Soaring amount of overseas aid.

[anotheoldgit]

http://tinyurl.com/6h9a25n

Last night, the Government trebled the annual sum handed to war-torn Somalia.

The aid will rise from £26million this year, to £80million in 2013-14.

Is it verging on criminality for our Government to dish out sums such as this, to such an unstable country such as Somalia, while we ourselves are in the depths of recession?

International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said "the cash was aimed at helping to tackle the political crisis that has driven many Somalis into piracy, migration and terrorism"

Yes, and if anything will change even after receiving this money?.

[Ankou]

£80million ? hmm, isn't that about the same as the estimated costs of security for the royal wedding ?

[VHG]

Dont forget all the people from Somalia who have come here, many are now in criminal gangs causing all sorts of problems, which costs us more money.

http://www.echo-news...._ring_run_by_Somalis/

http://www.thisislond...ali-gangs-violence.do

[DEN53]

According to the news a few nights ago - the millions of pounds raised for the disaster in Haiti have never filtered through to those poor people. A year on and they are still living amongst the ruins. Nobody seems to know where the funds have gone (:0 (

I know my answer is not about Somalia, but just thought I would throw this in.

[anotheoldgit]

Ankou

/// £80million ? hmm, isn't that about the same as the estimated costs of security for the royal wedding ? ///

Perhaps the problems set out in VHG's links, makes it money well spent.

[Ankou]

if you say so aog

[rov1100]

If Somalia put a tax on their pirates they could be self sufficient.

[jake-the-peg]

Sounds like a good idea to me - moving aid from countries like India and China who can afford space programs but not apparently to help their own people.

Best place to move it to is where you've got a failed state that acts as a breeding ground for anti western sentiment.

You want to join the Jihad against the Western Nations who have so cruely cured your grandfathers cataracts and taught your children to read and write?

[mollykins]

Yet my county council is making all the lollipop people redundant to save £500,000 a year What The Funicular!

[Zeuhl]

<<all the lollipop people>>

Are they the ones who are all tall and skinny with big sticky heads?
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[mollykins]

Yeah the school crossing patrol people, they work on probably the minimum wage for a couple of hours a day, helping to prevent children dieing on roads and the lollipop people for the whole county (and quite a big one) only costs £500,000 a year.

[Zeuhl]

Well that joke went straight into touch didn't it? I blame Harry Hill.

Seriously, the bulk of the Overseas Aid is spent tactically by UK officials or trusted NGOs -often spent with UK companies of course- in order to retain some sort of UK interests in a country which are seen to be advantageous for us. Altruism has only a small part in this.

Whether these decisions prove to be advantageous after all only time will tell.

As far as cutting local services - the worst is yet to come. Local services will be devastated and then the sh1t will hit the fan.

Get rid of social workers? yeah. Who cares?
Well wait for the next Baby P case.
Close the youth clubs? yeah who cares?
Well possibly the people with gangs of idle teenagers hanging around outside their houses.
Stop the payments to secondary school kids and subsidies for rural bus services. Why not?
Well we've made attendance compulsory now we remove their means to get there.
Brilliant.

We are at the mercy of the Financial Services sector and have been for many years and many government terms. Even though i enjoy Brown-beating as much as anyone; the bail out of the banks and their profligacy is to blame for our current state not Labour spending.

The present government can cause as much pain as they think necessary without blame - for a while at least. Let's hope they don't wreck the country too much in the process.
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