divert foreign aid to flood-hit British families

My view is that there is probably sufficient money in this country to help those whose homes /livlihood have been destroyed without cancelling any overseas aid!

As a nation we are good at raising millions in one night(Ch in need/ comic relief etc)

Not sure why the paper that suggested diverting overseas aid to British flood victims did not set up a fund raising campaign ....or did they want to make a political point more than really help the victims of flooding in UK?
Is that too cynical...

Not at all, it probably has an element of truth.

Margaretm74

Cynical? Toi?

Joelsnan, you said you used a cross section of references, but the only one you mentioned was the CPS, whose board consists of Lord Saatchi, Tory, George Bridges, previously a campaign director for the Tory party, Tessa Keswick,who was a researcher for Ken Clarke, Andrew Knight, chairman of Rothschild Management and a director of NewsCorp, Fraser Nelson, that well known editor of the Spectator, and so on, not a list of leftwingers, along with 3 other house of lords Tory peers.
So you can possibly see why I consider you to be right wing. You do not sound very middle of the road to me.

Soutra I said some gransnetters it was you who used the term the silent majority and yes I stand by what I said, I think some people are afraid to post and go against the grain, especially when some posters think they hold the high moral ground and are clicky.

I think it's irrelevant if people are right or left wing as long as they avoid attacking

Dear durhamjen
How wrong can you be! it is surprising the images that can be conjoured up by t'tinternet.
As mentioned earlier my other sources are freely available for your own research. I only quoted CPS as this body had stated that the %debt/GDP was probably even higher than that quoted by the government. I have been reading economics articles this morning, which now place UK at 20th in the world in terms of government debt. However you can also find that UK has the 6th largest global economy (bored).
Interestingly despite all of this, the UK has the highest level of relative poverty than all but 4 of members of the EU with 1 in 6 UK CHILDREN designated as living in relative poverty.
I still maintain my stance that government overseas aid is a political rather than a humanitarian tool given to many countries who do not need it. Valuing life at all levels of society is all that a lot of these countries need. We are fed the heart wrenching pictures of children starving and not shown the fat cats in the same countries, who, like us, should be caring for their own.
Again, personal charity giving and disaster aid are different issues.

Precisely, stansgran! And I do not agree that there are cliques, but that is really not worth the effort of discussion; we have been there before..

joelsnan I agree that some countries that receive 'western aid' appear to have 'fat cats' at the top.
Some may assume that the 'fat cats' have made their money by misuse of aid or it might be that they have inherited the money,'earned' it either legitimately or otherwise. It is difficult to know. However it is true that organisations (e.g Red Cross etc) do provide direct support and aid at times of emergency. What needs to happen. in tandem, if not already happening,is aiding the development of infrastructure to enable local governments to manage more effectively at times of crisis.

The same situation surely exists in the West..we have hugely wealthy people in positions of power but we still have children living in poverty/ feeling helpless in the face of disaster. The difference in the West is that there is an established infrastructure that should be able to manage disasters through existing local resources.

In less developed countries, frequently ravaged by wars/famine/drought floods, do not have the same infrastructure or national reserves

If any gransnetter wants to sign the petition, he/she can easily do so without having to post here first or, indeed, at all.

We can only know the opinions of those who post them. To suggest that any of us can speak for those who don't post is both absurd and arrogant.

Thanks Penstemmon I think that sadly efforts to develop infrastructure have been going on for years, often with little progress. It is cultures and ideologies that have to change and this is something that we, who live within a different paradigm cannot do. See what the West's attempt at democratisation of Arab countries has resulted in.

Oh joelsnan do not gt me started on that! My grandmother was a Palestinian Arab and the cause of a large amount of the problems in the Arab world is Western interference and colonisation!

Joelsnan, you seem to forget about the history of the empire, and all the problems that the western world has caused in less developed countries.
That alone gives our government reason to give foreign aid to them.
I am thinking of countries like India and most of Africa.

Indeed durhamjen!

Durhamjen ii am quite interested in history.�� If you research those countries which were UK colonies. I think you may find that relative to the countries around them that we're not part of UK colonisation they are much better off. The infrastructure was well developed, many are better educated. Many have maintained the same systems that were brought by the Brits. Unfortunately there are stronger cultures of social structures, bribery and corruption within some of these countries which prevent the evident wealth being distributed effectively.

I think the western world did (and does) a lot of good in places like India and Africa. I don't think it was all bad, nor even bad on balance, though I know there were bad things done and bad consequences of things done. But there were bad things before "the western world" got involved in those places as well.

I'm not in favour of diverting foreign aid back here.

Also the West is very sure that it's style of democracy is perfect and should be promoted! To develop a democracy it takes a lot of domestic upheaval , civil war and history to be gone through!

Don't forget we are a relatively new democracy... 1929 when women got equal franchise

Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (November 11, 1947); in Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 (1974), vol. 7, p. 7566.

Ninny -You you actually said "a lot of Gransnetters" - not some. I agree with absent when she says we can only know the opinions of those who post them and to try to suggest that anybody can speak foir those who remain silent is plain daft absurd.

Since when did agreeing with anybody constitute being "cliquey"? It would be the same as construing any disagreement as "bullying".

You have demonstrated very well, Joelsnan, the effect of colonialisation.
Strong cultures of social structures of bribery and corruption which prevent the evident wealth being distributed effectively - sounds just like the UK.

Thatbags, 12 years a slave has just won the bafta for best film. Haven't seen it, but I am from Hull.
Slavery a good thing in Africa? Diamond mining? Coffee?
You read different things to me.

durhamjen don't forget that slavery came about because these poor people were offered for sale by their own.
This process is still rife, the evident chains may not be there, but thousands are still being sold into slavery within that region, often by the same countries who were selling in 18c.

The UKs history of treating its own lower classes at this time was little or no better than those of the African slaves. Transportation to Australia, in the mines, in the mills and on the land, press ganged, however the misery and injustice of these practices is not as well publicised. The only saving grace in this instance is that they weren't sold by their own families, but they were often held in tithe.

If you study colonisation you will note that apart from slavery, there was a lot of movement of 'colonial' people during this period who moved of their own accord to work. There are still large colonies of Indians in the former African colonies, in the West Indies, Indonesia etc. who migrated during this period, these were the economic migrants of the day.

Joelsnan Slavery started because rich western European nations wanted to use their Caribbean and American colonies to supply them with sugar and cotton etc and needed labour for that purpose.

Britain in particular was heavily involved in this trade.

Yes, the indigenous West Africans exploited this. However there would not have been the demand for locals to capture and exploit the people, probably other local tribes, to sell as slaves if "we" had not created the demand and funded the transport in the first place.

Hi Nellimoser Europeans did not invent slavery. I think you will find that this practice was commonplace in these countries for hundreds of years before the concept was sold to the European. It was considered a legal practice in these countries.
Yes Europeans took on the concept, but eventually realised that it was immoral. Slavery is still rife in these countries.