I believe it fair to say that anyone commissioning a survey, on whatever subject, poses questions with a view to receiving the answer they seek. The latest example of this theory is a survey carried out amongst Conservative members, presumably by the Conservative Party, on the question of foreign aid.
Andrew Porter, writing in the Daily Telegraph, interpreted the findings one way and Tim Montgomerie, on Conservative Home, spins desperately with an opposite interpretation. The question asked was whether they (Conservative members) agreed with the statement that:
"even as we deal with our deficit, Britain is still one of the wealthiest countries in the world and we should be proud we're continuing our commitment to international development."
Setting aside the point that we are not one of the wealthiest countries in the world (how can one be wealthy whilst having a debt of over £1trillion - but, again, I digress) I just wonder what the percentage of responses would have been had the words "to the disadvantage of aiding the elderly and vulnerable in our own society, coupled with not being able to defend our nation satisfactorily in the military sense."
It is also reasonable, I believe, to question Cameron's political aims, especially when we read:
"At a recent meeting of world leaders in France Mr Cameron castigated other leading nations for not fulfilling pledges on aid and invoked his own personal reasons for continuing commitment to overseas aid. He said: "We made a promise. I remember where I was during Live Aid in 1985."If we are going to try to get across to the poorest people in the world that we care about their plight and we want them to join one world with the rest of us, we have got to make promises and keep promises."(Emphasis mine)
One has to ask whether the omission of the word "government", after the word "world" was by design or accident?
8 comments:
One suspects this survey was conducted in the Witney Constituency Party where Conservative duffers chose a real charlatan as their candidate.
BTW. Research in Germany reveals that the unemployed and immigrants have the biggest families.....clearly the working population must work harder to reduce child poverty !
TT: In Witney you could pin a blue rosette on an ass and it would get elected - oh, hang on they did and it did!
Interesting that German research - just shows that the idle have nothing better to do than 'eff' around......!
I have stopped giving any aid to starving people overseas. After over 50 years of such giving, nothing has changed. One thing that is never mentioned is all the affected countries have governments who, I suppose, have a responsibility for their own citizens. After all, we have all been on this planet for the same amount of time; they could have progressed towards their own civilisation by now, but they haven't. The day a Somalian, for example, government official appears on television asking for help, is the day I might just think about handing some of my cash over to them But until I see the governments of these benighted countries actually showing they are trying to help themselves, they can whistle for any money in my pocket. I just wish I could stop Mr Cameron from giving my tax money to these people.
jic: Fair comment. It would seem that too much aid is syphoned off to 'other avenues' and the point about even the most backward of nations have had more than enough time to sort out their problems is well made.
Cameron said, "we have got to make promises and keep promises"?
Really!!?!
Jamess: Problem here is Cameron has no power and those are just words.....
See post (work in progress) on a constitution...... (when it appears)
Oxfam cites the EU Common Agricultural Policy as a major hindrance to the development of the food economy in Africa and elsewhere. (I just wish I could find the quote from the Oxfam trade spokesperson.) So the EU makes the third world even poorer and tries to compensate through aid, thus making the third world dependencies of the EU. Truly sickening.
k: And the similarity between that and the euro crisis is......?
Post a Comment