Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t reduce her department’s budget without a change in the law.
“It is a special time, for we are entering the centenary year of the Balfour Declaration… It demonstrates Britain’s vital role in creating a homeland for the Jewish people. And it is an anniversary we will be marking with pride.”
Crucially, by getting people to think about projects in more detail, they would be making some form of investment in our approach to development.
A new report, and an event tomorrow, highlight the plight of people throughout the world persecuted for practising their faith – especially by extremist Islamist groups.
And on Brexit, as one who campaigned for In, I say we should get on with it, and avoid the one outcome that is infinitely less preferable to Leave or Remain: limbo.
The instinct of our readers is that the justification of development spending is not that it will have benefits for Britain, but that it is good in itself.
Power is at the root of the problem.
The daft legal requirement to give away 0.7 per cent of national income overseas lives on, and invites intense public criticism.
“I see here a huge chain of actions and support by the UK to try to remedy the Syrian crisis.”
It isn’t easy, but better information and clearer goals would harness the nation’s natural willingness to help those less fortunate.
We still see cases where there is a fundamental disconnect between British foreign policy and British aid. Today, the most perverse example of this lies in Yemen.
Aid reform based on ‘efficiency’ is a smokescreen. So a different narrative and approach is needed.
Value for money invites a brutal battle with the industry and may rub voters up the wrong way. What about fairness for recipients?
Not least: what if any research was done into potential weather problems before the contract was signed in 2011?
Unless we sort out the problems right now, then I fear it is a battle I will lose.