Why do we send £400 million to Pakistan etc?

[kmc1]

Cameron announced a few weeks ago that we are to stop giving aid to China.

China has the 2nd biggest economy in the world (after USA).

Go figure.

[Pixel Pusher]

kmc1 said:

Cameron announced a few weeks ago that we are to stop giving aid to China.

China has the 2nd biggest economy in the world (after USA).

Go figure.

Coming not long after a huge trade delegation visited China.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/...

Look how many Chinese people are employed by Tesco. Granted 23,000 is a drop in the ocean in Chinese terms, but that's 23,000 that China DON"T have to keep on welfare and now they are paying tax and buying goods. Then think about all the other companies on that list and the potential employees that China doesn't have to worry about.

Trade is the new aid.

[Jim the Sunderer]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

not a big fan of tugging the heart strings but my post above and arguments above about people in the UK in poverty.

Comic Relief. Puts your XBox 360, Iphone, Plasma and Ibiza holidays on finance in perspective.


Sorry.

"In 2009, Comic Relief launched a website calling for a financial transaction tax, the "Robin Hood" tax."

Bunch of apologist lefties without the courage to tell the poor folk to "stop breeding".

[Victor McDade]

This is back in the news again.


British aid is 'helping fund re-election campaign of Bhutto family' in Pakistan

So now we're giving aid to help re-elect one of the most corrupt political families on the planet.


Maybe we should listen to these MPs.

Stop extra UK aid to Pakistan unless taxes increase, urge MPs

70% of their parliamentarians pay no tax at all.

[Pesty]

stop all aid not just extra.

[BoRED S2upid]

The thing is that every party in power has continued to give this aid, year on year, decade after decade. You've got to ask why. Its a lot of money there must be something in it for us more than just being kind and helping the poor.

[Digga]

Victor McDade said:

70% of their parliamentarians pay no tax at all.

Until they sort that out, there should be no aid whatsoever.

Granted, aid given previously was probably a misguided attempt at brokering some kind of erstwhile 'North Western frontier' peace pact, but it's not working. At all. Best re-trench to India.

[einsign]

The government is planning to DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF AID it provides to Pakistan from:

£267m in 2012-13 to £446m in 2014-15

Making it the largest recipient of UK aid.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22017091

[RedTrident]

It really isn't aid. It's sweeteners. But then I'm all for the State to stop giving these out and let the Industries that benefit take care of their own bribes.

[zcacogp]

Digga said:

Victor McDade said:

70% of their parliamentarians pay no tax at all.

Until they sort that out, there should be no aid whatsoever.

I'm very strongly inclined to agree. We shouldn't be paying for their country when they don't want to pay for it themselves.


Oli.

[shoggoth1]

BoRED S2upid said:

The thing is that every party in power has continued to give this aid, year on year, decade after decade. You've got to ask why. Its a lot of money there must be something in it for us more than just being kind and helping the poor.

I thought, in part at least, the line from Pakistan is something like - 'well, without this money our ability to combat those nasty terrorists that tend to target you boys in the West may be somewhat compromised...'
There's also the trade sweetener/buy your weapons from us angle.

[Victor McDade]

shoggoth1 said:

BoRED S2upid said:

The thing is that every party in power has continued to give this aid, year on year, decade after decade. You've got to ask why. Its a lot of money there must be something in it for us more than just being kind and helping the poor.

I thought, in part at least, the line from Pakistan is something like - 'well, without this money our ability to combat those nasty terrorists that tend to target you boys in the West may be somewhat compromised...'
There's also the trade sweetener/buy your weapons from us angle.

When Gordon Brown was PM he claimed that 75% of all the terror plots in the UK had ties to Pakistan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/14/mumbai...

I guess we pay the Pakistanis to secure information on our behalf to stop these attacks.

Which is ironic given their establishment's link to terrorism in the first place.

[anonymous-user]

SplatSpeed said:

Hugo a Gogo said:

don't know why the aid is sent, but this...

rb5230 said:

most people in this country are struggling just to fill the car with petrol, pay rent/mortgage and buy food etc.

is bks

care to explain your thoughts?

well 'most' people dont even have a mortgage. 'most' houses are unmortgaged, just.

but i still have no fvcking clue why we are borrowing billions and giving it to countries and people who fvcking hate us. thats whats fvcking maddening; we don't even have the money we are giving away we have to borrow it!

Edited by fbrs on Thursday 4th April 17:54

[Vipers]

rb5230 said:

So i heard on the radio this morning that every year we send over 400 million pounds to Pakistan and over 600 million to India every year along with a host of other countries, like we are rolling in it or something.

All the while most people in this country are struggling just to fill the car with petrol, pay rent/mortgage and buy food etc.

Apparently its for helping poverty which apparently does not exist in this country. I`m sure a few billion would help out quite a lot in our country.

Should we not decide what we want to spend our money on?

If we were a bit better off ourselves i would have no problem with helping everyone that needs it but the UK is in a terrible state at the moment.

Given thay India has already said they don't need it, they can afford a space programme, and they give money to other countries in aid, and the majority of their people live in squalor, we should give them sod all.

Sod all to Pakistane as well, we had about 24,000 elderly people died last year as they couldn't afford to put the heat on, we have people in Aberdeen living on hand out food parcels, our first priority should be to look after our own.

[RSoovy4]

s1962a said:

UK: Hello
Pakistan: Hello
UK: We need your help to bomb the insurgents
Pakistan: No
UK: Please. We'll ask you nicely.
Pakistan: No
UK: We'll give you £400mil in aid and you can pocket most of it
Pakistan: I'll think about it

Succinctly put.

[paul0843]

Going by what they just tried to do in Cyprus to bail out the banks
shouldn't any country that wants aid firstly take a % from its more affluent citizens
bank accounts?
They can then come back to the table and discuss the shortfall

[Vipers]

Hugo a Gogo said:

There iis no way that MOST people in the UK cannot afford the basics - not luxuries, but food:

You might be right, but as long as we have over 24,000 elderly people dying of hypothermia because they can't afford to heat their houses/flats, and thousands living in poverty, the MOST are irrelevant.

We have a duty to look after our own, not squandering millions on other countries who don't even want it.

I got on the bus the other day, and 3 elderly ladies got on, one was told her bus pass was out of date, and it would cost her £4 for a return ticket, she told her mates she couldn't afford it and got off.

That's reality of a lot of people in this country.

[Victor McDade]

paul0843 said:

Going by what they just tried to do in Cyprus to bail out the banks
shouldn't any country that wants aid firstly take a % from its more affluent citizens
bank accounts?
They can then come back to the table and discuss the shortfall

The thing is, very few countries actually beg for aid. Some (India) even have the cheek to say they don't need it. The leaders of most of these nations don't really care if their people starve.

Whereas the Cypriot leadership were desperate for the EU money so putting conditions on that bailout was somewhat easier.

[einsign]

Vipers said:

I got on the bus the other day, and 3 elderly ladies got on, one was told her bus pass was out of date, and it would cost her £4 for a return ticket, she told her mates she couldn't afford it and got off.

Why didn't you pay for her?

[Vipers]

einsign said:

Vipers said:

I got on the bus the other day, and 3 elderly ladies got on, one was told her bus pass was out of date, and it would cost her £4 for a return ticket, she told her mates she couldn't afford it and got off.

Why didn't you pay for her?

Sitting at the rear of the bus, soon as she shouted to her pals, she got off, door closed and we moved off.

Would have been difficult to make my my way to the front and convince the driver to stop, after he had move off wouldn't it.

But that is not the point of my post.