The opinion poll, conducted amongst 24,000 people by the well-known consumer website moneysavingexpert.com, revealed a huge gap between the political class and the voters, said that website’s founder Martin Lewis.

“It seems that a huge chunk of the UK public follow the 'charity begins at home' philosophy when it comes to public spending,” Mr Lewis was quoted as saying.
“This perhaps signifies a division between the political classes and the person at home.
“It's stunning that the area of spending the government has chosen to make watertight is the one most people would choose to cut.”

The BNP was the first party to raise the issue of foreign aid as an area of concern and a place to start spending cuts.
In response to the BNP’s anti-foreign aid campaign, the other political parties made commitments to increase the aid spend and to ring-fence it.
This, they correctly believed, would mark their policies out as radically different to the BNP, a move it seems they might yet regret.
The poll also showed that only a quarter of voters wanted benefits to be cut while 20 percent wanted cuts to the defence budget.

Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said the government was “wrong to be ring-fencing international aid spending whilst the budget crisis at home in Britain is so bad.>br> “It is well known that plenty of our aid money is actually squandered by big charities and British trade unions or worse stolen by corrupt regimes,” Mr Taylor was quoted as saying.

In a soundbite which sounded like it could have come off the BNP website, Mr Taylor said that the “politicians are out of touch with the people on this issue, and the public rightly question why we send aid to China when they have men in space, nuclear weapons and a booming economy.”

International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has meanwhile called on EU nations to maintain their commitment to international aid, despite the financial crisis.
According to a press release issued on the Department for International Development’s website, Mr Mitchell, speaking in advance of his first visit to the EU Foreign Affairs Council, said:

“Five years ago EU nations made a promise to the world’s poor to work towards spending 0.7% of our income to help ensure people have access to the basics they need to survive such as water, health services and food.

“EU countries are important partners in the fight against poverty and need to show global leadership by meeting this pledge.

“We mustn’t balance the books on the backs of the world’s poorest and break this vital promise — doing so will mean more people will die from famine or lack of clean water. We have a moral duty to continue this work despite our own financial problems.”
Original article... HERE

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