Cameron should scrap the Foreign Aid budget, not increase it

Yesterday I was on BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show sparring with Cristina Odone about Dave's mooted compulsory foreign aid levy on the British taxpayer. She was arguing – with some high level support from Lord Gummer – that it was a good thing, part of our moral obligation to the world, and really not that much money all things considered. I was arguing that, no, actually, £8 billion now (rising to £11.4 billion in 2015) is quite a lot of money and that in these dark economic times the very last thing our government ought to be doing is hosing down ungrateful foreigners with cash we haven't got.

The biggest recipient of our foreign aid largesse is currently Pakistan to which…

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