2530 days ago
The spendfest demanded by the people of Wales, Ulster, Scotland and the North of England is paid for by the hard working folks of London and the South East. That might sound like a provocative and unpleasant jibe at the expense of idle celts and workshy Northerners as they roam the welfare safaris. But it just happens to be a statement of fact as you can see below.
3308 days ago
None of the British parties has the slightest intention of eradicating the UK budget deficit - they are all Money Tree worshippers. And our record on free speech and civil liberties over the past few years has been dire. Rand Paul ( son of Ron Paul) is different and yesterday announced he was running for US President.
Come January this website will be edited for a short while from New Hampshire as I pay a holiday visit to experience the primary there - West Wing junkies will know how exciting that can be. All supporters of liberty and sound money should stand with Rand. This website does. Watch him announce his candidacy yesterday and compare his message with the banal issue evading words of our own leaders. Rand Paul for President!
4232 days ago
The Daily Mail today has a real go at Call Me Dave for boasting to the UN about how the UK is spending ever more cash on International aid. This will play well with its readers but misses the point. There are folks out there who reckon that scrapping the £11 billion or so we piss away on foreign aid each year will make a difference. It will not really.
Do not get me wrong. I do not think that the £11 billion the Department for International Development (DFID) spends, no wastes, each year can be justified. 40% of Africa’s military spending is effectively funded by aid programmes. The poor in Africa see very little benefit, the elites in some pretty vile regimes line their pockets and our cash goes to prop up these regimes. Just as I do not believe in military intervention to affect regime change in the Middle East (waste of money and it just makes them hate the West even more), I do not believe in financial intervention via aid to Africa as that inevitably stops regime change. In the end aid is always a transfer of wealth from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
But where the Mail goes horribly wrong is by pretending that were we to abolish DFID tomorrow we could stop cuts in public spending elsewhere. It goes into tedious detail about how many regiments could be saved, nurses not fired
