£12 billion

[ifwecouldjust......]

Jesus wept, thats about the same as the total cost of policing the UK, about half the total revenue raised from fuel duty. If they stopped foreign aid for 5 years and cut fuel (petrol/diesel) duty by around 30p per litre could you imagine how much more money ordinary people would have in their pockets and what it would do for the road transport industry. If that didn't stimulate the economy I don't know what would.
Thinking about government spending drives me up the wall, the real terms cost of the UK banking bail out cost the government just over £1.1 TRILLION!!!!!!! What the fuck!!! They could have handed every single man, woman and child £17k and saved money by doing so. Every one would have gone out and spent it, stimulating the economy, saved jobs and the government would have almost a 3rd of it back in tax.

What do you mean real term costs? They made guarantees of something like that at the highest point but the actual money paid to buy shares has been a fraction of that....and theoretically they will see some/all/more of that back.

Will we though? Now the government plans to hive off the non toxic part of RBS (No doubt making a healthy profit so they can chuck some more missiles at an innocent) whilst retaining the toxic within state (our) ownership.

No doubt the nice bits of RBS will go to some of their ex school chums....................

Don't please try and tell me that this bunch of t*ssers who call themselves politicians act on behalf of the taxpayer...after all they sold the fleet of harrier jump jets to the yanks for £112 million after we had spent £600 million refurbishing and upgrading them. (Oh and we also delivered them to the americans at our cost)

The yanks are now using them whilst we have no realistic attack aircraft to use.


Madness................policies thought up by muppets

 

[Ancient Citizen]

Just look at it as reparations, for a lot of these countries in receipt of British aid would have been ex colonies.
At the height of the British Empire,this country would have exploited these countries for resources for decades and at a current rate of exchange the British are well up on the exchange.
Africa for example,how much did the ports of Liverpool and Bristol benefit from the slave trade,the metals exchange in London was founded on the back of exploited resources from the empire.
When you look at it like this,it's only an evening up of the ledger.
Mind you if it was a retirement village for retired nazis in Paraguay,you'd probably be on the fund raising commitee.

That's fuckin' harsh. You actually make some good points, but to then suggest the OP supports Nazi's for simply suggesting that the country is struggling to support it's self financially, and maybe you should look after your own first.

A lot of us are very lucky, but there also a lot of people in Britain that are struggling, and that are far from lucky.

I agree, plus why are some folk constantly telling us how beastly we were by our involvement in the slave trade? Every major power in Europe, plus many outside was involved in the slave trade; Britain was the first to actively pursue slavers using the Royal Navy and campaigned for its' abolition worldwide.
We all know it was nasty but everyone was of the same mindset then.

 

[TheMightyQuinn]

Things the OP doesn't like:

1 - People on benefits.
2 - Foreign people taking people on benefits benefits.

When the sick kids and elderly are claiming, they're dismissed as lazy, feckless scroungers yet as soon as he gets wind of foreign aid he's outraged that Mr Mohammed might be receiving benefits meant for Mr Smith, the lazy father of 9 from the estate.

However, as he never attacks the tories or Israel he's free to post his 1979 brand of hatred, ignorance and general bigotry.

 

[Bill]

depends how much actually reaches the needy. not much i reckon. if i thought for one second my money could irrigate parts of africa i'd say double.

 

[pominoz]

Things the OP doesn't like:

1 - People on benefits.
2 - Foreign people taking people on benefits benefits.

When the sick kids and elderly are claiming, they're dismissed as lazy, feckless scroungers yet as soon as he gets wind of foreign aid he's outraged that Mr Mohammed might be receiving benefits meant for Mr Smith, the lazy father of 9 from the estate.

However, as he never attacks the tories or Israel he's free to post his 1979 brand of hatred, ignorance and general bigotry.

It is not often i agree with your post's, but you are spot on here.

 

[Skip Donoghue]

depends how much actually reaches the needy. not much i reckon. if i thought for one second my money could irrigate parts of africa i'd say double.

When you consider that we apparently give £1.4 billion to India who happen to have a space programme and are hoping to send a mission to Mars and have one of the fastest growing economies in the world, I would say probably not much, so i ask do they even need it.

the majority of the money we give out in aid is guilt money for our forefathers wrong doings, when we colonised half the planet

 

[MCFCTrick]

depends how much actually reaches the needy. not much i reckon. if i thought for one second my money could irrigate parts of africa i'd say double.

When you consider that we apparently give £1.4 billion to India who happen to have a space programme and are hoping to send a mission to Mars and have one of the fastest growing economies in the world, I would say probably not much, so i ask do they even need it.

the majority of the money we give out in aid is guilt money for our forefathers wrong doings, when we colonised half the planet

Fully agree.....why are we paying for our ancestors wrong doings?

