Indian Astronaut Thanks Mitchell for Taxpayers’ Cash
Cafod, Oxfam, Action Aid and other assorted campaign groups have put together a little jamboree in Westminster where activists are demanding that the international aid budget goes up from 0.7% to 1%. At a time when the UK can’t even afford an aircraft carrier, most people are baffled by the idea of giving our money to nuclear powers like India and Pakistan. But at least they appreciate it right?
A spaceman from the Indian Space Research Organisation came along to say thank you to the taxman…
UPDATE: Guido and the spaceman were escorted out of the building so we were unable to speak with Cafod’s new comms hire Damian McBride. Nor could we hear Andrew Mitchell boast how much hard-earned taxpayers’ cash he is exporting to corrupt Mercedes-driving aid recipients.
Does our aid go to their space research?
When you stick your head up your arse is it dark up there?
Surely that space suit isn’t airtight? Needs looking at again, I think.
Good job it isn’t airtight. You’d want the farts to escape, wouldn’t you?
That’s a good point engineeer. Given the highly spiced diet of the Indian people, surely their space suits mut be fitted with pressure relief valves and non-return valves. Perhaps even a bursting disc.
Looks like it was designed in Pakistan for an Indian astronaut.
It looks like it was made by Indians
It is certainly not Guido or Harry in that suit, you can’t get them in XXXXXL.
You could call it “Passage to India”…
This is a national travesty, millions of old age pensioners will go cold because of the overseas aid and the underhand way the government adds 20% to our energy bills to subsidise wind farms and their green agenda. These political cowards are prepared to let energy companies take the blame for high prices when 20% of it is taken by them and then the TOTAL amount is then further taxed. Put the green tariff on our bills so the public can see what the government is taking from them.
66% taken for fuel duty to drive cars and about 25% taken from our energy bills including tax. Give us our money back.
McClegg, Huhne and Cameron need to be held to account for their improper use of our money to finance their fanciful green ideas that are a waste of taxpayers money.
Scrap Offgem it is a complete waste of money- after all Cameron and Co were going to scrap quangos.
They also have the bare faced cheek to reduce winter fuel allowance from RPI to CPI- the rationale given by Webb DWP minister was to take out mortgage payments. MPs will say anything and have no shame in doing so.
Blair on Dr Kelly’s death this morning exemplifies the point. He has no shame or guilt for his disgraceful conduct in office. I wish Dr Frost every support in getting the High Court to over rule Grieve’s decision for a proper and full inquest. When will politicians accept they need radical reform because they can not be trusted.
Borrowing £11.5 billion to give away to corrupt regimes is madness but makes these stupid politicians feel good. Another £10 billion net to the EU which could be used on our borders to stop the 650,000 immigrants last year alone. Our stupid politicians should stop issuing any visas for “students” and their families (350000), yes families, until you have secured our borders and got rid of the Human Rights Criminals Charter. They should also be made to pay for their treatment on the NHS and any other services they use but have made NO contribution.
We want our in/out EU referendum CaMoron. Do what we want, not what you want, asshole!
A simple fact for stupid politicians. Co2 is 0.036% of the earths atmosphere, is a natural occurring trace gas that comes in the main from volcanoes, our oceans and animals. Solar activity has reduced over the last decade, it in turn has effected the jet stream that impacts weather! There has been no warming for over a decade. We don’t need windmills!!
Its money – you can’t tell where it goes – only that a budget line was spent ( unless its the EU and then you can’t even be sure of that ).
The Indian govt spends money on mega death projects like Nukes and a space program whilst its citizens sleep ont he central reservations of busy roads.
UK taxpayer money subsitutes for money they should be spending, but can then afford to by Jaguar, Corus etc etc…
RRAAAAACCCCIIIIIISSSSSSSTTTTTT
You will be summoned to my court of public opinion and charged with being a little Englander.
Not directly I guess, but they can use the money they would have otherwise felt pressurised to spend on their poor for space reasearch and nuclear weaponry. Oh, and on aircraft for their carriers.
John, you must be the world’s only living brain donor.
I’d rather have Oliver Reeds liver, or Lembit Opiks face in all honesty.
Next it will be Mr 10% (Pakista* President), he gets 10% of every thing that happens in that country.
