Westminster Politics

Foreign Office minister resigns over plans to slash aid budget



Great news for those Brexiteers who are always talking about looking after our own. Just like they did when Rashford came calling.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
im not giving them credit. I’m just saying why they are investing. 10 years ago they started the process of reducing the military by tens of thousands, the army was planned to go from about 107k to 82k, but got as low as about 79k.

the navy is an interesting one, again underinvested in for a long time, but the carriers are so ridiculously expensive, and keep going over time and budget because of changes in spec, personnel, government and budget. These are 20/30 year projects that keep getting tweaked with.

*disclaimer, I’ve not read what the government has said/ claimed about the investment - so can’t comment on that.
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Appreciate they're long-term projects, but we've consistently messed them up, eg the aircraft carriers with no aircraft etc...One massive difficulty is the risk of obsolescence with these big projects, eg how much use is a massive navy if you can take it out with long range missiles from the other side of the world? Spending money on cyber defence makes sense when you think about the level of interference in politics from Russia and the like, but not sure how effective that spending can realistically be, given you can't control content on social media and so forth.
I would've thought key infrastructure should be a bigger priority, with two of London's bridges shut to road traffic currently.
 
Drifter said:
Foreign Office minister resigns over plans to slash aid budget



Great news for those Brexiteers who are always talking about looking after our own. Just like they did when Rashford came calling.
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good to tar everyone with the same brush...

It shouldn’t be reduced, out of interest, what has it been reduced too?
 
Berbasbullet said:
How are we justifying spending more on armed forces? It’s not like we’re close to a war? I know best to be prepared but I mean what exactly is the point other than to appease the flag shaggers?
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Hey... stop protesting... it‘s good for loads of people who work in that sector.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
good to tar everyone with the same brush...

It shouldn’t be reduced, out of interest, what has it been reduced too?
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Think it's gone down from 0.7% to 0.5%. In these times I actually back that, still give money for disasters that hit worldwide but let's not give quite as much freebies to China and other economically developed countries.

Pretty sure U.K invests more foreign aid than many other similar sized euro countries but could be wrong.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
Schools too. Or the police.

This just screams out that it's an easy way to send more money to private businesses*.

*And by that I don't mean the average worker, I mean whoever is punting money Boris's way or is an old school chum/married to a minister.
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Nail on head. Beat me to it.
 
FootballHQ said:
Think it's gone down from 0.7% to 0.5%. In these times I actually back that, still give money for disasters that hit worldwide but let's not give quite as much freebies to China and other economically developed countries.

Pretty sure U.K invests more foreign aid than many other similar sized euro countries but could be wrong.
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Your correct
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_development_aid_country_donors
Even at 0.5% will still be more than many as well
 
FootballHQ said:
Think it's gone down from 0.7% to 0.5%. In these times I actually back that, still give money for disasters that hit worldwide but let's not give quite as much freebies to China and other economically developed countries.

Pretty sure U.K invests more foreign aid than many other similar sized euro countries but could be wrong.
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Similar sized countries.. which one; France or Germany?

Honesty, some people are soooo ignorant...
 
Using figures is only beneficial if you understand them.. In terms of comparison with countries of similar wealth, the UK still rates about average, even though in my opinion cutting back on aid (particularly when we’re in the middle of a pandemic and Brexit coming up) sends out the wrong message and will be counter productive. As for freebies for China, the irony is not lost on me that the figures show the average Chinese still is still living in relative poverty and large parts of China are still underdeveloped (not mentioning the oppression of large parts of its population).
I find it incredibly frustrating that people’s opinions are formed on half truths & misconceptions.
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
Not been much fussing over this EHRC report has there?

'Stain on British history': Home Office broke equality law over Windrush scandal, report finds
To make sure the events are never repeated, the government department has committed to an agreement with the EHRC to take action.
https://news.sky.com/story/stain-on...w-over-windrush-scandal-report-finds-12141194
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I love the way Queen bitch blames successive governments over the decades. No it wasn’t, it was your fecking party, your fecking government you were fecking part of you horrible nasty incompetent cow. Now feck off and resign you cheap whore.

..eye for an eye and all that.
 
Rams said:
Similar sized countries.. which one; France or Germany?

Honesty, some people are soooo ignorant...
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Well.... Actually yes?

I don't want the aid budget to be cut at all, for so many reasons, but their statement is not factually incorrect. In terms of total aid given, only the USA, Germany and China give more. In terms of per capita, only the Scandi countries give more, as well as a couple more like Netherlands and Switzerland etc.

Even at 0.5%, both of those statements will hold roughly true.

Seemingly, the Australiasians and North Americans are not that generous.
 
Rams said:
I love the way Queen bitch blames successive governments over the decades. No it wasn’t, it was your fecking party, your fecking government you were fecking part of you horrible nasty incompetent cow. Now feck off and resign you cheap whore.

..eye for an eye and all that.
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Absolutely ridiculous that she would even try to get away with blaming "successive governments over the past few decades" for this Tory hostile environment policy.
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
Rashford had to campaign to get £24M to feed hungry kids.

Meanwhile...
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/en...brexit-festival_uk_5fbd33cfc5b66bb88c61b681a1
Brexit Festival: Here’s What Else The £29m Could Have Paid For
The cash for Festival UK 2022 was announced in Rishi Sunak's spending review.
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Is this an actual festival of brexit or just a 'UK festival'?

