The UK has always been generous to the world. I know, I know you can all point to darker times, slavery, exploitation etc. Not proud historical facts.
But at the time everyone was doing it and we had to compete. Let's not get too mired in that indefensible argument. We are where we are.
I would argue that Britain was and has always been motivated by trade, by anti corruption (or fairness in other words) and by the rule of law. In many cases, as the victors we have written the history and so its veracity must sometimes be questionable.
We have exploited peoples and nations but more often than not we turned them into prosperous countries via the rule of law and trade. We generally didn't take over and rape and pillage, we took over, imposed our laws and values of fairness and whilst we made sure that we got a good deal out of it, we also created better countries. India is perhaps the best example of this but there are many others in the Commonwealth.
And most countries in the Commonwealth recognise that we made a valuable contribution to their ensuing prosperity and freedoms based on our laws, our view of the world and what was 'right.'
It won't take much digging on your behalf, if you really want to, to produce specific, individual examples that disprove my stance on this, but in general terms I think I'm right.
We are as people, amongst the most generous in the world when it comes to helping people in crisis. And as a nation, although I would question how this is implemented on the ground, we give more in foreign aid per head of population than almost anyone else on earth. Our overseas aid contribution is currently 0.7% of GDP, compared to 0.19% (less than a third of the UK) from the USA and 0.38% from Germany (or half of what we 'give').
To put that into perspective, we are 5th in the international league of overseas aid providers (by percentage of GDP) which is 'given', behind Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Luxembourg. But the contribution made by Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Luxembourg combined adds up to £15 billion annually, whereas the UK 'gives' almost £18 billion on its own. Germany, whose economy is 30% bigger than the UK's 'gives' £14 billion and the US, whose economy is 5 times bigger than the UK 'gives' £31.55 billion - considerably less than double our contribution.
France, whose economy is larger than the UK at the time of writing by a gnat's chuff, gives' £11 billion.
However you want to slice it, we are giving more than almost everyone else. And as a major nation (with respect to Sweden, Norway Denmark and Luxembourg) we top the giving league. The USA is 20th, Germany is 12th and France 11th. The US would obviously rather spend money on bombs than providing aid.
We are generous - it's probably a legacy of Empire I guess, but it is also about how we view the world and why we punch above our weight, always, when it comes to foreign crises and conflict. We recognise that peaceful trade always trumps wars and conflicts, whereas the USA economy depends on foreign wars and conflicts, France is generally against getting involved in them and Germany has been banned from the sweet shop for decades for obvious reasons.
Brits always give more in charitable donations to stricken parts of the world than anyone else - as individuals I mean. We pledge money and then deliver it, whereas many countries pledge it and then conveniently forget about it. This is something we should all be proud of. whereas our nationally imposed overseas aid programme, which gives £billions to countries who have their own space programmes or are in conflict with us, like, respectively, India and Argentina, is just stupid.
Two things arise from all this, the second of which is really the point of this blog.
The first is that the work of DfID (Department for International Development) 'gives' more than double what Germany gives and more than 3 times what the USA gives (relatively speaking) in overseas aid in a largely untargetted way, without any involvement or choice given to we who pay for it. That is just wrong. And much of this money goes to pay for jobs for the boys and to corrupt dictators in foreign lands where we have no real economic interests. Surely we should be helping people who need our help instead of maintaining cushy DfID office positions around the world?
The second issue is that we are generous as a nation. But we're being taken for a ride.
Ask me for help and I will give it if I can. Demand that I give money to people who don't really need it, and you're taking the piss. And I will rail against it.
The problem is that we've become a soft touch. And whilst many on the left will see this as a good thing, the reality is quite the opposite.
The only way we can be generous to genuinely vulnerable and needy people is if we can afford to be. Once this generosity is extended in the form of 'entitlement' to 'everyone who makes a claim' it becomes unaffordable. And it is then resented by previously generous people. And then the genuinely needy fall through the net as more aggressive, 'system savvy' claimants make their own claims and it's then the most vulnerable who suffer the most.
This is happening internationally - as migrants gain 'entitlement' via free movement and access to the UK, with its more generous welfare system (than France, Italy, Spain and Germany) and once again our generosity is taken advantage of. And when our economy does well what happens? The EU imposes additional bills upon us to pay for the mess that its utter incompetence has visited on most of Europe outside Germany. Even though the rest of Europe is hell-bent on a direction (Federalism) that we do not want or support. Go figure. Why on earth should we be paying for this?
This generosity is also the root cause of tens of thousands of people from Africa paying their life-savings to crooks and risking their lives to come to the UK. And dying in their thousands. We are, quite literally, killing people with our kindness.
And this is not just happening on an international scale. It's also happening right here at home where our 'generous' welfare safety net, designed to help people in genuine need, has evolved to become a lifestyle choice for millions of people and led to the situation in which half of UK households receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes (ONS June 2015).
Where the 'system savvy' take everything they can (and more if they can get away with it) whilst the most vulnerable suffer from delays and increasing levels of scrutiny because others who are not in such need, play the system more effectively than they know how to.
And then what happens? Well what happens is that previously generous people who wanted to help, see this unfair and completely out of control system and say to themselves: 'fuck this, I'll take everything I can too, and I'll reduce my generosity as much as I can because my money is not going to those in need, but to those who play the system most effectively.' And they see that when they donate to food banks they are castigated by the left for 'the state of the country in 2015'.
Brits are the most generous people in the world. We have been for centuries (see initial caveats above). But what's happening now, where 'entitlement' is taking over from generous provision - provision that is welcomed, appreciated and most of all needed - is endangering this generosity of spirit.
We need to reboot our system of generosity before it disappears altogether.
Thanks for reading
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