Penny Mordaunt makes a good start on foreign aid – EXPRESS COMMENT
FOLLOWING this newspaper's Stop The Foreign Aid Madness crusade, new International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt has pledged to take action and has also said that in future the Government must prove that the money "cannot be better spent" on anything else.
Momentum reveals success of social media campaign
She is also sending a message to the countries which are the recipients of British aid, warning that the sums they receive will be slashed if they do not "take responsibility" and invest the money in their own people's welfare.
This is good news and a sign that ministers are finally becoming aware of the public's anger at the spending for spending's sake which characterises our development aid budget.
What Penny Mordaunt is unable to do is alter the commitment that allocates 0.7 per cent of national income to foreign aid. As Daily Express reader Robert Barnes has said: "What the public would like to see is the abolition of the 0.7 per cent target and the money spent at home."
While this is, for the moment, outside her remit she will make a case for the aid which saves lives after a natural disaster, which tackles malnutrition and which helps developing countries build up their own health and education infrastructure, enabling them to, as she says, "stand on their own feet".
Fair enough. But the public is sick of seeing money paid into the hands of chaotic and corrupt regimes
And last week a poll commissioned by the Daily Express found that 84 per cent of voters want foreign aid money to be diverted to help the NHS through its winter crisis.
That would be money well spent.
Related articles
No justice for little Poppi
A coroner has finally ruled that Poppi Worthington, the toddler who died in 2012, was sexually abused by her father.
This was the second inquest into the little girl's death and this hearing was told that an investigation by Cumbria Police was so badly handled that crucial evidence was lost.
Paul Worthington, her father, has never been charged and it looks extremely unlikely that he will ever face prosecution.
The police and the Crown Prosecution Service have not covered themselves in glory.
It is appalling that nobody will be called to answer for this poor child's death after almost six years.
----------------------------------------
Labour's been taken over
Labour moderates are in retreat as members of Momentum (the hard-Left campaigning group set up to support Jeremy Corbyn) won three places on the National Executive Committee.
We can now say goodbye to Labour as a mainstream party.
Let's make sure we never say hello to Corbyn in Downing Street.
