Foreign aid must be cut; charity begins at home – Yorkshire Post Letters

I WAS astounded to hear, during Rishi Sunak’s brave attempt to justify his future spending plans to the people of the UK, that he is prepared to cut our contribution to foreign aid from 0.7 per cent of our gross national output to 0.5 per cent.

Wow – too little, too late.

We, the citizens of the UK, need every spare pound, shilling and penny to look after our old people, our vulnerable individuals and our precious NHS, never mind sending our hard-earned cash to overseas governments who would do well to look after their own people with kindness and compassion and not expect the likes of us to help pay their bills.

It is ironic to hear so many liberal-minded Tory MPs moaning about the cut in our overseas spending at a time when they are entitled to a £3,000 pay increase.

I could have a little more respect for their hypocritical protestations if, to a man, they are prepared to donate a substantial proportion of their obscene salaries to help those citizens of foreign countries less fortunate than ourselves.

I shall await the outcome with bated breath.

From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

RISHI Sunak is a really impressive, clear speaker and his messages in his Spending Review do try to help those in the lowest income bracket.

I’m sure that many public sector workers will be disappointed with their pay freeze for a year, but he was able to reward the doctors, nurses and other NHS staff who have gone far and above their normal duties during this pandemic.

Other public sector workers have really only been doing their normal jobs.

I think, on the whole, his review was a fair one.

From: Peter Rickaby, West Park, Selby.

WHEN Tony Blair, John Major and David Cameron oppose a cut in foreign aid, it is confirmation the Chancellor was right to do so.

Nearly all will be the poorer

From: Mike Potter, Pickering.

IT didn’t need the Chancellor’s Spending Review to know that the “tough choices” ahead will leave virtually all of us much poorer, following the vast spending of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Many Yorkshire folk will have sufficient leeway to get a little poorer but many won’t.

Now I’m no financial expert but I do know that money (perhaps also described as wealth or even national debt) doesn’t miraculously disappear; it just gets distributed differently.

Some of “our” money was paid out to keep lives, businesses and health-care systems afloat. That money will circulate in the same areas.

However, eye-watering and vastly inflated sums were also paid out for PPE, consultants, PR etc, as dictated by the basic laws of supply and demand and Government preferences.

So, when you’re tightening your belt, just remember that while some o’t brass may come back our way in the form of lucrative investments from increasingly wealthy states and money lenders, a small number of people will be considerably lowering certain offshore tax havens in the water with the weight of their increased wealth.

I wonder how effectively this end of the wealth spectrum will be targeted by the Chancellor?

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