One would think that the first priority of any government would be looking after the interests and well being of its citizens, after all that's what they promise every four years or so when trawling for votes at election time.
As the British people slowly emerge from their media induced, two decade long slumber, they are finding reality is somewhat different. What they were promised in exchange for their vote compared to what has been delivered is an indication of the contempt that they held in by their elected representatives.
The previous Labour government followed their socialist instincts by taxing the people until the pips squeaked while spending the country into bankruptcy at the same time. The incoming Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition, led by David Cameron, promised to mend the broken economy using a combination of spending cuts and increased taxation.
In other words, a severe dose of austerity for everyone except the ruling class and the so called poor in undeveloped world. Cameron not only promised to 'ring fence' spending on international aid but to increase it in real terms.
All the British people have to show for their sacrifice, and their votes, is an economy that is still broken accompanied by an unprecedented drop in living standards.
One would have thought that the package of austerity measures would have fixed the broken economy as promised, but the government are still borrowing some one hundred billion pounds per year and the national debt has passed a staggering one trillion pounds.
The outgoing Chief Secretary of the Treasury, an odious individual by the name of Liam Byrne, infamously left a note for his successor making light of the fact that his Labour government had emptied the Treasury.
"Dear Chief Secretary, I'm afraid there's no money. Kind regards - and good luck! Liam".
The flippant message conveyed the fact that the petty, small minded Byrne was not only reveling in the discomfort of the incoming Chief Secretary, it also inferred that emptying the Treasury, borrowing to the limit and racking up record levels of debt was a deliberate scorched earth policy designed to make it difficult for the incoming government. This would make it unpopular and hence limited to one term.(Byrne story here)
Typical of the ideologically driven, modern day political class who believe that the ends justify the means, it was a cynical political calculation taken regardless of the disastrous consequences for the British people.
Judging by their profligate behavior, the wellbeing of the British people has never been a high priority for the current political class - instead they continue use taxpayers money either to satisfy the requirements of their ideological agenda or to parade their 'progressive' credentials on the global stage.
Government spin doctors and media managers are attempting to convince the hard pressed British people that due to the continued lack of money, which apparently is nothing to do with them, austerity will be required for many years to come.
It hasn't gone unnoticed that despite the lack of money for the British people and the continuing requirement for high taxes and austerity, the government is awash with money when it comes to its own vanity projects and burnishing their own 'progressive' credentials.
Rubbing salt into the wounds of the impoverished British people, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman, thinks that exporting money abroad is a good thing, even labelling economic migrants who send their welfare benefits to their home country as heroes.
It doesn't enter her head that if migrants can send their welfare benefits home, they are either falsely claiming benefits while working, which is a criminal offence, or they are being paid in excess of what is required to live on.
Her economic ignorance and her contempt for the British people knows no bounds. While some twenty thousand pensioners in fuel poverty will die of hypothermia this year, Harman is calling on the government to make it easier for immigrants to export money abroad and to add insult to injury she wants to give them tax refunds, yes tax refunds, to encourage more immigrants to do the same.
(Pensioner poverty story here)
At twenty three billion pounds, remittances are more than double the foreign aid budget.
(Harriet Harman story here)
Despite abundant evidence that foreign aid is a total waste of money, and in many cases an impediment to development, it was increased by a staggering twenty eight percent last year, going from just over eight billion pounds to just over ten billion. While they impose austerity on their own people at home the political class plan to keep increasing this monumental waste of money until their 0.7% of GDP target for foreign aid is reached.
(Foreign Aid scandals here and here)
In addition to this scandalous waste of money, over fifty five million pounds per day is handed over to the unelected bureaucrats of the corrupt European Union who's accounts have failed to pass an audit for the past nineteen years.
Child benefit welfare payments worth ten million pounds is sent abroad each year for children of economic migrants who don't live in Great Britain.
Unemployment benefit is being claimed by thousands of economic migrants who have returned to their home countries, with three million pounds being claimed by the Czech Republic alone.
The amount of money exported from Great Britain is beyond my skills to calculate but apart from the money already mentioned, there are payments or credit lines to the IMF, the World Bank, the United Nations and its agencies, ad hoc payments to the EU to cover overspending together with other emergency aid requirements.
It is a sad fact that despite the tens of trillions spent on alleviating poverty since decolonisation, most of the developing world is no better off with deprivation, pestilence and civil war as rife as ever. In spite of this, the government will continue to ignore the calls from its own citizens to take care of poverty at home first. Obviously their posturing on the world stage appears to be their top priority.
In conclusion, many people rightly ask how it is that there is never any money for the poor at home because austerity is needed to fix the broken economy but there is always money available to bail out the destitute countries of the Eurozone and to wage war in the middle east.
There is a certain irony in the way that governments spend a fortune bombing countries back to the stone age then go on to spend another fortune in development aid to build them back up again.
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