A difference between Tory and Labour

Labour has been making much of their support for a new law which would enshrine in legislation the commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on foreign aid.

Labour themselves first made that commitment when they were running the country a decade ago.

Yet it was the present coalition government which actually hit that target last year for the first time ever, as you can read at

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/300084/Prov-ODA-GNI-2013a.pdf

There is a graph on the site which shows that Labour in government never got the share of aid above 0.5%. And that was at a time when they had inherited a very strong economy from Ken Clarke and it was far easier to find money for things.

Writing targets into law is not actually the best way of hitting them: it's just the best way to score a political point.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Quote of the day 24th July 2020