About the Foreign Aid Increase in the Spending Review.

The spending review this week was hardly surprising, depressing yes but not totally a unexpected result, massive public sector cuts, binning a few quangos, typical stuff a free market fan like Gideon Osbourne would do if he was chancellor. However one surprise was the pledge to increase the foreign aid budget to 0.7 % of the national income (7 to 11.5 bn) by 2014 to meet the target of the UN oversees development assistance, the UK being the first major industrialised nation to do so. This has gone down about as well as a man doing a massive diarrhea splodge in a jacuzzi with some of the Tory grassroots, with the Conservative Home website showing that 70 percent (1145 Tory members surveyed) thought it was the "wrong idea", and was the item on the review most opposed by them. It was always going to be a controversial measure, it is no surprise that the grassroots, and others were not exactly going to start jumping up and down the streets like mad people in sheer unvarnished joy about it. I'd well imagine that some of the thousand surveyed would recommend that the foreign aid budget should be somewhere between zero and nothing. The rhetorical question "why should we increase aid when we are in a bad state in the UK?" has been bandied about, along with the quintessential "charity begins at home" (should it end there?). These statements are more an attitude I think than an objective statement. You really either believe in it or you don't, when that lady in Nottingham asked just this, I doubt Camerons response changed her mind all that much. So why did they decide to increase it then? Why do something that was inevitably going to piss off the more grassroots elements?

In some ways freezing the aid budget, or even cutting it (at the least below inflation) would have been a simplistic way of winning a few votes. The Coalition has shown that it will throw in a gimmick or two to please the punters, Phillip Hammond axing the M4 bus lane anyone? I myself couldn't fathom why they increased it - though I support the decision to do so. Even not taking into account the basic human empathy side of it, it is ridiculous to think that we can just ignore the social consequences of global poverty in our globalised world, it just doesn't work like that. But then I sort of figured out one of the motivations why they have increased it, and it may be to do with the cuts to the military. Some of the more knowledgeable commentators of this kind of thing than me (aka every living human being) on the spending review have indicated that the Coalition is aiming to try a more "carrot" than "stick" approach to places like Afghanistan, using money to win over the populations, rather than costly (both financially and human) military force. Indeed some charities are worried that some of the more traditional recipients of UK aid will end up losing out as they aren't a combat theatre. There are also worries about the Department for International Development (Dfid), who deal with foreign aid, having its administrative costs halved. It could result in less transparency about where the cash ends up, and ironically even may cost the UK, if - say the World Bank bill the amount they had to pay their admin staff back to the UK tax payer.

Time will tell if this was a radical attempt to change tack on military and foreign policy, or just ends up hurting the people it was meant to help even more than before.

French Don't Float Some Folks Boat.

There has been a plan put forward by the coalition, with their French counterparts to share the joint(ish) responsibility of running the three new flagships of the European nations aircraft carrier fleets. Two of the new carriers are ours, along with one of the French carriers. By pooling resources (the ships will always be under the command of their home countries.) the two nations defence forces can save a couple of bob. One of the new British carriers can't really be scrapped as it is three quarters complete, and would be very costly to get rid of,- ironically in order to cut costs. I mean you can't just take it to the tip for christ sake. There are strategic questions of potential conflicts of interest. Say Britain undertook a naval mission against French interests, or vice - versa. But the finer points of the pros and cons have been drowned out in the letters to the Mail and Daily Star I have seen. No the only downside there is the French themselves, for being ... like - French! The enemy!

How original.

I don't know too much about coordinating defence. If I were in charge of the military, we'd be negotiating the terms of surrender to the armed forces of Andorra. Where the most dangerous weapon is the generals parade baton. But I can see some benefits of sharing costs. Directly unrelated to this story, (for one thing, the plan involves sharing the cost of maintaining flag carriers. Not putting the entire MOD under the froggies commands, as some of the more hysterical responses imply.). a pan-European navy has actually been proposed in the past, in regards to things such as patrolling for illegal immigrant and human trafficking to Europe. As well as co-ordinating, or at the very least - co-operating in the defence of European waters, rather than each country doing their own thing. It is ironic that the former would probably be popular with the Star / Mail. It' s amusing to see them trying to see whose worser, when stuff they don't like are at odds with each other. I thought the Mail approved of prudence? Not if it involves Johnny foreigner getting a nosey in on the John Bulls armada they don't! Fuck thrift and stick it to the Frenchies!

The hysterical comments about Britain being taken over, and the loss of 1000 years of freedom - from people who have read the headlines and no further, and the jingoistic articles that have been written in relation to the story, about how we have been enemies since the dawn of time -are profoundly depressing. Not only do they dig up all the past antagonisms, and imply that a history of adversary is an immutable state of affairs. They also perpetuate the stereotype of Britain as some old fashioned jingoistic bunch of isolationists. Which is all rather depressing really.