Also agree that sending 'aid' to Pakistan and India, while their governments are funding nuclear programmes is just taking the piss....

 

[Skip Donoghue]

depends how much actually reaches the needy. not much i reckon. if i thought for one second my money could irrigate parts of africa i'd say double.

When you consider that we apparently give £1.4 billion to India who happen to have a space programme and are hoping to send a mission to Mars and have one of the fastest growing economies in the world, I would say probably not much, so i ask do they even need it.

the majority of the money we give out in aid is guilt money for our forefathers wrong doings, when we colonised half the planet

Fully agree.....why are we paying for our ancestors wrong doings?

Also agree that sending 'aid' to Pakistan and India, while their governments are funding nuclear programmes is just taking the piss....

This is where this foreign aid thing is bollocks....a space programme FFS
if we had a space programme we may then have a booming economy who knows
I was always told charity begins at home and in this instance it couldn't be more apt,

Nigeria is another country that has massive natural resources but because it is run by crooks and 90% of the country is in poverty we send aid, all based on guilt,
why else would we be doing it...don't get me wrong countries that need it fair enough i can understand, but give it 50 years or so and what our economy is based on we could well be one of them thinking about it
So stop it all pump the £12billion back into this country, start manufacturing, start funding new ideas, start helping new and small businesses, give companies an incentive to give apprenticeships, basically give the country the kickstart it needs, and then as some one said earlier give foreign aid in the form of British produced goods,technolagy, ideas, etc

 

[roaminblue]

Call me selfish but I'd rather see that money go to my local hospital's paediatric unit than let's say China or Mexico.

Aid money can be good of course in some instances, but it shouldn't be forcibly removed from people - there are enough Bob Geldof-types in this country to donate their millions to overseas aid if they wanted to.

International aid accounts for 0.7% of GDP, the projected tax receipts for this financial year are £599bn.

While I understand that you may be against foreign aid for co-ordination reasons, I believe that your use of the "local" hospital's argument falls somewhat short. I think that, unfortunately, a local hospital unit being closed down is likey regardless of, rather than due to, foreign aid.

I agree with everyone who has suggested that there must be better ways of helping the developing world. It has long been recognised that foreign aid often gets diverted from its original, moralistic, reasons.

Someone mentioned India here, how they have a space program, yet we supply them with foreign aid. I'm sure that the government is stopping aid to india shortly? Could very well be wrong though. I think with cases like India, there should be a way of ensuring that their own, domestic, gdp is used to tackle poverty there.

Someone else mentioned Mexico, and how the richest man in the world lives there. That may be, but I think its worth doing some research into how his businesses are run. There is still poverty in mexico, at a very large scale,.

 

[metalblue]

Jesus wept, thats about the same as the total cost of policing the UK, about half the total revenue raised from fuel duty. If they stopped foreign aid for 5 years and cut fuel (petrol/diesel) duty by around 30p per litre could you imagine how much more money ordinary people would have in their pockets and what it would do for the road transport industry. If that didn't stimulate the economy I don't know what would.
Thinking about government spending drives me up the wall, the real terms cost of the UK banking bail out cost the government just over £1.1 TRILLION!!!!!!! What the fuck!!! They could have handed every single man, woman and child £17k and saved money by doing so. Every one would have gone out and spent it, stimulating the economy, saved jobs and the government would have almost a 3rd of it back in tax.

What do you mean real term costs? They made guarantees of something like that at the highest point but the actual money paid to buy shares has been a fraction of that....and theoretically they will see some/all/more of that back.

Will we though? Now the government plans to hive off the non toxic part of RBS (No doubt making a healthy profit so they can chuck some more missiles at an innocent) whilst retaining the toxic within state (our) ownership.

No doubt the nice bits of RBS will go to some of their ex school chums....................

Don't please try and tell me that this bunch of t*ssers who call themselves politicians act on behalf of the taxpayer...after all they sold the fleet of harrier jump jets to the yanks for £112 million after we had spent £600 million refurbishing and upgrading them. (Oh and we also delivered them to the americans at our cost)

The yanks are now using them whilst we have no realistic attack aircraft to use.


Madness................policies thought up by muppets

I did say theoretically!!! I do not believe there is any reason for the tax payer to be left out of pocket but I strongly agree with you that politics isn't always about protecting value for money for the taxpayer...as I said on another thread the number of these politicians that end up as directors/consultant at one or more companies they had dealings with in office is quite disturbing (or criminal).

Be interesting to see how the Grillo experiment works...online and direct democracy by ordinary people...it sounds fantastic in principle.