Cameron off on his jollies once again.

[anotheoldgit]

http://tinyurl.com/3mn52ya

What's really behind this 1 day visit to Pakistan by our globe-trotting PM?

Surely it is not to tell them that we will be increasing our financial aid to them?

We already dish out £200 million a year, In aid to them, and we could see it rise to £446 million a year by 2015.

[DTCwordfan]

these trips are no jollies - I used to travel for 140+ nights a year and fun it ain't - in many of the countries, the places I went made Karachi look a doddle. Mogadishu/Kigali/Lagos/Kampala/Ougadougu/Luan
da/Pyongyang/Calcutta/Saigon
to name but a few.

Plus the fun of all those airports, dodgy airlines, customs officials, corruption - well.....I have also done the grass widow bit too flying from inside the EU back here for three nights a week for two plus years. No thanks.

As an old friend of mine once said, "Think of all the shittty places in the world and DT has been there." (In part true - 95 countries now visited).

[DTCwordfan]

Done London-Singapore-London in just under 2 days from dep to arr; and also Houston-London-Houston in 18 hours.

[owdhamer]

Does the dog bark or wag its tail DT.

[DTCwordfan]

it just goes "miaow" - but even though jetlag drops back on in effect on say trip to trip, there is a cumulative effect and there have been a couple of times when the "personal battery" is just about totally drained.

[New Judge]

Quite so, DT. I imagine what you describe is far more gruelling than my Coventry trips.

However, let’s not get too distracted. Can you imagine that Mr C carts his own baggage up and down the escalator on his way to Heathrow on the Piccadilly Line? Can you see him queuing at check in and struggling to lift his bags onto the scales? Can you see him sitting in departures with all and sundry whilst they try to get the spare part (which has to come from the US) on his 747 fitted? Can you imagine him queuing for a taxi at Karachi? Does he have to suffer the same in reverse when he comes back? Is he then treated as a suspected criminal when he passes through immigration at Heathrow? I doubt it. I suspect you had a far rougher time.

As for foreign aid. There is a fairly strong principle in UK constitutional affairs which says that no government may pass laws that bind its successors (although we’re coming pretty close to breaking that principle with our “Treaties” with the EU). That being said, there is no earthly reason why the Conservatives or their LibDem partners should feel bound to honour Labour’s spending commitments in any area. The electorate did not vote for a change of government to simply see more of the same (though I sometimes wonder). Even if it is only 0.5% (and we would not really know because lot’s of spend overseas is hidden under “other” in the budget figures) it is too much.