Don't like immigrants? Become an immigrant then. Christ! How consistant.

Now if you are an assiduous reader of the surprisingly good, and endearingly folksy local newspaper the Bolton News, and you stumble across to the often unintentionally hilarious letters page, you may be aware of the wisdom that is David from Malaga. Although he hasn't written in for a while, (so I can't quote him) he's your typical ultra anti - European Union ranter, you know the spiel, trying to destroy the country by banning bandy bananas and the Union Jack, that sort of thing. Now anti - EU sentiment is nothing new, but I'm sure it's never crossed Davids mind when he sits there typing this stuff, beside his pool in his tacky looking villa, that he looks a bit of a hypocrite claiming to hate the EU, and love his country so much that he took advantage of the horrid EU to piss off for good, from the country he claims to love so much. So I wasn't really surprised to discover that another scream it from the rooftops, tinpot patriot, former Australian fish fryer, turned MP Pauline Hanson has decided that she loves her country so much, she's going to emigrate to another one, The UK. She cites:

"Sadly, the land of opportunity is no more applicable. It's pretty much goodbye for ever. I've really had enough."

Which loosely translates to "My political career is screwed. Better luck next time." (she did 3 years for fraud, claiming she had more party members than she actually did, to be eligible for electoral funding)

Yes Hanson who formed the "One Nation" party, a right wing protectionist, populist organisation, running a severe anti-immigration platform. Hanson, like many of the leaders of these kinds of parties, played the tired old populist "real people" card, by constantly draping herself in the Aussie flag (might bring out the patriot in you, but it is just gesturing), and claiming she was fighting against the out of touch elite who know nothing of what "real people" want:

"My view on issues is based on common sense, and my experience as a mother of four children, as a sole parent and as a businesswoman running a fish and chip shop …"

"I may be only a fish and chip shop lady, but some of these economists need to get their heads out of the textbooks and get a job in the real world. I would not even let one of them handle my grocery shopping."

Now as I've said in this post, this is what these people do, I don't think; on this stand alone issue, that this makes them bad people, they honestly think, like many unintelligent people who enter politics, that cookie cutter rhetoric and simple "common sense" can "solve" very complex and staggeringly mulitlayered social issues.

No what I dislike about her, and what makes this "move" doubly hypocritical, and makes her unlike "David from Malaga" is that Hanson is well known in Australia for her strident views on immigration. Which is why she's come out with nuggets like these.

"I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. Between 1984 and 1995, 40 per cent of all migrants coming into this country were of Asian origin. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course, I will be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country."

"Arthur Calwell said: Japan, India, Burma, Ceylon and every new African nation are fiercely anti-white and anti one another. Do we want or need any of these people here? I am one red-blooded Australian who says no and who speaks for 90% of Australians. I have no hesitation in echoing the words of Arthur Calwell."

Yes this is depressing stuff, and these crude generalisations, and collective assigning of cultural traits to non-whites, has all those half-said undercurrents of "civilisation" being overrun by the dusky peoples. A lot of this appeals to the basest and murkiest sentiments on immigration. Her attitudes towards the aboriginals are particularly unpleasant.

"I have done research on benefits available only to Aboriginals and challenge anyone to tell me how Aboriginals are disadvantaged when they can obtain 3% and 5% housing loans denied to non-Aboriginals … "

"I am fed up with being told, 'This is our land.' Well, where the hell do I go? I was born here, and so were my parents and children …"

"Australians" were subject to "a type of reverse racism ... by those who promote political correctness and those who control the various taxpayer funded 'industries' that flourish in our society servicing Aboriginals,"

Now I know that anti immigrant sentiment is hardly an unheard of concept in some circles. But it seems the height of twattery, even amongst the standards we usually expect in this kind of talk, to actually begrudge a group of people who genuinely were swamped out, when the continent was settled by Europeans. Now no living Australian (of European origin) is guilty of their ancestors crimes against the indigenous Australians. But there is something perverse about denying those who have been there a hell of a lot longer, some redress for the land they lost.

That's the problem you see, when you hold these extreme and unsustainable views, you can't live up to them. You can't claim to be against immigration and then become an immigrant. Or is it OK if you are white? She say's she isn't racially prejudiced, but singles out Aboriginals of all people as receiving special treatment, without acknowledging the historic wrongs against the indigenous Australians.

As it happens I think she will probably fade into obscurity back in the UK. But I do wonder if a convicted fraudster who has questionable views, and has been touted by an organisation with links to individuals who would commit acts of terror and violence against British people, will raise as many eyebrows as others who may fit this profile. What do you think.

(I know she holds dual citizenship with the UK, because her family used to live here, so technically she isn't an immigrant. But since when have these people bothered with technicality. And if they don't care. I don't care either.)