Courts
Further information: Court system of Pakistan
In 2010, 69% of those surveyed reported that they or someone in their household was subjected to an act of corruption when interacting with the judicial system. Of 339 affirmative respondents asked to identify the actors involved in corruption, 119 said court employees, 84 said a public prosecutor, 50 said a witness, 44 said a judge, 29 said an opponent lawyer, 16 said magistrates, and 12 said others.[5][6]
[edit]Education
Further information: Education in Pakistan
As of 2010, 24% of those surveyed reported that they themselves or a family member received educational admission through non-normal means. This was most commonly reported to be through an influential relative, followed by “additional money to be paid other than donation”, by means of political influence, through a private tutor or faculty member, or by donation. Following admission, 32% reported facing corruption after admission, which was most commonly orchestrated by a teacher, a management committee, or an invigilator.[6]
[edit]Health care
Further information: Health care in Pakistan
In 2010, 42% of surveyed individuals reported gaining access to hospital services by a method other than standard admission, and 48% reported either having to pay additional costs for essential services or being forced to utilize the services of a designated affiliate. Of the respondents who were asked to identify which parties orchestrated the corrupt acts, 61% reported hospital staff, 25% reported doctors, and 13% reported nurses.[6]
[edit]Law enforcement
Further information: Law enforcement in Pakistan
According to 2002, 2006, 2009 and 2010 surveys, the majority of respondents consistently view the police as being the most corrupt sector of Pakistani government. In the 2010 survey, 31% of 4,224 respondents reported paying bribes to the police.[6]
In 2005, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ordered an investigation into claims by a 23-year-old woman who alleged that, in retaliation for attempting to reveal police corruption, police falsely detained her for fifteen days and raped her.[7]
As of 2010, videos captured of officers taking bribes in various locales such as Peshawar and Quetta have been uploaded to YouTube.[8][9]
[edit]Public utilities
Further information: Electricity sector in Pakistan
As of 2002, 96% of surveyed individuals reported corruption issues with electrical utility officials during the past year.[5] The most common types of corruption were billing related. Some consumers admitted to illegally reducing their utility bills, while others reported being harassed with inflated bills intended to solicit bribes. Out of the pool of corruption-affirmative respondents, 71% reported that money was “demanded directly by the actor”.[5]
[edit]Taxation
Further information: Taxation in Pakistan
According to the 2002 study, 99% of 256 respondents reported facing corruption of taxation. Furthermore, 32% of respondents reported paying bribes to have their tax assessment lowered, and nearly 14% reported receiving fictitious tax assessments until a bribe was paid.[5]
[edit]
too long
Just read every other word, you’ll get the gist of it
It as long as aid UK government give them
Summary:
Pakistan is completely corrupt.
Eh?
@John – don’t be daft, of course it doesn’t. Indians aren’t that stupid.
The aid goes to the poor and this enables the Indian Government to channel the money they could have used for feeding their people, to their space program.
Jeeeesus!
Maybe we need to cut the NHS budget too, sack a few lazy staff…
http://nationaldeathservice.blogspot.com/2011/06/ice-ice-baby.html
Good dog Cameron. You WILL obey me & give away taxpayers money – or I will get my husband to organise the Pilgrims to take to the streets.
Your wife dearie. Jack(ie) Dromey won on an all woman shortlist.
Foreign aid.
Taking money from the poor in rich countries to give to the rich in other rich countries.
scrap it. Cut taxes. let US choose how we spend our own money and who we give it to.
Excellent work, these do-gooders should f*ck off out of politics, it’s great that they obtain voluntary donations and try to do good with it but the donations should be voluntary.
Some of the wages at Oxfam are ridiculous, no taxpayer should ever have to fund ‘charity’ workers on 50 k/year.
Has anybody questioned the excessive salary of the CEO of Oxfam?
I hope they’re spending it on British equipment…
Do we make anything any more?
wars?
So British companies pay crippling rates of job-destroying tax to the government, the government keeps a big slice and gives the rest to the Indian government on condition that India gives some of it back to British companies.
Why does this not make economic sense?
The law of diminishing returns.
You have made me rich.
One day we may have to drill into your reserves
Dave mate, do something right and remedy this hideous stituation please.
