I think you are overestimating the role of Parliament in budgetary decisions there. This is not like the US, where the Government can't spend anything unless the House has authorised it.
We’ve had decades of the lie that the national budget is like a household budget, which many people still can’t shake. But people generally don’t understand how these things work. The argument is more an excuse to reject policies they don’t like than something people take to heart on its own terms.
Forgive me if I don't simply swallow wholesale the views of a right wing thinktank whose raison d'etre is to oppose tax rises on behalf of the wealthiest people in the world.
Perhaps you ought to compare that with Lammy's words on the abolition of DfID and cuts to USAid, from all of, oh, three weeks ago. Bear in mind too that Starmer TOLD his Cabinet they were doing this. There was no discussion.
Nope. It has been repeatedly explained why cutting aid is a terrible idea, not least by Lammy in the article above, AND how the defence expenditure could easily be afforded in other ways.
It is 100% a political choice by Starmer personally.
So if the situation is so dire, we could have implemented a wealth tax in order to increase our defence spending while also preserving our invaluable soft power, as Andrew Rawnsley so eloquently spells out in today's Observer.
International aid is as vital as defence spending – cutting either undermines British security | Emily Darlington
UK Doesn't Put a Price on Helping Her Friends We Didn't ask the Price in 1939 When America Was still Dithering for the next two Years!
The analogy I think of is disease; you can fight the symptoms or address the root cause. International Aid helps stop terrorism by countering radicalisation. It also reduces illegal migration by addressing the causes of people fleeing persecution and poverty. International Aid likely has a good ROI.
Now the US government has stopped USAID, will the world address the net flow of capital from poor countries to rich ones ? You can't have your cake and eat it too. The world is a complicated place and the beneficiaries in the "aid" equation are not always the poorer nations.
I can sympathise, but also, at the end of the day, if you're facing a war with russia, sending rice to Africa is not as effective at killing Russians, as spending the money on armaments to defend the UK & Ukraine. You need to be alive and free first, to continue sending aid to the needy.
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Aiding Ukraine is aid and it needs the funds today not when Parliament can approve a new budget
What do the voters think of spending and deficits? Is increased deficits a political death?
It’s why. Trudeau was forced to quit
https://tinyurl.com/yeymk7tv
https://tinyurl.com/5fjs2ymm
It is 100% a political choice by Starmer personally.
And it isn't either/or. We can easily afford both. It is entirely a political choice.
You're on a crashing plane & the oxygen masks have descended.
To assist others, you must first help yourself.
Yes, the analogy is apt.
That's where we are all at right now, people. You better believe it.
We outnumber the mega-rich by orders of magnitude!
We need to make this happen!
UK Doesn't Put a Price on Helping Her Friends We Didn't ask the Price in 1939 When America Was still Dithering for the next two Years!