Daily archives: August 11, 2011


Daily Blog 08/11/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


David Cameron gets it, sort of

David Cameron knows that if you want to keep a country from descending into anarchy and crime, if you want to give its citizens the best possible hope for their future and you want to create prosperity then you have to spend money providing support for the poorest citizens. He also knows that this is the best, and in the long term cheapest, investment to prevent criminality.

At least, he knows this as far as foreign aid is concerned. Speaking at the G8 summit in May he rightly defended the UK’s foreign aid budget, making the point that-

We should be in no doubt that if we get this wrong, if we fail to support these countries, we risk giving oxygen to the extremists who prey on the frustrations and aspirations of young people.

Now if only he could recognise this at home and have the balls to invest in our future even if it means tax rises for his rich friends.

(This is not a call to cut the foreign aid budget. I know that you’re intelligent enough to realise this, but some of the other people reading this post may not be.)