Britain is one of the world’s most generous foreign aid donors (third in the world), and when you add in the private charitable donations Britons give, the amount of aid originating from Britain is stupendous. British taxpayers funded the rapid development of the AstraZeneca vaccine which will save millions of lives and the same taxpayers are paying for it to be distributed globally to the poorest countries for free or on a not-for-profit basis. Yet for some, this is still not enough.

The same people that claim millions of British children are living in absolute poverty, want Britain to borrow billions more to give in foreign aid to governments that don’t look after their own people. Giving aid to states that prefer to prioritise developing nuclear weapons or a space programme over the basic needs of their people is subsidising the wrong priorities. The primary mission of governments, at home and abroad, should be to look after their own citizens.