Reply to: BobAid - why are we sending aid to BobLand?

[Mr Pancamo]

I mean everyone else here in the UK is feeling the cuts so why not cancel BobAid?

Critics question UK aid to India

I don't think it's as simple as that.

Essentially, that 'aid' is a sweetener so our companies can trade in India and also sell them our products (arms etc).

China does the same thing....

We can follow the Daily Mail's ranting and stop the aid, but ultimately it will harm us - not them. Some other country will just take our place.

[sunnysan]

Singpore

In international terms £8.7million over 5 years is comparable to buying your mate a pint at the pub.

Who cares how many old dears it will make into high jumpers or pints you can buy... why does that UK give "aid" to a country with the fecking 4th highest GDP / capita in the world.

Why not just give it to the starving masses in Luxombourg or Lichtenstein?

[Spacecadet]

Most pensioners that are in dire need of life-changing surgery don't get too embroiled in the fiscal efficiencies of the NHS. They just want a new hip. Are you denying that quite a number of these operations could be expedited for a sum running into the millions of pounds, or do you simply not care?

I'm saying that a sum of a couple of million pounds, if added to the NHS annual budget would make zero difference.
That money would never be allocated to just doing hip operations which makes it a pointless and stupid question.

[shaunbhoy]

The NHS are set to save £500M per year by improving their procurement process, there really is no way you could trace that small a budget amount to single operations, it would be simply swallowed up in the red tape machine.

Most pensioners that are in dire need of life-changing surgery don't get too embroiled in the fiscal efficiencies of the NHS. They just want a new hip. Are you denying that quite a number of these operations could be expedited for a sum running into the millions of pounds, or do you simply not care?

[original PM]

I recall a documentary ( about 3 or 4 years back now) which said that the NHS goes through about 1 billion per day.

Not sure how try this is but it does make a lot of the other figs nmentioned in thsi thread rather insignificant.

Although I agree about aid - if we cannot feed our own we really should not be trying to feed the rest of the world.

[TimberWolf]

If it were aid to the poor, surely the UK would give the money to charities operating in India rather than to their government. Whatever it's used for, it's not to help the poor of India.

[Spacecadet]

It would introduce quite a stark change if it was your mum's hip though!!!

The NHS are set to save £500M per year by improving their procurement process, there really is no way you could trace that small a budget amount to single operations, it would be simply swallowed up in the red tape machine.

[shaunbhoy]

if that money, which is less than 0.01% of the NHS budget, was spent on the NHS instead, I doubt there would have been any noticeable change in the service delivered.

It would introduce quite a stark change if it was your mum's hip though!!!

[xoggoth]

Some, and not just white westerners, argue that foreign aid is not simply a waste of our money but destructive of the nations it is supposed to help. It is often used by oppressive regimes or local criminal groups to buy up favour and allows more benign governments to put off effective policies that might address the problems. It undercuts local farmers and businessmen and, like welfare here, destroys incentive.

Anyone who seriously thinks it helps us by reducing immigration or terrorism is seriously deluded about human nature. In the absence of human relationships, when the donors are remote strangers, gratitude turns to acceptance and acceptance to expectation and expectation to resentment.

Overseas aid is funding human rights abuses – Telegraph Blogs
Third World Development: Foreign Aid or Free Trade? | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty
http://hubpages.com/hub/Is-Continued...t-Dambisa-Moyo

[gingerjedi]

if that money, which is less than 0.01% of the NHS budget, was spent on the NHS instead, I doubt there would have been any noticeable change in the service delivered.

That's about 40 average tax payers entire life contributions, it annoys me that they're so frivolous with my money.

Its not the amount, it's the principle.

[Spacecadet]

And how many hip replacements do you think?

if that money, which is less than 0.01% of the NHS budget, was spent on the NHS instead, I doubt there would have been any noticeable change in the service delivered.

[shaunbhoy]

In international terms £8.7million over 5 years is comparable to buying your mate a pint at the pub.

And how many hip replacements do you think?

[Spacecadet]

It's important to give money to struggling, poor countries.

You know, like Singapore.

In international terms £8.7million over 5 years is comparable to buying your mate a pint at the pub.

[Green Mango]

Why is that whenever a tv doc shows politicians trying to survive on the dole, they never make the week'? Yes, there are some rum characters who sign on. I just hope I never have to work or hire such people. I'd sooner they were getting wasted on gold label than mugging us in the street. Just an opinion: I'm sure I will be shouted down here by people so unhappy with their lives that they're envious of benefit claimants. I can think of few more depressing experiences than going to the job centre, but yes, maybe that's just me.

I don't think anyone is envious of those lives.

I don't think benefits claimants lives are necessarily bad either.

I new one contractor who had a lot of benefit claimant mates all graduates.
They used do a lot of outside sports activities and really enjoyed their lives.
They just didn't want to work. You might classify them as the slacker generation.

I knew another benefit claimant. He used to claim some sort of incapacity thing that
meant he got a car and living benefits. He was supposed to have some sort of muscle disability.
However, people told me he used to do a lot of garden maintenance work and he was also a regular
lothario. Doesn't sound too bad a life. He's left the UK though with a partner, maybe he's
really working for a living now.

I could go on ...

I just think the benefits system is a bit crazy when for many it is better on it than working.

I also feel that the Western world cannot go on raking up debt like we have been doing. The rest of the
world is not going to pay for us if we don't pay our own way.

[TykeMerc]

Could never see the justification for making Foreign Aid packages exempt from the swingeing cuts that have affected almost every other area of Government Spending. It would have been near the top of sacrificial pots in my book.

I agree completely. We're skint so international aid is utterly expendable.