth (and slaves). Independence was essential and only granted because the colonizers got fed up of it.
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