Ministers have ended funding for an all-female pop group dubbed Ethiopia’s Spice Girls following a furious backlash from Conservative MPs.
Yegna, a five-strong pop group, was promised £5.2million of taxpayer’s money to develop a “branded media platform”.
Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, has now moved to end the funding amid concerns that it is not value for money.
What worries though is that there is an aid spending system which thought that this was a valid use of money. So, what other horrors lurk in that system?
I read some drivel somewhere about this being about helping to empower women in the region. I’m sure giving £5.m directly to those women would be much better use of the money.
But what about cultural appropriation, isn’t this the new bête noire of the left and we shouldn’t be forcing our culture on to others?
What the f**k are Ethiopia’s Spice Girls supposed to be anyway?
Dysentery Spice? Fly-sh!t Spice? FGM Spice?
At least Priti put an end to it. Or was told to.
Hallowed Be,
I quite like Priti Patel, but she’s not up to the job. We all know the state of International Development, that money was spent just to spend it. First day in that job, she should have been demanding a single paragraph summary of every grant being paid.
But really, just shut it down. If there’s disasters around the world, send the military to help.
BiW- I expect she did but the summary wasn’t put in daily mail headline form by her officials which arguably they should if that is what you will be paying notice to.
Probably nothing on this scale, but many, many more smaller outrages.
What BiW said.
If there’s a disaster you want tough guys who know how to move supplies around, build temporary accommodation quickly, protect themselves and others, and deal with traumatic injuries. That’s the military. So move some DfID cash to defence and close the former down.
Development is none of our business, given that Nobel-winning Angus Deaton fellow proved it does more harm than good.
How to spend the government foreign aid money: charge against its budget –
(i) The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; SOAS,
(ii) The cost of third world students studying in Britain,
(iii) A chunk of the costs of the FCO and the Home Office,
(iv) An estimate of the costs to the NHS, education, and housing budgets of all the third-worlders living in Britain or using the hospitals and GPs,
(v) Whatever fraction of the Defence Budget that can plausibly be attributed to expected spending relating to Krapistan and Shitholia i.e. practically all of it.
I imagine that that lot would more than consume the whole aid budget. Job done.
(vi) Deduct the amount of all voluntary donations to charities involved with foreign aid from the starting budget.
Even if we accept that 0.7% of GDP should be spent on foreign aid, there’s absolutely no good reason why it must be taxpayers’ money on top of any voluntary donations already made.
Good point, BiW.
Heh, heh; and make sure it’s the income of Oxfam that’s used in the calculation, not the amount it claims to send abroad.
Good point BiW – direct foreign remittances ( i.e. money workers in the UK send to other countries, Eastern Europe, India etc ) is about 2.5x the amount of the DfID budget for hand outs according to the World Bank. The free market has this covered. Disasters and communicable diseases should still be covered by DfID imv, but not the development aid.
I would like to see people defend this AND criticise the deficit in social care. Live on TV in front of an audience (of normal people, not hand-picked trots by the BBC).
As to the argument often put forward that this money is used to buy British goods – why not just give it directly to British firms and avoid the half lost to corruption? Or in fact not tax it at all so people can spend it on British goods instead?
Dear Mr Worstall
“So, what other horrors lurk in that system?”
All of it.
DP
In the meantime actual things we could be spending money on in the Third World do exist and go unfunded. Africa has a massive infrastructure deficit for instance. Britain always wanted to build a Cape-to-Cairo railroad for instance. Well, why not? Apart from the fact it would just funnel a billion illegal immigrants into Europe. Why not a better road network?
But no, we have to spend money empowering women
The Mail says Britain is deploying troops to West Africa to help stop illegal immigration.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4096628/British-troops-deployed-Sierra-Leone-Africa-mission-halt-migrants-coming-Europe.html
As if. They won’t be allowed to do anything. However, if someone has got to pay for it, I hope it is us via DfID rather than us via Defence.
Incidentally the Mail also reports the older Blair sprog is quitting his City job to open a non-profit persuading children to do an apprenticeship rather than go to University. He wants a “socially motivated” career.
Anyone asked Blair if this is better than being a teacher? It is a poor outlook for society when looting the charitable sector with a second rate rip off of an American idea is a better and more rewarding career move than being a teacher.
From the Telegraph article, a DFID spokesman: “Empowering women and girls around the world remains a priority …” Why, of course. So much more important than well, you know, feeding and housing people, providing clean water, schools, hospitals, irrigation, the means to produce for themselves and a bit extra so they can get their kids educated and better their circumstances and advance their prospects, and bourgeois bullshit like that.
Can someone remind me: wasn’t the DFID funding some lesbian collective who were battling “climate change” in the same female-empowering way in China (or somewhere like that) a few years ago? I wonder if the same DFID minion’s dabs were all over that project as well.
Not value for money?
The mind boggles. By what metric had it previousky been concluded that it was value for money?
I like Priti Patel. But really, it took this long for her bullshit detector to cry foul…?
@Bloke in Wiltshire, January 7, 2017 at 9:50 am
“But really, just shut it down. If there’s disasters around the world, send the military to help.”
+infinty
@dearieme, January 7, 2017 at 12:23 pm
“How to spend the government foreign aid money: charge against its budget –
(i) The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; SOAS,
(v) Whatever fraction of the Defence Budget that can plausibly be attributed to expected spending relating to Krapistan and Shitholia i.e. practically all of it.
I imagine that that lot would more than consume the whole aid budget. Job done.”
+1
Bloke in Wales, January 7, 2017 at 1:02 pm
“(vi) Deduct the amount of all voluntary donations to charities involved with foreign aid from the starting budget.
Even if we accept that 0.7% of GDP should be spent on foreign aid, there’s absolutely no good reason why it must be taxpayers’ money on top of any voluntary donations already made.”
Shut DFiD is still best solution. Sack them all, no redeploying jobs or functions/policies.
Stop interfering in other countries internal affairs – that’s UN & IMF job.
Pcar – “Stop interfering in other countries internal affairs – that’s UN & IMF job.”
I have another suggestion – we reform the King’s African Rifles, the Bengal Infantry, the Caribbean Regiment. And we use the entire aid budget to pay for their salaries, pensions and some kit. Preferably Soviet-era surplus.
This would have at least three good effects. First, we would have some boots on the ground if need be. Second, remittances would do more good for whatever sh!thole they come from and be less prone to corruption. Third it would cause the heads of all the little LibDem-voting Jacintas in the Aid industry to explode.
What is not to like?
Also it would strengthen pro-British feeling in the colonies which can’t be bad.
At what point does the cost/benefit of spending British taxpayers’ money on fly-blown shitholes tip over from net positive to net negative? If it’s north of eightpence I’d be staggered. And I don’t mean the benefit to the fly-blown shitholes: fuck them. I mean benefit to the UK. If I were to become quasi-benevolent dictator, the DfID would be second on my list of government departments to get the full Carthaginian, salt-the-earth eradication, right after the fucking ridiculous DCMS.
“Empowering women and girls around the world remains a priority …”
Golly; is that code for “we are trying to stop those people breeding so quickly”? I think it might be.
@SMFS
“ Third it would cause the heads of all the little LibDem-voting Jacintas in the Aid industry to explode.”
I was liking it until above, then I read that…
…now I love it.
P