I don’t want my tax pounds funding a nuclear arms race.
If the Indian ruling classes choose to spend their money on nuclear bombs and spacecraft instead of their poor then that is their shame and absolutely not our problem.
There are genuinely poor countries in the world without space or nuclear programs. Give the money to them.
It’s the right thing to do! (ad nauseam)
It started in India
Torry Bare has lost a bit of girth
Thtop taking the pith
You also forgot to mention that India is wasting a fortune on rolling out biometric ID cards to the population, same crap that Labour wanted in the UK.
They may have more success developing the ICT – so we can use it next time Liebour comes to power (in 1000 years).
Fizzy drink time
What the hell do they need id cards for ?
Just get a load of post-it-notes, start writing down Patel01, Patel02, Patel03 etc and stick them on their forheads
There’s a lot of your family here tonight….
Get me a migrant to bring me some strawberries and potatoes.
Let them eat strawberries and Potatos
Don’t be ridiculous, they’re immigrants, they just pick them.
Does that mean we get free curries for a while now?
Most curry houses are owned/staffed by Bangladeshi’s.
Strange how you never see a white person working in a curry house. is dey racists? Or are naan breads really tough to make?
I learnt in new labour school dat only white english are racist slave owners. our island region of the great EU will be multicultural and vibrant when all white english are extinct.
The English as a race, are not worth saving.
I know that is how Jack and his labour co-religionists think, because only about 16% of the English vote labour.
Some say he is happiest in a space rocket. All we know, is he’s called the Stig
what annoys me is that thier own billionaires do not care to assisting thier own poor when thye clearly could, so why should we give them money.
they should remember the maxim of andrew carnegie ” a man who does rich dies a disgrace”
That won’t go down well here.
It will not go down well with me either.
All the millionaires are involved in the corupt IPL and the chicken owners are about to screw Blackburn rovers.
True enough. Remember the outcry about Lord Ashcroft, yet labour’s Lord Paul was far worse and he still claimed hundreds of thousands in various expenses. Lord Aschroft never claimed so much as a penny!
We should not be paying India a single penny in aid. They already produce and export more than us and own a big chunk of our Auto industry.
They should be giving us foreign aid!
Is that Old Holborn’s new costume?
I’d say its certainly not Guido I or Guido II in there.
Unless it’s like the TARDIS – bigger on the inside than outside …
WOW thats taking a tin hat to the extremes
Actually, it is me
The truth is, we’ll never know.
Don’t forget me. Inquest decision due today. Keep up the fight if the decision is no. I need justice.
Not much chance of that i’m afraid my friend.
Attorney general says ‘no purpose would be served’ by separate inquest into death of weapons inspector in 2003
Grieve’s another spineless, dishonest pseudo-tory! Before the general election he gave the didtinct impression that he would be ordering an inquest into the death of David Kelly. Are there no real tories whose word you can trust? Then again, he’sprobably been leaned on by Wavey Davey and ordered not to rock the boat. CAMERON OUT!
Sadly, justice is no longer a valid purpose to be served.
No chance. The Establishment protects itself at all costs. No matter which party is in power, they will always cover up covert security service operations.
A penchant for dressing up? A massive dressing up box at his disposal? The spaceman is Old Holborn – am I right?!
Of course you fucking are.
Avoiding me Guido? Now why am i not suprised.
You forgot who controls the levers of power now, So Chris can carry on with his important work making Briton a cleaner, Greener and safer place to live in.
I would ask now that you stop your smears and concede defeat.
Oooh handbags at dawn (and sandals natch)
Jesus wept you are a pompous prick.
Britain – penis.
Are you in competition with Chris Huhne to see who can get their head the furthest up their own arsehole?
Thanks for increasing fuel prices 20% and thus fuel poverty with your green gaia tithe.
Mark Pack…never has a man said so much that mattered so little.
I don’t believe this is the real Mark Prick, no one is really such a sanctimonious arse… are they?
I think its just someone else producing a clever parody of an obnoxious, lefty cock jockey.
Mark Prick is, well a prick, but I doubt very much if this is his work.
