Money Well Spent?

Every week I read the Stourbridge Chronicle (for that is where I am from) and a local story has recently caught my attention. The annual Stourbridge Harvest Festival - enjoyment for all the family - has been cancelled because financial resources have instead been ploughed into Diamond Jubilee celebrations and Olympic fanfare. I imagine this type of cancellation is happening in other areas also. So it’s nice to know that the apparent ‘trickle-down’ effect from big events to local businesses is clearly in effect … or, in fact, not. The demonstrations of national grandeur have actually hindered more regional community enjoyment. It’s almost as if London takes priority! No surprise there.

And in a separate development, I’ve recently discovered that local housing authorities in England are only legally obliged to help homeless people if the destitute are in ‘priority need’, e.g. have dependent children, are victims of domestic violence or natural disasters, are disabled, etc. So if I (who would not fall into a ‘priority need’ category) were to become homeless, I would be left for muggers to gladly beat the shit out of me on the street! I’m not saying it would be easy in these austere times to find funding for everyone, but even a safe room to squat in would surely be better than a cold pavement. Good old right-wing Britain: don‘t bother to help everybody because a few of them might sort themselves out and the rest hopefully won‘t get noticed!

Unnecessary Aid

Today the Minister for Defence, Dr Liam Fox, had an email leaked which stated his opposition to the budget for overseas aid becoming set in law at 0.7% of Britain’s gross national income. Downing Street is seemingly disgruntled by this leak, but I have to ask the question: why shouldn’t Dr Fox voice this objection? It seems perfectly reasonable to me when virtually all other government departments are having to cut their budgets due to the deficit crisis. Since when is international aid considered to be so much more important than domestic affairs? The only other main department which is being financially ring-fenced is health, but even that is having to endure the prospect of radical right-wing reform. And overseas aid from Britain was only 0.52% in 2009, so apparently other countries are worthy of a budgetary increase in these fiscally restrictive times!
Another serious problem occurs when we consider which countries are getting most of our aid. If I were feeling flippant, I would say that Pakistan doesn’t deserve much at the moment after having singularly failed to detect Osama Bin Laden’s fortified compound for over five years! But unfortunately, there is a much more disturbing receiver of British taxpayers’ money: the Democratic Republic of Congo. I’ve half a mind to put the word Democratic in inverted commas, because the continuing sexual violence that takes place by militias in that country is probably the worst in the world; and recent wars in DR Congo have created the deadliest conflict since World War II, with 5.4million people being slaughtered. Why should they get any of our money?!
Finally, Britain now spends more on international development than on the environment, energy and sport combined (and that’s with the Olympics approaching!). And even though 0.7% is the figure that has long been favoured by the UN, it is not implemented by many countries. The US, the richest country in the world, only provides 0.21%, and Italy can only be bothered to contribute 0.16%, so why should we have to foot the bill? Therefore I think Dr Fox is absolutely correct to raise this issue, as many more people should in the near future.

Vote For The Alternative

Tomorrow the British public will go to the ballot box for a referendum on electoral reform. Most people, I suspect, won’t actually vote at all, either because of a general disaffection with politics or because the condescending metaphorical bickering between the two camps has put them off (referring to the choices in terms of foodstuffs or sporting events has been bordering on the ridiculous at times). Personally, I urge people to vote Yes to the Alternative Vote (AV) for reasons of proportionality. It is too easy under the current first-past-the-post system for political parties to win more parliamentary / council seats when they have not got the majority of the votes; whereas AV, by taking into consideration second preferences of people who voted for other candidates will make sure that any winning candidate has more than 50% of the votes before winning the seat, thereby also ensuring that any aspiring politician has to appeal to a broader range of voters rather than taking any ‘safe’ seat for granted. I realise of course that most right-wingers will vote No because the current system benefits the Conservative Party, and most left-wingers (like myself) will vote Yes because they want to see more opportunities for smaller parties to have a chance of gaining some influence; but I honestly do believe that AV is a fairer system in distributing people’s votes, so no-one should refuse to vote Yes simply because they dislike Nick Clegg! You can still register your protest against him by (at the same time) voting for a different party in the local council elections. However, I fully expect to be disappointed when the results come in, as polls are currently saying that the right-wing elite in this country is taking control, as always.

Simply Unfair

The ConDem government has announced its plan for tuition fees: at least £6,000 per student, with the option for universities to demand up to £9,000. So now students will be saddled with almost double what they were having to pay before, at least! There are some caveats saying that universities will be monitored to ensure that students from poorer backgrounds are being given ample opportunity to enrol, but in general the policies will simply further the economic repression that is so fundamental to right-wing greedy capitalism. Even students who wish to pay off their debts early will be financially punished with an extra repayment in return for not repaying the full amount of interest on their loan - talk about malicious!
This coalition has previously said it would be too time consuming to means-test everyone, but I reckon most students would be willing to give a bit more of their time if it meant a much fairer system was implemented where only richer students would have to pay the maximum tuition fees while poorer ones actually received financial help to attend the university of their choice and receive a worthwhile education. As for the expense of means testing? Well, we could take it from the overblown ‘international aid’ budget which seems to make clear that other countries are considerably more important than our own in these difficult economic times! The ConDems, as usual, should be ashamed; before young adults even have the opportunity to get involved with the property market, they are already carrying a huge pecuniary burden.