[tizaala]

£280 MILLION ,
 That is what we are giving India every year towards their defence budget ....and they are using it to buy Russian ships. ......FFS  WHY?  India has it's own space program ! they can afford to buy their own ships.... ARE WE THE MUGS OF THIS WORLD OR WHAT?   

[Rosemary]

I fear we may be - we need to stop feeling guilty about our colonial past.

[robert waddell]

but what are we giving it for 

[henchard]

As  usual this seems to be hysteria from the daily Express who are  nearly as bad as the Mail and the Telegraph.

The International Development Department says: “As we have made clear many times, British aid is not used to fund India’s defence programme.”

Now I'm sure not all aid does get used effectively but I can't quite get my head around all those good Christian Express, Mail and Telegraph readers (I'm an atheist) who seem to think that the Christian ethics of charity and help for those in need ends at the white cliffs of Dover.

[deepinthewoods]

as a nuclear power with a growing space program, it does seem strange that we give so much money to india.

[Berkshire Boy]

Henchard, any country with a space program does not need aid. Charity begins at home let the rest look after themselves.

[bloomer]

you guys do realise in the great scheme of things 280 million is bugger all!!!


in 2011 our total goverment debt was 905 billion,

any international aid we offer makes so little different its laughable...

[SteveHants]

I think as a foreign policy move, keeping India sweet is a sensible plan given its geographical location. I also dont think "its time we stopped feeling guilty about our colonial past" as it has direct political implications today.

[Moleskins]

I think as a foreign policy move, keeping India sweet is a sensible plan given its geographical location. I also dont think "its time we stopped feeling guilty about our colonial oast" as it has direct political implications today.

No I don't think we need to feel guilty about our colonial past, giving countries democracy, justice and a better railway system than we have is something to be proud of. Isn't it?

[deepinthewoods]

im not sure the american indians or aborigines would agree with you there, or all the africans we traded as slaves.

[SteveHants]

No I don't think we need to feel guilty about our colonial past, giving countries democracy, justice and a better railway system than we have is something to be proud of. Isn't it?

I think a lot of these things were by products, rather than the intent of colonialism, to be fair, although it is a nice idea that all we wanted to do was to spread justice, democracy and railways...  


I'm relatively certain the intent of it was to appropriate resources for the motherland (as it were). As well as slavery, we seem to have been rather good at massacring people and can claim the dubious honour of being the only nation to have committed genocide in the true sense of the word. Quite a lot of todays political problems in Africa and the middle east, for example are born out of our penchant for chopping countries up into arbitary new ones based on our want/wars rather than the native peoples present....

[henchard]

Henchard, any country with a space program does not need aid. Charity begins at home let the rest look after themselves.

As I indicated religion is a mystery to me but I'm still bemused by the fact that people who claim to be Christian feel that charity should stop at our little islands boundaries. There are plenty of texts on giving in the Bible

http://www.openbible.info/topics/charity

not one of them mentions that it stops at Dover.

Around about 300 million in India live on less than a dollar a day. As long as it's not our kids dying from lack of clean water or food that's ok then?

[princesspiggy]

im not sure the american indians or aborigines would agree with you there, or all the africans we traded as slaves.

britain used to pay £10 per head for aboriginals...  and that means literally! it wasnt that long ago either.
not something to be proud of. 

[tizaala]

This country is drowning in debt, we have people living on the streets and pensioners freezing to death in winter, see to them first, get your priorities right. we can't go on playing lady bountiful to third world countries that just buy arms with the money instead of feeding their people and seeing to their medical needs, India is just one of many countries that we are propping up .
Lets see a list of those countries and how much money is beeing leached away each year and what it is being spent on,
The world will survive without us interfering, It's over populated anyway.

[Berkshire Boy]

Exactly Tiz, we have enough of our own problems why do we think that everyone else in the world is our responsibility. How much money have we wasted on pointless wars in the last 10 years?
It is about time we accepted we are not the rich and powerful country we used to be.