Charity begins at home!

What is it with governments of both Labour and Tory hue that believe that our money (yes, its ours, never theirs) is much better spent abroad than looking after the people in this country that most desperately need it (the elderly and sick)
Mail.

UN-backed Millennium Village project — to which Britain is now contributing millions of pounds for the first time — began in 2004 and encompasses half a million Africans.
It is designed to prove that targeted aid can lift such places out of poverty in just five years. But the scheme is facing mounting accusations that it is a waste of money, and is doing less to help rural Africans than it claims.
According to the project’s documents, the business plan reveals ‘total direct costs’ are expected to be £17.2 million and that the goal is ‘substantial poverty reduction’ for up to 2,250 households.
This means spending more than an astonishing £7,500 per household. To put this in perspective, this is 34 times the average annual income of households in the region.
The British Government — desperate to find ways to spend its soaring aid budgets — is handing over £11.5 million to this vainglorious venture.
Despite the austerity weighing on British families at home, spending on foreign aid — currently £8.8 billion a year — is rising by more than one-third under the Coalition.
Indeed, last Sunday International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell insisted they will enshrine in law the target of giving 0.7 per cent of our national income to global aid.

Now if I want to help starving Africans, that should be my choice to hand over my money, not the governments choice, not the politicians choice, not now, not ever! As one of the villagers says...

'Even if the money does flow from your country, it will end up in the pockets of corrupt people and politicians. We will not see any spent on our infrastructure or in our pockets.’

The government is throwing away our cash to kleptocracies and corrupt officials, it knows it is and we know they are, yet they continue to fund the totally unnecessary Department for International Development. Yet in our country we suffer huge heating bills, a badly mismanaged health system, atrocious education standards, cuts to our armed forces, fake charities funded by the government to tell ministers what they want to hear and ruinous green taxation to fund these ridiculous schemes.
Charity begins at home, if the people of this country want to fund projects abroad then it should be our choice, not the governments and it should be voluntary. The life of on pensioner dying of the cold in our land is not worth any (supposed) benefit given in cash abroad, not now, not ever. It's time we said you're on your own.