The Daily Mash comes up trumps:

“We don’t get any aid, says president of Bongobongoland”

We don’t get any aid, says president of Bongobongoland

Wasn’t he referring to the late, great sainted Richard Feynman? I’d like to think of him in his new sunglasses, racing his Ferrari on open roads and explaining quantum electrodynamics.

Sounds like a good use of our money but I didn’t realise the government could send money to the afterlife.

It’s mostly just an instrument for achieving our strategic objectives (‘resource security’ etc), which may or may not have the added bonus of promoting democratic values.

From my minor experience of working on UK-funded child protection projects in Eastern Europe – abused children not owning much oil – I’d say that was bollocks and invite you to present some evidence.

Surely as cyclists we should all be agreeing with UKIP on this one.Why should we be giving money to these bongobongo muppets to splurge on RayBans when we all know Oakleys are far better.

I quite like the sound of bongo bongoland. I might emigrate 🙂

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYj5o4kQsXs[/video]

But there are questions to be asked about foreign aid. Why is the UK borrowing money to give to Pakistan when the Pakistani govt has enough cash to spend it on nuclear weapons? If a govt chooses to buy weapons rather than education/healthcare/food why should we borrow money to fill the gap?

So the UK is borrowing money………despite wanting to spending billions on the replacement for Trident nuclear weapons ???? I call that scandalous !!!!

It’s a fair question. Try not to think of it as aid, but as either payment, compensation (for use of airbases for example) or as a means of achieving strategic interests for less cost.

@grum – I always try for the best in things!

Wasn’t this the same guy who said firms shouldn’t employ women, because they might get pregnant?

I back on topic, I’m sure there is an argument that there possibly needs to be more checking where aid money is going, making sure it reaches the people in need. I don’t think dismissing ‘most’ aid as being misspent in ‘Bongobongo Land’ is possibly the most constructive way of making that argument. It could even be construed as being a weeny bit racist….

More to the point, what is the size of the place? Compared to Wales, obv.

I’d assumed they were one and the same place.

China pours billions in aid to “Bongobongo Land”.

China commits billions in aid to Africa as part of charm offensive

“In Liberia, China has put millions towards the installation of solar traffic lights in Monrovia and financed a malaria prevention centre. In Mozambique, China’s projects include a National School for Visual Arts in Maputo. In Algeria, construction has begun on a multimillion dollar 1,400-seat opera house in the Ouled Fayet suburbs of western Algiers.

China has also sent thousands of doctors and teachers to work in Africa, welcomed many more students to learn in China or in Chinese language classes abroad and rolled out a continent-wide network of sports stadiums and concert halls.”

Of course the difference is the UK government is just a bunch of bleeding heart do-gooders who deliberately spunk taxpayers hard earned money on ungrateful greedy foreigners as part of a Marxist inspired agenda, whilst the Chinese on the other hand do it because they are cunning, devious, and slightly yellowish in colour.

No UK government would take part in a “charm offensive”, perish the thought.

Well Gorgeous George just made him look very foolish on R2 just now.

Wasn’t this the same guy who said firms shouldn’t employ women, because they might get pregnant?

well he does look incredibly virile and be fair who could resist 😉

Hmm, while I’ve never agreed with anyone from UKIP before I bet if you asked 100 people in the street whether they’d be happy with their (tax) money been spent on another country while we were borrowing money (consequently generating interest) to cover the cost of it – you’d probably only have a handful who’d think it was a good idea.

In fact, who here gives to charity while they still are increasing their debts – and is this really sensible?

well he does look incredibly virile and be fair who could resist

Indeed, my ovaries are practically popping like microwaved Butterkist at the mere sight of his photo!

*blorf*

TBH even I am tingling down their and I am straight

I bet if you asked 100 people in the street

Well as I looked up the research when someone else claimed similar on the other thread on this all I will say is how much would you like to give bet me ?

It was 60 % supported the principle though there was debate on the amount FWIW

So the UK is borrowing money………despite wanting to spending billions on the replacement for Trident nuclear weapons ???? I call that scandalous !!!!