Capitalise the ‘I’ in the first sentence. ‘Now’ is superfluous in the second, ‘So’ should not have a capital ‘S’, ‘Britain’ isn’t spelled ‘Briton’, ‘greener’ shouldn’t be capitalised, the sentence should end “in which to live”, not “to live in”.
Other than that, well done. Except for espousing economy-wrecking green legislation.
How do Liberal lefty types reconcile actively making poor people even poorer, whilst simultaniously making extremely rich people and corporations very much richer indeed, with their stated aim of a fairer society?
Are lefty Liberal’s all hypocritical liars?
Yes, mixed with gross incompetence and ignorance based delusions. They are too stupid to recognise the incongruous nature of their reality.
Although a contrived image it sums up neatly the moral and economic bankrutcy of the governments foreign aid program. Blair, Brown and Cameron weren’t and aren’t interested in the economic wellbeing of British people – they are far more interested in showing off in front of other politicians at big international conferences.
In this regard Cameron is identical to Blair and Brown.
Ain’t it the truth? Any chance of a crumb for a poor cripple from the O’bamacue?
The Brits space program is currently looking for life between George Osbourn’s ears.
Spend the fuckin cash on giving these fucks TB injections
Fucking TB is rife in fuckin east london, fuckin leicester, fuckin Slough, and several other fucking fird world fuckin shitoles
No spend the fucking cash on BORDER fuckin controls here
Slam em in the stockades til the next flight to dysentery central
Last time I flew to Delhi there was a deportee at the back of the plane. Just before take off he jumped out his seat and tried to get down the aisle. The coppers jumped on him, though.
Funny thing is, next time I saw him he was just wandering round Delhi airport on his own.
Thats very wacist and you have forgotten Rule No 1
Only the labour party is allowed to call them strawberry and potato pickers meanwhile if the daughter of a former PM points out a slight similarity to a dolly she is hounded for days by the left wing cnuts and the Zannu BBC until she loses her job.
BBC = LABOUR = HuhneZZZZ……………!!!
I say I say I say Jo Brand is so fat that not only is she a left winger but a right winger at the same time. I knows football I does!
Spend it on a carefully constructed repatriation policy, that encourages them to return to their country of origin and makes it financially impossible to remain in the UK without generating significant funds through either employment or investment.
You are forgetting two important words and one important institution.
1: European Union.
2: The ECHR.
We no longer have the right to enforce our own law.
Nope. We no longer have the right to OUR OWN LAW.
Could you clarify something for me?
Are you arguing that we shouldn’t give money in aid – for good things like vaccines, schools, food etc – of which 0.7% of our income is really not very much,
or
are you saying we shouldn’t give aid to countries who spend money on things like space programmes, and should make sure that they money we do give is spent on the right things?
Theres certainly going to be people agreeing with both.
But on the other hand if they really can afford a space programme they can afford to look after their own people.
+1 and with their own money
They don’t want to look after most of ‘their own’ because they don’t give a sh*t about them.
Are you talking about England or Indi a
Oh my golly gosh but there are a billion of us how can we possibly afford to cover anything
I’m saying taxpayers money should be spent solely on British citizens and that foreign aid should be solely voluntary.
Agreed.
Is that Neo-Guidos work clothes?
If this was a real Christian country then we should be giving 10% of GDP to the needy. This country will not be able to take collective absolution until we are bankrupt.
I’m Rowan and I’m an Archbishop you know
Stroking my beard, pontificating – though
I Live in a palace my pen is my sabre
I’m doing it ‘cos I’m batting for Labour
Somebody’s got to, Red Ed is defunct
In fact some would say Red Ed is a c**nt.
I must commend you on your choice of rhyming couplets.
but why are there 2 *s in the word – cuunt does not mean anything
Typo – sorry – I pray your forgiveness……….c*nt…..take it I’ve written it out 100 times as punishment.
Isn’t there some delicious irony in the Bearded One being allied to a party run by a Marxist/Atheist twat with his target, Cameron, being a Christian?
Rather like a Chief Constable speaking up for prisoner’s rights!
No foreign aid.
I object to my taxes going to support the wealthy abroad. Aid is the taxes of the poor of the developed nations supporting the wealthy in the 3rd world.
Whilst we are in shit street all monies currently expended under the .7% GDP target should be re-deployed to resolve social problems in the UK, prefably in the Home Counties, which has been used as a milch cow to support idle and indolent northeners.
