Letter: Financial strife is no excuse to stop aid
Tuesday 28th June 2011, 8:19AM BST.
Letter: I met our Ludlow Member of Parliament Mr Dunne at the House of Commons last week during a Christian Aid and Cafod lobby.
We were asking the Government to require large companies to publish yearly accounts, this change could begin to stop them cheating by using tax havens.
We also asked the Government to support recent legislation in the USA and suggestions in Europe about taxing the people who made money out of money. The other issue was commending the stand that Mr Cameron has made about aid to the poorest countries.
The Rev Mike Plunkett MBE
Many people have been encouraged by the tabloid papers to say that in a time of financial pressure, when many people’s standard of living is falling, the aid budget should not be protected from cuts. Even some Star readers have made such comments.
There are millions of people who have no lavatories, millions with no clean water, billions without enough food. They are all human beings like us; surely for that reason alone we are asking for an increase in aid. But there are many other reasons.
It is the mining and oil companies of nations like ours who make vast profits in the poor world.
The empires of Europe were the cause of many of the changes in the global economy that have caused poverty, and the arrangement of the way money is organised in the world was agreed after the second world war and it favours the USA and the West.
One last point, the tabloid papers that twist justice also get twisted about immigration.
Here’s a final thought about aid. It is the countries in the greatest need that provide the greatest numbers of people desperately trying to reach a country where life is worth living.
If there was greater equality, there would little reason for emigration.
The Rev Mike Plunkett MBE
Bishop’s Castle
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Put your own house in order before you criticize others the Church is probably one of the most affluent organisations in the country owning millions of £’s in property and assets.
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My view is stop F AID until we as a country are back on track.However I am all for the individuals who support F AID to dip in to their own pockets and fund F AID directly .I find people who shout the loudest on this subject very seldom dig very deep in their own pockets however they enjoy telling us all about the time they give to such things so on that basis they value their time as enough given but wheres the cash?????.
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Has the church discovered the secret to growing money trees then?
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“There are millions of people who have no lavatories, millions with no clean water, billions without enough food.”
Well said, but shoudlnt providing such necessities be seen as a priority for a foreign nation over hmmm, let’s say nuclear weapons? Advanced combat aircraft? Even a space program with designs on manned trips to Mars?
I would submit that if a country’s government wont help its own then we are actually funding their space programs ourselves by providing basic essentials for their neglected people.
And, as other posters have said, after the church’s centuries of exploitation of the people of Europe then maybe it is their responsibility and not ours to dig deep…
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Come and have your say on the CAFOD facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/CAFOD
We’ll print a selection of comments in our next magazine.
Karen
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You wouldn’t print what I have got to say about the absolute worst so called religion the world has ever seen.
Extremist muslims couldnt dream of managing to commit the horrors your twisted religion has visited upon humanity.
Catholics – the worst type of hypocrite.
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Aid is sent to countries that can’t afford to feed their poor but CAN afford to fund space programmes and nuclear weapons.
Reverend Plunkett, if their government cannot be bothered to look after their own poor people, why should our government?
I can see why charitable bodies should, but that is not the same thing, is it?
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