Alan Duncan, the Shadow for International Development has pledged to outspend Gordon Brown on foreign aid. “We will increase spending on aid. And by applying Conservative principles to the way this money is spent, we will make it more effective.” He’s plans to chuck an extra £800m a year at African despot’s Swiss bank accounts. African Mercedes Benz dealers can’t wait. The foreign aid budget will be £5.3 billion a year under the Tories. Something like £150 per taxpayer to fund gender sensitivity classes in Guatemala and condom rolling lessons in the Congo. Guido is all for humanitarian aid, even getting his credit card out for the Red Cross Tsunami appeal, but this is “development aid” which goes from relatively poor taxpayers in Britain to relatively rich corrupt bureaucrats in Africa via neo-colonial NGO workers driving around in air-conditioned four-wheel drives stopping only to sip afternoon G&Ts.

Since when has it been a Conservative principle to increase government spending? Has the libertarian author of Saturn’s Children had his body snatched by extra-terrestial socialists? Is the man who told us to accept “capitalism as the surest route to material prosperity” is now in favour of exporting socialism?

Thank God my doctor allows me to drink on Fridays.