As for these so-called charities, they are nothing more than business leeches and have forgotten the first precepts of “charity” which is the voluntary giving of alms. they want the money then they must the casr to private individuals and business not governments. The first and only role of government is to provide and support its own, not bloody foreigners a long way away.
yes. clearly the money should go on idle southerners housing benifit claims.
It doesn’t go to them it goes to rent-seeking land-lords.
So benefits end up subsidising the wealthy.
I’m sure thats what penfold was after.
Either that or more village halls.
They should be used to cut taxes.
Every time I see a pictiure of Andrew Mitchell –smug, careerist,holier than thou,self satisfied, arrogant,etc.–I want to heave a half a brick at him. He’s smoother and greasier than Vaz !!
Me too. His shit fringe, gaping mouth and prefectual manner irritate me beyond belief. An utter shit to be selling us by the pound while the armed forces get fucked. Wanker.
India and Pakistan are rich nuclear nations that deliberately ignore their millions who live in poverty. Their governments don’t give a fuck about their own people and yet we keep giving aid to them which doesn’t even go towards helping those who need the help. This is beyond obscene.
At a time when we’re making cuts and trying to reduce the deficit, foreign aid should be stopped completely except for emergency relief for major disasters. There is absolutely no sensible argument for spending money on any foreign aid right now. A country’s first duty is to its own people. When the economy is in a better state, then we can give aid, though even then I’d oppose any aid to Pakistan, India and other corrupt regimes.
यह वास्तव में अंग्रेजी करदाता के बहुत तरह के फंड की मदद करना है हमारे छोटे विलासिता के कुछ.
नहीं एक समस्या कम से कम हम पिछले मूर्खतापूर्ण सरकार है कि बस उसे छोड़ दिया दूर करने के लिए वोट खरीदने की तरह नहीं हो
एड Miliband कुल Muppet है
לאזוביון הדגול פרחים קטנים ולא בולטים, המסודרים בתפרחות צפופות. בראש כל תפרחת ישנה ציצית של חפים סגולים. ציצית זו משמשת ככל הנראה כ”דגל” (מכאן שם המין) שמטרתו למשוך את המאביקים ממרחק, תפקיד שברוב מיני הצמחים ממלאים עלי הכותרת של הפרח.
Presumably some of this foreign aid / our money also goes to pay the staff who run such organisations as cafod.
Oh wait a minute , damianmcbride is employed by cafod and heavily involved in lobbying parliament for more money isn’t he?
That means therefore he’s back on our payroll after being kicked out by gordon for being found out for bullying!!!
All of them end up in sinecures sucking on the taxpayers teat.
Watch as one by one, the disgraced MP’s leave prison and are, having ‘paid their debt to society’ quietly absorbed into the mire of Quango’s and NGO’s they threw cash at while in office.
I made a compwete meth of PMQ yethterday. I weally am a total cathed Irwon muppet
Although if you’d watched the BBC’s 6 o’clock bulletin, you’d have been told that Ed was brilliant, and had Cameron on the ropes reeling from the brilliance of Ed’s questions.
I want some foreign aid up my botty.
If things are that bad, you could always ask Chris Huhnes bird for a go with her strap on?
Get your own
Somebody *here* in the UK is getting rich out of this money we are sending overseas.
Dunno if it is the heads of Oxfam and the rest, or the PR firms they employ, but we need to find out and target them for their hypocrisy.
I’m sure I get a consultancy fee somewhere. I have so many companies and partnerships to make sure that I pay no tax that I can’t keep track any more. Millions come in and yet Cherie blows it all on shopping sprees.
Oxfam has to raise millions just to pay it”s top excecutives.
As with all government sponsored pressure groups dressed as charities, the pampered elite who run them have very expensive, well travelled, lives to lead.
Who or what is Neo-Guido?
Guidos roving chubby but slightly cute reporter/assistant
Otherwise known as Hairy cola.
Cute? I didn’t know you’re a friend of Dorothy, Billy.
Also, why did Cameron and co jump on this bandwagon so enthusiastically before the election ?
Who offered them what in exchange ?
No, wrong.
