Time to be honest about foreign aid?

As the government tries to justify increasing aid to the Third World while cutting British public services, there are a few facts that it chooses not to tell us. Firstly, studies by the UN have repeatedly shown that around 80% of all aid is either pocketed by corrupt bureaucrats and businessmen or lost through incompetence. But perhaps even worse is the fact that while around $100bn is given to the Third World each year by developed countries, at the same time around ten times as much – $1 trillion – is skimmed off by their corrupt leaders and sent to bank accounts in Switzerland, London, Cayman Islands and other offshore financial centres.

If we could clamp down on the kleptocrats and stop just a quarter of their thieving, then we wouldn’t need to provide any aid at all and their citizens would have better food, healthcare, schools and longer life expectancy. But that would require our politicians taking on the major banks which profit from the kleptocrats’ money. As most political parties are in the pockets of the banks, that will never happen. So we will continue giving aid that is stolen or wasted, Third World leaders will steal a trillion a year and their populations will continue to live in unnecessary misery. You couldn’t make it up!