If its the former, I'm going to actually vomit. I think I'd take unpaid leave from work and just go somewhere with my family where I'm not exposed to this nonsense.
 
McGrathsipan said:
Tories conveniently blaming Covid for the economy disaster.

Brexit hidden nicely.

cnuts
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you don’t think that Covid is THE biggest reason for the contraction in the economy?

it’s not just convenience, as as close as a fact as you can get.

edit. I’m. Not ignoring Brexit or the impact, but clearly Covid has had an unthinkable impact on the economy.
 
Berbasbullet said:
How are we justifying spending more on armed forces? It’s not like we’re close to a war? I know best to be prepared but I mean what exactly is the point other than to appease the flag shaggers?
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Because it's desperately needed. For example, we are replacing 13 Type 23 frigates with 8 Type 26s, and we replaced 12 Type 42 destroyers with 6 Type 45s. It's always popular on here to blame the Tories but that was a decision taken by the previous Labour government. The ships are headline projects but it goes all the way down to soldiers on the ground operating with substandard kit, it's past the point of being dangerous by now.

We may not be facing an imminent war but with the Middle Eastern threat past its peak we need to be prepared for what's next. Plus, the ~20b it's costing to build those ships is a shot in the arm for the economy.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
you don’t think that Covid is THE biggest reason for the contraction in the economy?

it’s not just convenience, as as close as a fact as you can get.

edit. I’m. Not ignoring Brexit or the impact, but clearly Covid has had an unthinkable impact on the economy.
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Covid is a massive reason but the economy would still be taking a massive Brexit hit with this No Deal stuff.
 
McGrathsipan said:
Covid is a massive reason but the economy would still be taking a massive Brexit hit with this No Deal stuff.
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I don’t doubt that, but Covid, as least in the short term will have 10x the effect of Brexit.

*Clearly not actually figures, but the effect of Covid this year and next year will dwarf any effect of Brexit.
 
11101 said:
It's always popular on here to blame the Tories but that was a decision taken by the previous Labour government.
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The last Labour government was ten years ago. What happened to existing funding for these projects? Did it just not exist?

Genuine question because I know cack all about defence funding.
 
Ah another day and more proof of cronyism. Carry on as normal everyone.
 
11101 said:
Because it's desperately needed. For example, we are replacing 13 Type 23 frigates with 8 Type 26s, and we replaced 12 Type 42 destroyers with 6 Type 45s. It's always popular on here to blame the Tories but that was a decision taken by the previous Labour government. The ships are headline projects but it goes all the way down to soldiers on the ground operating with substandard kit, it's past the point of being dangerous by now.

We may not be facing an imminent war but with the Middle Eastern threat past its peak we need to be prepared for what's next. Plus, the ~20b it's costing to build those ships is a shot in the arm for the economy.
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I see, thanks for the detailed info, I still think it’s an inappropriate time to be focusing on military right now but appreciate hearing the justification behind it.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
The last Labour government was ten years ago. What happened to existing funding for these projects? Did it just not exist?

Genuine question because I know cack all about defence funding.
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Budgets gets moved around over time, sometimes due to wider government plans, sometimes due to changing threats as these are multi year projects. The Eurofighter Typhoon program for example started in 1983, first flew 11 years later, and we got our final delivery a year ago. With no more Cold War we didn't need as many fighters as we first thought, so we ended up with 90 less than originally planned for.

The Type 45s specifically were all completed by 2010, so that was almost entirely done under Labour. It was just an example that military budgets have been reducing for a long time. The Falklands War was the last time we had any noticeable increase in defence spending.
 
11101 said:
Budgets gets moved around over time, sometimes due to wider government plans, sometimes due to changing threats as these are multi year projects. The Eurofighter Typhoon program for example started in 1983, first flew 11 years later, and we got our final delivery a year ago. With no more Cold War we didn't need as many fighters as we first thought, so we ended up with 90 less than originally planned for.

The Type 45s specifically were all completed by 2010, so that was almost entirely done under Labour. It was just an example that military budgets have been reducing for a long time. The Falklands War was the last time we had any noticeable increase in defence spending.
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Thanks for the info, much appreciated. I forget that designing and building these things takes a little longer than me making a cheese sandwich sometimes.
 
11101 said:
We may not be facing an imminent war but with the Middle Eastern threat past its peak we need to be prepared for what's next. Plus, the ~20b it's costing to build those ships is a shot in the arm for the economy.
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680794586-Buck_D306E366-F1C1-B448-38DB924830C062BF.jpg
 
Rams said:
Similar sized countries.. which one; France or Germany?

Honesty, some people are soooo ignorant...
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France population is 66m so pretty much exact with UK. Surprised me they give 0.4% given their historical links to huge parts of Africa.
 
africanspur said:
Is this an actual festival of brexit or just a 'UK festival'?

If its the former, I'm going to actually vomit. I think I'd take unpaid leave from work and just go somewhere with my family where I'm not exposed to this nonsense.
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I believe it is quite literally a festival of Brexit. Its fecking obscene!
 
FootballHQ said:
France population is 66m so pretty much exact with UK. Surprised me they give 0.4% given their historical links to huge parts of Africa.
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Why are you comparing countries based on the size of the population when analyzing spending based on GNI?
 
711 said:
I've no idea what the argument is about but France and the UK are as close a match as you can get for both aren't they? According to wiki for GNI they're 22nd and 23rd out of 194.
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Which would be about right as both countries have similar wealth and size economies. The sizes of their population is irrelevant.
 
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