Cameron is rightly afraid of Harriet Harmen & her husband. Her threat to bring the Pilgrims onto the streets in mass civil disobedience if the aid budget was cut is a red line that Dave dare not cross – no matter how insane it is to ask taxpayers to borrow to give it away.
Westminster just does not get it – & our tribal electorate will carry on voting red / blue / yellow ad infinitum until we are truly screwed.
Until?
OH has gone completely Dhoti!
May 28, 2007 Throughout India’s history, the vast majority of its people have lived in desperate poverty. As recently as 1985, more than 90 percent of Indians lived on less than a dollar a day. Yet India is poised to undergo a remarkable transformation. New research from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) shows that within a generation, the country will become a nation of upwardly mobile middle-class households, consuming goods ranging from high-end cars to designer clothing. In two decades the country will surpass Germany as the world’s fifth largest consumer market.
Most Indians don’t have a lot of options, and won’t benefit from this transformation.
It’s difficult to understand.
Since 1948 the population has quadrupled to 1.2B. Go forth and multiply comes to mind.
A heads up, windowlickers. Philip Schofield just said Cameron will be a guest on This Morning tomorrow.
And gordon the gopher will be interviewing osbourne.
That’s incredible
That photo tickled me, excellent.
Tonight’s Question Time panel reads like a Gallery of Horrors.
Andrew Mitchell
Charles Clarke
Jo Swinson
Germaine Greer
Peter Hitchens
Hitchens is great. He does righteous sarcasm brilliantly.
A little pompous, but he talks a lot of sense.
I always get the Hitchings bros confused – is he the one I like or the one I don’t?
Peter is the sensible one who advocates a return to democracy, free speech and the rule of law. Thus in the BBC worldview he is the extremist nut job.
Hitchens vs Greer could be a spicy contest – I like Peter he’s got a very sincere thread of outrage running through him which makes you smile…
Meanwhile, the idea that international aid goes to countries who are doing better than us is an interesting concept, to put it mildly…
http://outspokenrabbit.blogspot.com/
Looks like Peter Hitchens will have his hands full taking on that Liberal left leaning panel then.
They always outnumber right wing panelist’s deliberately, to make them seem like a minority, or extreme view. It’s pure Third Reich propagandising, the BBC know it and openly encourage it. You will NEVER see the reverse on any BBC program.
Only Guardian readers watch QT anymore – & only Pilgrims & the feckless & terminally unemployable gather in the audience.
Cough cough do they still ask for details if you are a member of a party? for practical research purposes of course cough cough
The BBC don’t even try any more do they? I mean to pretend to be balanced. 4 v 1 – Fox news manage better. Add in the left-wing audience they always have (anyone else remember when some fuckwit like Madelslime advocated joining the Euro and the audience went delirious with praise – yeah typical slice of England that?)
Audiences on QT are more properly described as pro-BBC rallies.
AFAIK you can write in to get a place in the audience. It’s always stuffed with Labour shills and effnix.
It wouldn’t be so bad if our PM WAS giving tax payer’s money to the Indians, but he isn’t.
He’s borrowing it, because we don’t have the money in the first place.
Until recently, he was giving financial aid to China.
The well-educated prick was borrowing money from China to give to China in aid. And then borrowing more money from China to pay the interest on the first loans.
And now he wants to increase foreign aid.
Just continuing a Brown policy i believe you will find…
which makes it less culpable presumably?
Rusty Dave – the Heir to Balir – he is Continuity Labour.
Real Tories will rejoice when he is ousted.
According to Government figures, most of the Government debt is actually being bought by British Banks. UK Treasury Bonds are unpalatable to foreigners and shunned by them because of uncontrolled UK inflation.
Bit of a cheek really for the Government to blame the Banks for not supporting the economy by lending to business.
The Banks don’t have any money left to lend because they are lending it all to the Government, (to give to India and others).
One has to conclude that the Conservative Party has seamlessly metamorphosed into the Monster Raving Loonies and that Cameron is actually a Doppelganger for Screaming Lord Sutch.
Good point, well made.
To hell with the turd world; I am living in it.
To hell with foreign aid; I am getting none.
To hell with the eu; we are bleeding to death.
Camoron is a traitor in serious need of tarring, feathering…etc. etc.
