Friday 17 June 2011

Looking over the Fence

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 23:  A young gi...Image by Getty Images via @daylifeI have just been listening to a BBC programme "Growing Up In Poverty" detailing the sorry lives of Britain's urban poor; bright children going hungry in one of the world's most developed economies.

This comes hard on the heels of similar television programmes from the UK where poor families are sponsored by rich ones.

Meanwhile the newly wedded Windsor Royals are 'cutting back', by taking less servants on their first trip as a married couple to the USA.

Last week Britian announced that it would continue to send a billion dollars of aid support to India, a country that now has more billionaires than Britiain itself.

There has to be something fundamentally flawed and unjust about such decisions.  If the investment was channelled to the UK disadvantaged instead of overseas (or on royal visits) the country's disadvantaged would have a chance to rise within society, social problems would be alleviated and the country would progress.

This sort of approach is not restricted to Britain; it happens in New Zealand and other western countries where aid would be better spent internally than trying to curry favour in  areas of potential returns outside the country.

Its about time we looked on our own side of the fence rather than over it and fixed our own problems before trying to fix other peoples.
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