Well whether the Trident replacement is needed is another argument. If it is then it gets paid for from the UK taxes and borrowing. Borrowing to finance essential UK spending – OK though ideally the budget should balance. Borrowing to give money to other countries who spend their own cash on nuclear weapons – foolish.

Well as I looked up the research when someone else claimed similar on the other thread on this all I will say is how much would you like to give bet me ?

Link?

Well whether the Trident replacement is needed is another argument. If it is then it gets paid for from the UK taxes and borrowing. Borrowing to finance essential UK spending – OK though ideally the budget should balance. Borrowing to give money to other countries who spend their own cash on nuclear weapons – foolish.

UK aid to India will cease in 2015 I think?

So that just leaves Pakistan. Which despite its nuclear weapons isn’t exactly stable and is probably in our interest for it to become stable. I think a small amount is sent to China as well.

Further to that, a good chunk of aid goes straight into UK business. Via the gonad.

But data compiled by the Guardian shows the vast majority of DfID’s contracts are still going to companies based in the UK. Of nearly 120 major contracts and procurement agreements (together worth almost £750m) published on the government’s contracts portal since January 2011, only nine include non-UK firms among the grantees. An Indian company, Kran Consulting, is the only firm from a developing country on the list to win a full contract.

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2011/mar/01/uk-cuts-aid-poorest-countries?intcmp=239

To be honest, I don’t think the comments from the Ukip geezer this morning have anything to do with whether UK foreign aid is a worthwhile investment or not.

Im off the opinion It’s about appealing to the a section of the electorate that may easily be swung to voting for Ukip. Or reinforcing the support of those that already do. None of it struck me as a genuine attempt for debate. Just political points scoring of exactly the sort that Ukip frequently complain about being directed at themselves.

Seven in 10 people believe the UK spends too much on international aid,

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/political-news/most-think-uk-foreign-aid-budget-is-too-high.20407489

Link?

I almost cheekily just linked you to the thread 😉

Its mixed though – folk tend to support it yet they tend to want it cut and overestimate what % we give [ 0.7% GDP] would be a fair one line assessment

http://www.ippr.org/images/media/files/publication/2012/06/public-attitudes-aid-development_June2012_9297.pdf

upport for aid has often been
characterised as ‘broad but shallow’,
with Smillie (1999) describing it as
‘a mile wide and an inch deep’. In
September 2010, an opinion poll found
that a majority (62%) of respondents thought
it was morally right to support developing
countries, but a similar proportion thought aid
budgets should be cut to help reduce the fiscal
deficit (Henson and Lindstrom, 2011).

I am not claiming it has universal support or the support cannot be debated or even argued I am simply rejecting the only a handful support it aspect.

EDIT: As you note it is also highly dependent on the question asked and the economic climate

That link is poor in substantiating it claim and simply states them without any explanation – i tried to find the actual survey but their website is poor as well

Foreign aid is one of those subjects which people are notoriously misinformed about.

Teenage pregnancy, crime, job-seekers allowance, benefit fraud, and foreign aid, are all subjects which papers like the Daily Mail like to tell their readers the “shocking truth” about.

Only they don’t.

Instead they deliberately mislead their readers and tell them a whole bunch of half truths, lies, and omissions.

As a consequence people express opinions on matters that they actually know very little about.

Perceptions are not reality

26% of people think foreign aid is one of the top 2-3 items government spends most money on, when it actually made up 1.1% of expenditure (£7.9bn) in the 2011/12 financial year. More people select this as a top item of expenditure than pensions (which cost nearly ten times as much, £74bn) and education in the UK (£51.5bn)

And the situation is no different in the United States.

American Public Overestimates U.S. Foreign Aid

Asked to estimate how much of the federal budget goes to foreign aid the median estimate is 25 percent. Asked how much they thought would be an “appropriate” percentage the median response is 10 percent. In fact just 1 percent of the federal budget goes to foreign aid. Even if one only includes the discretionary part of the federal budget, foreign aid represents only 2.6 percent.