As expected, Dominic Grieve just said there won’t be an inquest into K elly’s death and said there’s overwhelming evidence it was suicide.
Blair and Campbell must have had their “pals” tell the govt what would happen if an inquest goes ahead. Or it could just be that it’s the establishment willingly looking after its own as usual. Either way, it’s a stitch up.
Whitewash by the Establishment. If there is nothing to hide, why has the report been buried for 70 years?
I’m a pretty straight sort of guy.
I’m not.
‘why has the report been buried for 70 years?’
So everyone involved who was alive when Dr. Kelly met his untimely end, will be either dead or errm…dead.
Couldn’t agree more. This will nothing to quell those that believe it was homicide. The government are just trying to bury a potentially explosive outcome. Arguably a new inquest might reveal the cause of death but it not what the establishment wants. Substitute establishment for government. There are potentially many dark forces involved here.
But US, European and Australian investors would do well to remember that India is very much another country – not least in how its private citizens buy and sell gold. It already has “the highest penetration of any other financial product,” as Kotak’s K.V.S Manian said in a recent interview. Gold reaches so deeply into India’s household finances, in fact, that private individuals in India are now thought to own between 13,000 and 15,000 tonnes of gold – up to 10% of the world’s entire above-ground stocks.
That’s a larger hoard than the US, German and French governments put together. India’s private sector swallowed one ounce in every five sold anywhere in the world last year!
I have one simple question.
Why has India got a space programme?
Vanity.
Why not? We don’t have to pay for it – you do.
Remember the Doctor Whos when the UK did have a space programme?
Why should the license fee payer here pay for their’s?
Cos the Clangers want a takeaway.
I hope that in the event of my death that I will be given a full state funeral.
Please do it quickly as I want to take the service.
I’ll pour the concrete overcoat. You needn’t wait to die.
State celebration more like.
you should be given a public execution
“Guido and the spaceman were escorted out of the building”
Frankly that is disgraceful. They are not interested in engaging with majority opinion.
How did this fanatical left wing international cabal of neo marxists gain so much power over the majority & OUR CASH?
DFID like the EU cannot & does not audit the money we spend.
How any Consewrvative can support AID at a time like this is beyond me – & is a primary reason why I am no longer a member or donor to the Tory Party.
Vote UKIP – end this insanity.
“Guido and the spaceman were escorted out of the building”
Should have kettled those 2 lowlife’s instead.
Quite right – we cannot have any dissent. All subversives from the marxist dream must be crushed by force.
You want popadums with that?
Surely the Public Accounts Committee could provide accounts showing exactly “who where when what and why ” the money was spent. Simps.
If the EU can sign off their accounts why can’t we?
And the sooner Guido Fawkes publishes his Nevis registered accounts,the better.
The EU accounts have not been signed off for sixteen years. It is a fraudulent entity, acting wholely without legitimate authority.
Please go back to Murphyland,Guido.
The UK is doomed and you know it,why not just admit it ??
Managers of global investment funds are switching away from the UK market. In April 2011, global funds were investing 32% of their assets in the UK market, down from 42% five years earlier, according to the Association of Investment Companies.*
ED BALLS IS RIGHT>>>>>>>>>>>
…..and 50% of investment funds underperform compared to the average.
“The UK is doomed…” Cheery chappie, aren’t you? Instead of rushing around shouting “the end is nigh”, how about doing something constructive to help, like starting a business, or getting a job in an existing business. Then you could contribute to the saving of the UK.
“Ed Balls is right” – seems that the only people who still believe that are Ed Balls and you. Time to wake up from your nightmare….
five years ago- 2006- before the crash of northern rock, the pound dropping like … err a rock. When the smoke and mirrors were all in place?
Ed Balls was indeed “right” at the time, he was getting away it.
I hate to piss in your water boys, but things are not looking good medium term at all. America and the Eurozone are both basket cases, if either go south and increasingly it looks likely, they take us with them.
Mercedeth will not buy themthelvtheth
My brother Rowan Atkinson writes all my lines.
