| UKIP – the new “Nasty Party” | ||||
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Some
years
ago, at a Conservative Party conference,
Theresa May famously
said that her party had a reputation as
“the Nasty Party”. People believed that
the Conservatives were against the poor
and were
supporters of the capitalist system, not
to improve the lot of
everyone, but because they and their rich
friends gained in
consequence. In order to succeed at the
next election their aim had
to be to change that impression and show
that the party had at its
heart the problems and preoccupations of
everyone and not just the
rich. Difficult. But it was the reason for
the subsequent promise
in the manifesto to maintain economic aid
to third world countries at
0.7% of GDP in accordance with the UN's
'Millennium Project'. In
fact, this means that foreign aid amounts
to 1.2% of the total cost
of government – not much as a percentage,
but still £11 billion
per annum.
But
it
seems that now we have another candidate
for their title: my
favourite cartoon party – UKIP. The MEP
Godfrey Bloom said the
other day:
"How
we
can possibly be giving £1bn a month,
when we're in this sort of
debt, to Bongo Bongo Land is completely
beyond me. To buy Ray-Ban
sunglasses, apartments in Paris,
Ferraris and all the rest of it that
goes with most of the foreign aid. F18s
for Pakistan. We need a new
squadron of F18s. Who's got the
squadrons? Pakistan, where we send
the money.".
All the journalists criticised him for his use of the pejorative term 'Bongo Bongo Land', to describe the third world. But opinion was divided on the question of continuing to give foreign aid when we ourselves need to borrow so much to continue to survive as a country. Where
to
start? If I needed to max out my
credit card(s) and ask for loans
from my friends without the ability to
repay, then I would certainly
not be justified in making gifts to
charity from that money.. It is probably
this idea which Mr Bloom had in mind when
making his assertions. But it seems to me
that his thinking is confused. His views
would
be justified in the case of, say, Greece
which is in economic chaos and
simply unable to repay its debts.
But a country like ours is not in
the same position. We are more like
someone who has a mortgage which
obviously is not going to be paid off
immediately, but which will be
repaid in the ordinary way over the
lifetime of the loan. We
wouldn't expect the
owner of a house not
to give to charity simply because he had a
mortgage . And neither
should we consider it an excuse for our
country to cut off aid simply
because we are having to tighten our belts.
Not only was a complete
lack of empathy revealed in Mr Blooms
remarks, but there was an
obvious desire to live in the past. In
the cold war era when foreign
aid was a political tool used to create
alliances with poorer
countries to exclude the influence of our
cold war enemies, it is
true that the money provided almost
invariably found its way into the
bank accounts of the governing classes,
often the local dictator's
wider family. But things have changed
very much since then. Now, we
require audited accounts. And we have
recently decided to
discontinue aid to the Indian government,
for example, a country
which now has its own space programme. Not
that this prevents UK
government aid via NGO's which work in the
country on specific
projects which would benefit directly those
in dire need in that
country of great contrasts. It is not
a perfect system by any means,
but according to all that I have read, the
vast majority of the aid
now goes more or less where it was
intended. And when there are even
now so very many people who live in such
poverty (less than a
dollar a day), I am quite prepared to accept
the waste of even a
significant percentage of the aid if the
rest can do good for those
living in grindingly poverty.
And then there is the
fact
that Mr Bloom's demand is inconsistent with
his party's own policies. One of the central
pillars of UKIP is the prevention of
immigration
into this 'overpopulated' country of
ours. But what is the main
reason for the desire of so very many people
to come here from the
third world? The fact that we are so
much better off here than they
are. Thus it seems to me to be
rational to promote the economies of
such third world countries in order to
diminish the ratio of the
perceived benefit to the cost involved in
trying to get here
illegally. But no, we see the true
nature of this party in its
refusal even to take practical measures to
realise its own policy
when it implies the payment of money to poor
foreigners. We see
their hatred of 'the other' who is not a
part of our group.
I suppose that the ideal
solution would be for Mr Bloom to go to the
jungle in his Bongo Bongo
Land where he might find himself in a
cannibal's cauldron. By this
means, he would have the satisfaction of
having his worst prejudices
confirmed and at the same time making a
personal donation to the
poor. A definite win-win situation.
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