There are two reasons for cutting foreign aid and indeed abolishing it entirely. The first is that we cannot afford it. The second is that it harms those who receive it.
Since David Cameron came to power in 2010, there has been no austerity at all in Britain. Public spending in Britain has increased in every year since 2010 and has increased massively this year due to Lockdown and furlough.
Britain has run a deficit every year since 2010 and has very rarely indeed actually earned more than we spent in the past decades. This year the Government is predicted to spend £350 Billion more than we earn or 17% of GDP. Economically it is as if we are fighting a war. Our only good fortune is that our towns and cities have not been bombed flat.
Britain’s National Debt has increased steeply since the financial crisis in 2008. On some measures it is now over 100% of GDP. The total of what we have borrowed is more than we earn. We owe more than two trillion pounds or two thousand billion. It amounts to a debt of more than £30,000 for every man woman and child in the UK.
These numbers are very hard to understand or conceptualise, but they have real world consequences. The interest we pay on the debt is money we cannot spend on something else. Recently Britain has spent £48 Billion on interest payments alone which is four percent of GDP. The budget for Scotland is £49 billion.
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(4) Good job we left! Hungary and Poland refuse to back down as bitter clash with EU escalates
(5) ‘Look after our OWN first!’ BBC Question Time audience members back UK foreign aid cut
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