“Teem, I vant diss pamphlet to be my svansunk.” My conversations with the great Professor Peter Bauer were always rather fraught. Over sixty years after leaving Budapest, he still spoke with a thick Hungarian accent. On top of that, he was now hard of hearing. And I mumble a lot. Our conversations were always a bit stilted.
We were going through the proofs of his Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet, 50 Years of Failure, in which he elegantly summarised his life’s work analysing the futility – and often disastrous – consequences of international aid. It was Bauer who had come up with the memorable description of aid as “Poor people in rich countries giving money to rich people in poor countries.” (“I do not remember saying zat. But I am glad zat people think I did.”)
He was far from well. Eventually I worked out what he had said: “I want this pamphlet to be my swansong”. I muttered some meaningless reassurances. “NO! Zat is not true. I am dyink.”
I tried to change the subject. The pamphlet might have made the case against foreign aid brilliantly, I suggested. But was it politically possible, I asked hesitantly. This only made things worse. “You should not be vorried about zat! Zat is for the politicians.” His tone suggested that this was not a class he thought highly of. “You above all must, in ze words of ze newspaper, speek troose unto power.”
I was reminded of this conversation after seeing Melanie Phillips on Question Time last night when she made the case for abolishing DfID with her customary clarity, fearlessness and vigour.
For today the case against aid is even stronger that 12 years ago. At a time of economic crisis, we are spending £6.5 billion on DfID this year (a figure budgeted to increase to £11.5 billion in 2014/15). It is surely right to ask why we are doing this when we continue to face real and desparate poverty in this country? Remember that there are parts of Glasgow where life expectancy is lower than in the Gambia or the Gaza strip. And we all now surely recognise that the great leaps forward in fighting global poverty have come from free trade, good government and technological development.
But why stop with abolishing DfID? Last year, we also spent £18 billion a year on our contributions to the EU. And another £5 billion a year fighting a war which we know that we won’t win in Afghanistan. And another £12 billion in subsidies and loans which we probably won’t see again to prop up the euro and Ireland.
Now some of these policies may or may not be in our national interest. But the thing is that, according to various opinion polls, they would all be popular. Billions would be saved. And this could be used for really useful things, like reversing the proposed £29 million – million, not billion – cuts to the World Service. Or buying some planes to go on our aircraft carriers. Or greatly expanding and improving UK trade missions to the developing world and the Commonwealth. We would have fewer maimed and killed soldiers. Better defences. Stronger relations with the rest of the world. And enough saved to make a substantial dent in the deficit.
But there is a problem. These ideas may be popular in the country, but they are abhorred by the political class. This would all be isolationist. Extremist. Little Englander. Xenophobic. Trying to turn the clock back. Bonkers.
Maybe the political classes would be right. But remember what they said about anyone opposing the UK’s entry into euro. That they were isolationist. Extremist. Little Englander. Xenophobic. Trying to turn the clock back. Bonkers.