There would be no concept of the third world at all were it not for the invention of foreign aid. Aid politicises economies, directing money into the hands of governments rather than towards profitable business. Interest groups then fight to control this money rather than engage in productive activity. Aid increases the patronage and power of the recipient governments, which often pursue policies that stifled entrepreneurship and market forces. Indeed, aid has proved an excellent method for transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
+1
In the case of India and Pakistan, money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in other rich countries.
Cameron is right to be afraid of Harriet Harmen & her husband.
Her veiled threat to get the Pilgrims to organise civil disobedience on the streets if the aid budget was cut was a red line that Cameron dare not cross.
So we have the tinman, but where is the yellow brick road? I ask because we must all be somewhere over the bloody rainbow to continue sending money to countries that have the spare change available for a nuclear program… Fail…
Any money sent overseas as aid by charities should be taxed at (at least) 50%.
O/T……..anyone know where Mr Bliar is, you would have thought he would have his hands full at the moment ?
We don’t want your f***ing aid… don’t you have your own slums and illiterates to deal with? F**kwits!
Two things Guido:
1. Check “Jane’s” and see how many ships there are in the Indian Navy and then compare numbers with the UK Royal Navy. Do the same comparison with the army and air force manpower and materiel. Military expenditure does not come cheap.
2. Why is it when I get an unsolicited call from a call centre, the person with the obvious Indian accent claims their name is “Keith” or “Rachel” or “Richard”? I don’t think they are kidding anyone but themselves.
But do they offer free delivery, chutney and an onion bhaji?
Because the people doing the jobs before they were ‘re-allocated’ were named Keith, Rachel and Richard,etc.
Just as repugnant as giving bilateral aid to a country with a nuclear weapons and space prog is this countries contribution to certain NGO’s individual hobby horses which happen to be fashionable at the time and which are not coordinated in any way. An example are the feministas who are trying to set the agenda and who are present at every ID event. Mitchell rambles on about how that 43% of oil reserves and around 18% of gas reserves are all to be found in the Third World. Great but the reason why we are dishing out cash to the same weak states, is because the problem is poor governance and infrastructure and pouring in cash is going to do jack shit unless you tackle those problems. So what if you give people the chance to live by providing good sanitation and a TB jab, they can’t get a job, the regime is sucking all life out of the country and the cycle of shit continues. They can’t expropriate those resources because no one wants to trade with a country where your staff could get kidnapped and whatever you try to export is at risk of being taken into harbour in Puntland by pirates. Plus over reliance on natural resources is a problem, those countries need to diversify their economies if we are going to have a chance of getting our moneys worth…maybe a space project in the Sudan is on the horizon? So much for the “comprehensive approach”. What is being done about the causes and consequences which perpetuate the cylcle of state failure that is what matters not just throwing cash at particular projects when you still have a despot in power or no internal order…hello… so if DFID are feeling so generous why don’t Mitchell and his staff set up a direct debit and put their money where their mouth is….
This article makes a fair point, that why should a small debt ridden country like the UK incur more debt to subsidise a large growing economy, if that economy can afford to spend money on Space programmes which we cannot.
I was going to make a counter argument, pointing out the local coolish war, and the need for each country to invest in defending itself, in much the same way we did in the Cold War and Second World War, when our children were living in poverty and often going hungry, but actually, that’s probably an argument for us not to economically support either countries war effort whether directly or by sending food to feed the people who’s government has chosen not to, in favour of investing in weapons and space programmes.
I still think there’s some hypocrisy here, but that doesn’t make the article’s point wrong.
We seem to be seeing a lot less of the there, their and they’re cock ups lately, but now we seem to be getting more countries/country’s and of/have cock ups. Anyone know why this might be?
PS: Include who’s/ whose too.
A year or so ago I mentioned here that I was unhappy at international aid being raised to 0.7% of GDP. I was told that it didnt cost us anything as the country got the money back due to some form of mystic boomerang which supported uk firms. Am I now to understand that this is not the case and that I was right 1st time that the government forces us to give up our hard earned cash in the form of taxes and then gives this money to foreign governments who dont realy need it while people here at home go cold and hungry?
Well, just for the record, the lobby wasn’t calling for the aid budget to go up to 1% of gni – it was calling for it to be ring-fenced at 0.7%, which is what all three major political parties pledged in their manifestos. Surely it’s fair enough to ask politicians to keep the promises they got elected on.