During the recent reshuffle the government shifted rightwards in both tone and substance . Cameron has long aimed to stop the Tory party from being known as the ‘nasty party’, but he is undoubtedly failing.
This was reaffirmed today by the comments of the infamous Tory donor Lord Ashcroft on the current amount of aid spending. Today, Lord Ashcroft wrote a rather surreal open letter to the new International Development Secretary Justine Greening. Lord Ashcroft claimed that we ‘we can’t afford the aid budget’.
This is a hotly debated issue but for a serial tax avoider to weigh in shows sharp hypocrisy. Ashcroft has avoided 3.4 million in tax, highlighting one of the main reasons why the state does not have as much money as it should – indeed his argument that ‘we can’t afford it’ would have more weight if he paid his fair share of taxes.
Further facts that make his criticism hard to swallow is the £200 million the Department for International Development spent on an airport for St Helena, after Lord Ashcroft’s lobbying. At the time Andrew Mitchell argued this was provided to boost tourism, thus bringing more money to the area.
However consider that the £200 million spent on this project was equivalent to the entire amount spent on water and sanitation you may not believe this was the best way for DFID to spend its money.
The recommendation put forward is to scrap the DFID altogether, a truly regressive step that pre-dates 1997.
Furthermore under inspection Lord Ashcroft’s numbers do not stand up. In a clear attempt to scare the public, Ashcroft claimed that the DFID budget costs £300 per family, but actually for those on £15,000 a year £27 of a total £2,700 tax bill and for those on £26,000 a year £60 of a £6000 tax bill. Also a Daily Mail article used by Lord Ashcroft also proved to be misleading, because the EU money spent on ‘Turkish sewers’ mentioned in the piece comes from the EU budget but not the UK’s aid contribution to it.
Ashcroft states that a cut in DFID will be in the ‘best interests of people in poverty’ . If Government holds firm, and refuses the advice of Ashcroft and the Daily Mail then UK aid will put over 15 million children in school, provide over 80 million children with vaccines against life-threatening diseases and ensure better nutrition for more than 9 million people over the next four years.
To reach hundreds of thousands of new readers and to make the biggest impact we can in the next general election, we need to grow our donor base substantially.
That's why in 2024, we are seeking to generate 150 additional regular donors to support Left Foot Forward's work.
We still need another 124 people to donate to hit the target. You can help. Donate today.
13 Responses to “Ashcroft on Aid: ‘We can’t afford it’”
Richard Coates
The One.org figures only include direct taxation – there will be a cost in indirect taxation too – i.e. it is inherently significantly more than that figure. I assume what Ashcroft has done is something like DFID budget = £7.7b (2010/11) divided by 22m households in the UK (communities.gov.uk) = £350 per household. If the DFID budget increases to £10.6b, that figure per household would be £481. You might well want to argue that, because rich people pay a lot more tax, this doesn’t show you what the average family pays, but its no more inaccurate than trying to argue that the only tax people pay is direct taxation. That’s particularly important when poorer people proportionately pay a very much larger part of their income in indirect than direct taxation.
Newsbot9
Thanks for arguing for tax reform.
Newsbot9
Ah yes, “talking down” the economy, when the Tories are burning the basis of a modern economy. Yes, keep victim-blaming.
Newsbot9
Great, then the UK can shut up and stop that nasty “trade” thing.
And no, it’s YOU who is trying to kill poor Britons, nobody else.
gbd
I think the economy is doing fine. if you want to work there are jobs there, if you don’t there’s the welfare state. i’ve hardly noticed the ‘downturn’. just seems house prices are going up slower than before