Sir Keir Starmer has had a good few days, displaying adroitness as he sought to navigate an upended global order in which a pro-Russian regime in Washington is suddenly assisting Moscow’s efforts to murder, maim and crush freedom in Ukraine.
Yet when he faces the Parliamentary Labour Party on Monday, he will need to calm a darkening mood among his own troops following his bold decision to raid the aid budget in order to fund a belated boost for defence spending.
But instead of being defensive, perhaps the Prime Minister should take pride in playing his part to end the era of the wasteful and patronising Western aid boom.
This era began four decades ago with Live Aid, a heartfelt response by pop stars to scenes of terrible suffering in Ethiopia. Unfortunately, they ignored African voices and ended up aiding the dictatorship behind a cruel famine. This set the tone for a self-serving sector that exploded like knotweed to push its flawed idea that rivers of cash and simplistic gesture politics can solve complex global problems.
They were backed by politicians from all tribes, who adored the idea of using other people’s money to show their compassion while flitting around the planet as saviours of the poor. But after decades of failure, with vast sums blown on often-risible projects, the gravy train is now slamming into the buffers.
Critics accuse Starmer of following the lead of Donald Trump, who sent shockwaves around the world by ending most US foreign aid contracts. Typically, the US President took a sledgehammer to smash up the institution, failing to target cuts in a strategic manner and sparking a spate of legal challenges. Then he highlighted the waste with his usual mixture of misinformation and mockery in last week’s boastful address to a joint session of Congress.
Yet Trump is not alone. Germany, under its centre-left chancellor, is also cutting billions from aid spending while France, the Netherlands and Sweden are among those slashing aid budgets.
These moves are driven largely by domestic concerns. Yet it is absurd for indebted nations to borrow money to spray around the world, especially when struggling to pay many bills at home.
And the sacred UN aid target to give away 0.7 per cent of national income – created by campaigners half a century ago – defies any economic sense, since it is based on dodgy data from a very different and much poorer world.
It is worth noting, however, that for all the squeals of pain, the amount given by the 32 wealthiest nations in overseas development assistance has risen almost threefold this century. We now give cash even to countries that have their own aid agencies and space programmes.
square KITTY DONALDSON
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Read MoreStarmer’s move led to the loss of his aid minister, and her departure reflects deep concern felt in a party that contains more MPs who worked for Save the Children alone than in the nation’s financial powerhouse of the City. Scottish Office minister Kirsty McNeill typifies how this rent-seeking sector has become so entwined with Westminster: she left a £118,450-a-year policy post at the charity to become an MP, having previously been an aid lobbyist, then a Downing Street special adviser.
There are complaints that Starmer’s move will weaken Britain’s global standing and hurt the world’s poorest people, underlining the confusion over whether aid is meant to help donors, via soft power, or recipients. Note the furore in America over farmers and contractors losing income.
Former foreign secretary David Miliband fumes that these cuts are “devastating for people who need more help, not less” – although their desperation failed to stop him taking an annual pay package in excess of £1m from his aid charity.Save the Children also complains about the supposed risk to lives, with at least 58 staff based in London on six-figure packages and a US boss who pocketed $629,195.
Sarah Champion MP, chair of Parliament’s international development committee, bleated to the Commons: “If we abandon our commitments to the world in this way, we will see greater numbers of people displaced from their own homes as a result of climate disasters, poverty and war.”
So perhaps she might get her committee to examine events in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where more than 7,000 people have been killed since January and huge numbers of refugees forced to flee after a rebel militia aided by Rwandan troops overran a region laden with mineral riches.
The United Nations warns that about 60 women a day are being raped amid the horrifying outbreak of renewed violence in this blighted area.
Behind this bloodshed lies a brutal dictatorship in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, handed huge sums by Britain and other Western nations, who ignored brazen atrocities and rampant looting in their desperate search for an aid poster child. President Paul Kagame skilfully played naive donors and exploited guilt over genocide, showing off clean streets and a female majority in his patsy parliament (while spending millions to sponsor his beloved Arsenal football club).
In reality, this nation of 14 million people given more than $1bn annually by Western donors – with a £700m bonus from the ousted Tories for their silly deportation scheme – only showcases the corrosive reality of aid when torrents of money are pumped into weak states, repressive regimes and conflict zones.
It is deluded neocolonialism to think we can use our cash to impose stability, peace, prosperity or democracy in such places.
Former aid minister Rory Stewart once pointed out that we gave £4.5bn over half a century to Malawi, a place scarred by corruption and bad governance, yet it ended up “if anything, poorer than it was when we started”.
If Westminster really wants to help such places, it should tackle laundering of stolen cash through our firms, institutions and tax havens. But so much of our aid just helps gruesome regimes, undermines democracy, fosters corruption and fuels conflict.
Starmer should tell his troops the truth: this spendthrift era must end since it was at best an unintended farce and at worst a damaging fraud.
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