UK to donate £38 million to Ethiopa.

JamesU2005 · 4 Jul 2011 at 07:46

Wow so many heartless and selfish people on OcUK nowadays, this forum is turning into a right wing haven.

markweatherill · 4 Jul 2011 at 07:47

If it makes anyone feel better, an insider at HMRC has revealed that the money was raised from black peoples' income taxes and VAT on fried chicken and watermelons. And coconuts.

neil3k · 4 Jul 2011 at 07:50

most of this will probably end up being spent on guns.

El_Commi · 4 Jul 2011 at 07:56

I think we're being trolled

scorza · 4 Jul 2011 at 08:30

If only we hadn't spent all the aid budget on India, a country with more billionaires than the UK!

Dolph · 4 Jul 2011 at 08:35

scorza said:
If only we hadn't spent all the aid budget on India, a country with more billionaires than the UK!

If only the previous administration hadn't ruined our public spending budget with their incompetence, we'd be able to help people without people with no idea of the sums involved whinging

Scania · 4 Jul 2011 at 08:36

jp_bl_68 said:
Probably

You'd hope so eh?

Lets hope were never in a position to be able to find out!

HeadlessChicken · 4 Jul 2011 at 08:50

Cupra said:
Instead of sending money for food and things maybe a mass sterlization would be a better way to go, 85.2million people and they just pop kids out for us to pay for.........

You clearly have no idea how a third world country works. You have to have large families, for 3 reasons;

1) Many will die before they are toddlers
2) The only way to survive is to have family to work / farm (where possible)
3) Family is needed to care for the sick / infirm / take over looking after the family when the parents invariably die from HIV thanks to the CoE condemming the use of condoms (can / worms, yes

)

Vonhelmet · 4 Jul 2011 at 09:03

HeadlessChicken said:
You clearly have no idea how a third world country works. You have to have large families, for 3 reasons;

1) Many will die before they are toddlers
2) The only way to survive is to have family to work / farm (where possible)
3) Family is needed to care for the sick / infirm / take over looking after the family when the parents invariably die from HIV thanks to the CoE condemming the use of condoms (can / worms, yes )

Agree with all of that, but have to point out that it's the Catholic church with the condoms issue. CoE has no beef with contraception.

dowie · 4 Jul 2011 at 09:12

Hades said:
This isn't out of benevolence. The vast majority of overseas spending is in seeding influence in the future.

Someone else gets it...

Helping them is in our interests in general as it helps stops instability, helps avert a crisis etc..

But also aid can be used as a tool of influence and can be used to help boost our own exports. (perhpas less so in this £38 million instance but in general it can)

The US is very into this - USAID is often used to boost US exports. Give a country $$$ in order to buy stuff from your producers/manufacturers - a large portion of the money comes back to you and your exporters now have regular trade with the regime you helped out.

mehuk · 4 Jul 2011 at 09:26

Fact is, Ethiopia as a nation does not help itself. So why should we intervene?

There are enough Humans in the UK that need help, why are these Ethiopians more important than ones who have potentially paid tax and helped our nation in some way?

meghatronic · 4 Jul 2011 at 09:33

mehuk said:
Fact is, Ethiopia as a nation does not help itself. So why should we intervene?

There are enough Humans in the UK that need help, why are these Ethiopians more important than ones who have potentially paid tax and helped our nation in some way?

Where do you draw the line?

I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but if we can feed x million people for effectively an hour's national debt I won't lose sleep over it.

The Deuce · 4 Jul 2011 at 09:48

Dolph said:
If only the previous administration hadn't ruined our public spending budget with their incompetence, we'd be able to help people without people with no idea of the sums involved whinging

sorry Dolph but everytime you post I just see Harry Enfield's Tory Boy...hahahaha pmsl.

CaptainRAVE · 4 Jul 2011 at 09:50

What is it with this country and "saving the world". Spend it on our own infrastructure. It isn't like these countries would help us in a crisis.

Castiel · 4 Jul 2011 at 09:59

mehuk said:
Fact is, Ethiopia as a nation does not help itself. So why should we intervene?

There are enough Humans in the UK that need help, why are these Ethiopians more important than ones who have potentially paid tax and helped our nation in some way?

Fact is that Ethiopia is one of the most improved countries in Africa, this is a crisis precipitated by a natural disaster.

Citizens in the UK recieve help and have a myriad of support structures and institutions that can help them, Ethiopia has little in the way of real support internally so needs the help that we can provide.

scorza · 4 Jul 2011 at 10:01

Like Ron Paul said, foreign aid is taking money from poor people in a rich country, and giving it to rich people in poor countries.

I don't think that's the case here - we're on the cusp of a famine here and the aid will save people's lives. It's a shame that most foreign aid isn't as altruistic.

Danthus · 4 Jul 2011 at 10:05

Castiel said:
Fact is that Ethiopia is one of the most improved countries in Africa, this is a crisis precipitated by a natural disaster.

Citizens in the UK recieve help and have a myriad of support structures and institutions that can help them, Ethiopia has little in the way of real support internally so needs the help that we can provide.

You say that, billions has been pumped in and yet again the same situation rears its head again. Now I know that there is not a magic rain machine but we all know that in the near future aid will be needed again, something has to change.

clade · 4 Jul 2011 at 10:21

I totaly agree that we as a country should be able to provide aid to other countrys but I also agree that we need to look after ourselfs first....how would you feel if it was your parents being made homeless because they lost there jobs due to budget cuts.

Im sure 38million pounds could also make a difference here.......obviously not on the same level..

platypus · 4 Jul 2011 at 10:28

Castiel said:
Maybe you should go visit Ethiopia before suggesting that we all live in Poverty.

I doubt you know what real poverty is. The vast majority of Ethiopians certainly do.

£38m is a trifling amount of money for the UK and if it helps avert another humanitarian disaster where millions die from simple lack of basic nutrition then it is money well spent.

Common sense post #1.

However; I think we need to stop giving the governments of these countries the money, and have a managed solution in place with the charities that work there in order to ensure the money goes to where it is most needed.

Danthus · 4 Jul 2011 at 10:32

For 30 years Ethiopia has experienced the same problems even with enormous amounts of aid. Where is the sense in repeating previous failed actions?