Of course people are going to express the opinion that foreign aid is excessive when they have been repeatedly mislead about the actual facts.

The US opinion poll shows how people can in fact believe that foreign aid should be at a higher level than it actually is in reality.

But hey, well done the right-wing gutter-press…….another triumph of ignorance over truth for them.

I’d kick his back doors in for a pie and a pint of mild..

I’d kick his back doors in for a pie and a pint of mild..

Assuming that’s a sexual euphemism.

I’d kick your back doors in for a pie and a pint of mild..and some Scampi Fries to clinch it.

awwww thanks mate… I’m all embarrassed now, it’s a long time since I’ve been romanced.. 😳

😀

To b fair Harrods and most of them fancy shops in that there Londinium would have gone teets up and becom tanning salons and crap tat shops if we hadn’t ring fenced foreign aid.

He had an interesting interview on Channel 4 tonight, took out his ear piece in the end, played the ‘I’m 63 we say this sort of thing card’ and asked what the fuss was about, which was of course the fact Farage had some italian racist thrown out for using exactly the same term.

So a bit silly, a bit of an ego maniac refusing to back down, but at the end of the day another sad example of free speech eroded in pc correct political witch hunting. So he said bongo bongo land who exactly is that offending?

I’m offended that we are borrowing so much money to waste on this and any number of other subjects, I can’t say I’m particularly offended by the bongo bongo quote, just think he’s a bit stupid, a shame it’s clouding the debate.

So he said bongo bongo land who exactly is that offending?

Somewhere way way above your head is the point.

There is a Daily Mash article that might help.

Care to read it to me?

Only if you wear a dress and sit on my knee

So he said bongo bongo land who exactly is that offending?

Is it everyone but racist idiots?

A person using the term “Bongo Bongo Land” does not offend me. I am not a racist or an idiot. The guy who this discussion has a valid point, but he just put it across like the inbred that he is. That’s what happens when close family members have kids with each other.

As bongo bongo land does not really exist we can only assume he was referring to a country or countries where the predominant skin colour is black and therefore any discussion about said country by anyone outside of the leftist school of thought must be immediateley condemned as a racist, in fact anyone who is not of the left is a racist, its a fact, they are also idiots and thats a fact as well!

26% of people think foreign aid is one of the top 2-3 items government spends most money on, when it actually made up 1.1% of expenditure (£7.9bn) in the 2011/12 financial year.

So about £250 per taxpayer?

Now go ask everyone whether they’d like to knock £250 off their income tax next year.

And the ‘fact’ that the money is spent on British industry is a red herring, as that will just mean another transfer of cash through to shareholders and Execs.

As bongo bongo land does not really exist we can only assume he was referring to a country or countries where the predominant skin colour is black

Indeed this must be what most folk assume he meant

and therefore any discussion about said country by anyone outside of the leftist school of thought must be immediateley condemned as a racist, in fact anyone who is not of the left is a racist, its a fact, they are also idiots and thats a fact as well!

Why not just defend it’s use? Farage did not want to, is he part of the left as well now ?
An Attack on the left because of the language used by the man on the right is frankly laughable and says more about you than them.
You are the Daily Mail and I demand my cure for cancer

Now go ask everyone whether they’d like to knock £250 off their income tax next year.

Why? we have studies about what we think about foreign aid – we dont need to discuss thought experiments nearly related to the topic when we have actual data we could discuss.

I am naive in assuming that the majority of our foreign aid goes to help those less fortunate than us? Radio 4 states that the bulk of aid sent to Pakistan helps kids go to school rather than buying F15’s as claimed.

Why not just defend it’s use? Farage did not want to, is he part of the left as well now ?
An Attack on the left because of the language used by the man on the right is frankly laughable and says more about you than them.
You are the Daily Mail and I demand my cure for cancer

I am not defending its use, what makes you think that unless i have upset your leftist sentiment, you are the gnurdia and i claim my bus pass 😆