Right Wrong Rich Or Poor

There has been much debate over the past weeks coming to a head with Liam Fox saying that there should be a fresh look at the overseas aid budget. Whilst most people would agree that we should be helping the underdeveloped countries of the world to help their starving millions. At a time when the British people are facing austere measures, when as many as 25% of the population are expected to be in fuel poverty before the end of the year and again perhaps even more if we suffer another cold winter, like last year. India is estimated to have at least half a billion of its population below the poverty line Britain is giving in excess of £280 million to a country that has more billionaires and millionaires than we have. A country that is spending in excess of £10 billion on military weapons. There are people like Barbara Stocking of Oxfam who says that giving this money boosts our standing in the world, perhaps she is quite correct. There are those who say that giving money to these countries may encourage them to buy British goods. If that is true then I hope that India buys the British Built Euro Typhoon Fighter over the French built Rafal, but then we would get Barbara Stocking probably condemning this. Again if we are talking about the rights and wrongs and the moral issues is it morally correct for the India Government to spend over £1billion a year on their space programme, when they have so many starving citizens? We are kept being told that Britain can afford to give this money 0.7% of GDP yet we are facing severe cuts to local authorities, the police forces of the country, the armed forces are suffering cuts to men and equipment even as we face  continuing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and now in Libya. We here and read about government waste in billions of pounds in the MoD with projects overspent or cancelled. We see now that the NHS's computerised system for patient records is increasing from a £3 billion cost to a final estimated cost of £10 billion, and there are some people who say that it will not work anyway. Perhaps we have to many civil servants in jobs that fail at every level of costing and procurement, yet nobody is accountable or sacked for gross incompetence. It's all kept quiet to give  the Gaelic shrug of the shoulders, as some incompetent  in authority is quietly shuffled off to another department and with a substantial pay rise. Perhaps before we continue to give overseas aid we would be better off sorting out our own house, save billions of pounds of tax payers money here at home, then we could give more in overseas aid and the public would not be as unhappy at what they deem as  waste.