RORY STEVART is an engaging man who has admitted that he was not cut out for politics.
“It brings out the worst in me,” the former Tory minister — who once had a crack at becoming party leader — said this week. “I thought it was bad for my brain, my body, my soul.”
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Maybe he should have been more transparent with the public when he was in government.
He did, after all, spend almost three years in the late and unlamented Department For International Development, spraying vast sums of taxpayers’ money around the world on absurd projects that he now admits were often “wasteful and paternalistic”.
This might seem a shocking admission — especially when he also told the BBC that “a lot”His ministerial duties were exemplary. “waste of time”.
Yet shortly before he joined the Cabinet in May 2019 as DFID Secretary, Stewart made a similar scathing critique of Britain’s dismal aid policies in a lecture, saying that “not a great deal has been achieved”With the billions of dollars distributed each year.
He said it was wrong for Westminster to think that they could use development cash in order to instill stability in conflict-ridden countries. He also dismissed the popular notion that foreign donations can create employment in poor areas and highlighted some examples of very scandalous waste.
This included Britain giving £4.5billion over half a century to the impoverished African nation of Malawi, a country corroded by corruption and bad governance, although it ended up “if anything, poorer than it was when we started”He told Yale University.
FRITTERED AWAY
Both times, he was right to criticize such a scathing manner. Britain’s aid policies are at best farcical, at worst a fraud perpetuated on the public by foolish politicians who pretend they are saving the world when billions are frittered away.
Stewart, however, pushed the same failed policies that his predecessors while he was in office.
A consensus was reached around the idea of aid, in the deluded belief it made a disgraced political elite at Westminster seem a little more caring.
They just appear naive. This exposes their ignorance of development, grotesque complacency towards dictatorship, and a contemptible refusal listen to disgruntled electorates.
We spent £11.5billion on foreign aid in 2021.
It is not surprising many voters, facing the worst cost-of- living crisis most can remember, are puzzled to see their hard-earned cash go to help African despots — even a blood-stained Rwandan dictatorship that sponsors Arsenal.
They are puzzled as to why, with our social care being crippled by chronic underfunding and our ability to provide for our needs, their taxes were used in order support brutal North Korean regime officials.
Westminster politicians love to hide behind compassion, cheered by the fat and self-serving aid sector led by former Labour minister David Miliband.
Incredibly, Miliband earns more than $1million a year as the grandly titled president of International Rescue Committee — a major recipient of British aid — while begging for funds.
Or trawl the accounts of Save the Children International, another charity constantly demanding cash, and you will find an astonishing 82 staff on six-figure packages with at least six more UK-based executives earning more than £100,000. These folks are probably able to weather any cost of living crisis.
Yet only this week the charity — still restoring its reputation from sex scandal — was bemoaning that budgets for overseas aid projects are being slashed and children’s welfare risked due to funds used to assist the costs of Ukrainian refugees in Britain.
This sector howled with outrage when the Government finally ditched the absurd and outdated aid target — although it was, sadly, only a temporary cut from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of gross national income to help cover the costs of the pandemic.
A consensus was reached around the idea of aid, in the deluded belief it made a disgraced political elite at Westminster seem a little more caring.
If Liz Truss is elected PM, she will likely resist the temptation to restore the target.
Stewart acknowledged that aid is often a lie. It would be great if aid worked. But it merely creates the false impression there are simple solutions to some of the world’s most complex and intractable problems.
It is harmful to send aid to countries that are in dire need of it, even though this was the argument of a Nobel-winning economist.
If governments are dodgy — whether due to theft, incompetence or despotism — floods of foreign money can simply inflame their systemic problems, foster conflict and can actually undermine democracy. Look at Afghanistan’s two-decade-old debacle to see how foreign money can have a devastating effect on a country that is fragile and conflict-ridden.
Sometimes, Western aid was more valuable than the entire economy. Yet donors ignored electoral fraud, trafficking of child sex slaves and creation of a grotesquely corrupt mafia state, thereby assisting the Taliban’s return.
If aid was effective, I wouldn’t begrudge helping those in greatest need.
However, despite what politicians may say, or whatever bogus statistics they might spout, don’t be fooled into believing that the largest beneficiaries are the most poor or those who risk their lives to promote democracy.
Instead, think about the fat-cat charity chiefs and power-mad despots. And the money launderers who clean up dirty money meant to aid the poor and dispossessed.
Ask yourself why politicians continue to defend the indefensible when they are in power.