Burnham: Charity Begins Abroad

Those in the know will be aware that I’ve been away in Asia for rather more than a “short stretch”. I stopped counting after the first decade: once you’ve got your Blue Peter Odyssey badge, what else is there left to win? My brother was out here with me for a time. When he finally made the return voyage (shortsightedly, not in a dinghy), the first thing he said to me was: “You won’t believe the prices!”

He wasn’t wrong. With half a dozen eggs approaching two nicker, milk costing more than scotch used to, and butter pushing up towards a Pavarotti (tenner), the weekly shop is looking more like the weekly rip-off. Add to that ‘shrinkflation’ and the general 28% increase in the cost of living over the last five years, and you start to feel like claiming asylum yourself.

I can only observe from afar, but my brother informs me that the mood at home is one of quiet despair. The country is on its knees in a way not seen since the 1970s. Nothing works. You can’t get an NHS appointment for love nor money (envy of the world indeed); the roads are now more pothole than tarmac; and anyone foolish enough to flash a mobile phone or a bit of bling on the street is likely to get a visit from the S.S. (Scooter Stasi).

So overall, I didn’t think Britain was feeling particularly flush. But clearly there’s a reason I’m not Prime Minister, because Andy Burnham’s profligacy with the public purse seemingly knows no bounds. Like the only working whore in a war-zone, he can’t give it away fast enough!

This week’s proposed act of beneficence is the plan (or at least the well-sourced rumour) that “Our Andy” intends to restore Foreign Aid to its marquee figure of 0.7% of GNI (gross national income) - a modest increase of £13 billion. The Downing Street sofas may struggle to cough that up. Labour backbenches remain furious at Starmer’s cut to 0.3%, leaving Burnham under pressure to instigate a shakedown at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and produce a roadmap back to the former level.

The UN yardstick of 0.7% was first set in 1970, coincidentally the year Burnham was born. Most countries have since reduced their commitments in favour of defence. In fact, only four currently meet the threshold: Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Luxembourg. To place Britain back in such exalted company, the PM would either have to increase borrowing or raise taxes - neither of which will prove very popular.

Thirteen billion quid is hardly chump change. Granted, it’s not quite in the region of a David Lammy expenses claim, but that kind of money could make a real difference domestically. It could pay for thousands more nurses and doctors, and begin to clear the NHS backlog. It could build the new prisons we so desperately need, rather than giving rapists and murderers a head-start to ease overcrowding. It could fund proper long-term shelters for the homeless - a cause Burnham claims to hold dear.

At the very least it could keep the French Border Force in the manner to which they have become accustomed (Château Lafite on tap and amuses bouches all round), if only the remains of the Entente Cordiale could be persuaded to stop the boats before they disembark. Any of these options would command some public support. Sending the money overseas, with precious little to show for it, will not.

The problem with prioritising Foreign Aid, particularly in a cost of living crisis, is that Britain already sends a generous sum abroad. Even after Starmer’s cut, that’s still £9.2 billion next year. The British government probably spends a similar figure (if not much more) managing the illegal migrants already here, because the long-term costs of welfare, crime, and pressure on public services are less discernible than the immediate costs of housing and healthcare. So acute is this strain, that Shabana Mahmood recently proposed paying failed asylum seekers up to £40,000 to leave the UK. For the record, I left Blighty without a farthing.

I must confess, I have never been convinced by the arguments for Foreign Aid. Back at the height of the British Empire, they would have made more sense. What serious claim can Britain now have to ‘soft power’ anywhere on the world stage, when both hard and soft power have hit postwar lows? Stabilising fragile states sounds good on the surface, but time and time again we have seen financial interventions wasted, or worse, directly funding terrorism. Reducing the drive for migration would seem genuinely in the national interest, but again - how likely is that when Britain’s welfare system is not only enormously attractive, but the Home Office (until recently) was granting asylum at three times the rate of France? The market dictates, and the boats simply keep coming.

There is an unmistakable bourgeois aloofness involved in these discussions, that the Red Wall is never going to forgive. Such myopia plays straight into the hands of the British Right, who will not find it difficult to highlight the hypocrisy. Here for instance is the multimillionaire Labour stalwart, Emily ‘Lady Nugee’ Thornberry, talking about the importance of Foreign Aid to combat climate change:

“I mean, we have been suffering ourselves this summer. But it’s as nothing compared to, for example, sub-Saharan Africa… We must do something about this. We have to make sure that we protect the forests.”

These are Fortnum and Mason concerns. Most of the country is worried about the weekly shop.

The crux of the matter is this: when Britain’s interests were genuinely served spending billions overseas, one could just about make the case for it. With Britain now importing the very problems Foreign Aid was designed to combat, every penny of that money should now be spent domestically.

Charity begins at home Mr Burnham, not abroad. And thanks to the government’s refusal to stop the boats, that now means Foreign Aid too.

Frank Haviland is the Editor of The New Conservative, and the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West.