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Rebecca McquillanHerald Scotland |
How can you live without hope? In Afghanistan, for women and girls, the question is not theoretical. As International Women’s Day approaches, the...
![Starmer is right, UK has to prioritise arms over aid for world's poorest countries If the weirdness of Donald Trump’s first month hasn’t been enough to convince you the world has turned on its head, watching a Labour Prime Minister slash the overseas aid budget should do it. Uncharted water, terra incognita, dystopian nightmare – pick your metaphor, we’re in it. Labour promised they would reinstate spending on the overseas aid budget to 0.7 per cent of UK GDP after Boris Johnson cut it to 0.5 per cent. Instead they’re cutting it to 0.3 per cent, to fund increasing the defence budget. Has Keir Starmer gone mad? How can this be the action of a Labour Prime Minister? In a sense it isn’t. This is no longer Starmer the Labour leader, but Starmer the British Prime Minister, a man now facing one overriding priority – maintaining the security of the nation in a new world order where the invisible defensive shield of Nato has been abruptly switched off by an America First president. The biting easterly wind we are now exposed to is felt by everyone, across Europe and across political divides. A totalitarian aggressor is already at war with Europe. There’s been not a peep of disagreement from any party about the need to increase defence spending, which is set to rise further to three per cent of GDP in the 2030s. It makes you queasy to concede it, but in these alarming new circumstances, the Government does have to prioritise tanks over aid. Whether they have to hollow out the overseas aid budget to quite such an extent, however, is another question. Funding the defence boost out of existing spending is not a surprise – Starmer needed the cash fast and couldn’t borrow the required billions within his own fiscal rules – but the surprise is why target just this one budget? Why not spread the burden more fairly? With defence spending set to rise much further after 2027, it’s hard to see how other departments can avoid being trimmed further down the line. Why not just spread the reductions now, instead of singling out overseas aid for a military buzz cut? Aid isn’t a large budget but a little cash goes a long way. Many lives are saved through programmes like vaccination and malaria prevention. Some Labour MPs will be wondering why the road-building budget, say, couldn’t have been tapped for a bit of cash. There is also the strategic argument for aid. Starmer knows perfectly well that it promotes security. His own Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, recently said that American aid cuts under Donald Trump were a “big strategic mistake” as they allowed China to extend its influence. More instability means more migration. Former Labour foreign secretary and president of the International Rescue Committee aid agency David Miliband has pointed out there are 300m people in humanitarian need around the world and more than 50 civil wars going on, just as the UK, US, France and others are withdrawing aid. “That [aid cut] is going to contribute to international instability, not reduce it,” he says. So why do it like this? Targeting aid, unfortunately, was the easiest choice politically. It protects public spending here in the UK, but also helps neutralise populist attacks by Reform UK, who would bay for Labour’s blood if the potholes budget were slashed and foreign aid left in place. A regretful Lammy offers a different rationale: “that … we have had to balance the compassion of our internationalism with the necessity of our national security”. And while its undoubtedly a retrograde step for international development and will affect Britain’s standing in some countries, there is truth in this. The Government hopes to increase the proportion of aid money being spent on actual aid by reducing the huge amount currently paying for asylum seeker hotels and remains committed to raising aid spending to 0.7 per cent of GDP once again though God knows when that will happen. At least this cut is not ideological, unlike with Boris Johnson. We can trust aid will be increased again if those pesky fiscal conditions every do allow. There were no easy choices here for Starmer, but what were the alternatives? John Swinney seems to believe that at this critical moment, the UK should give up its nuclear deterrent to free up cash for conventional weapons – in order to protect itself against a nuclear-armed tyrant. Scottish voters will draw their own conclusions about the First Minister’s grasp on reality. Others have tried not to be so nakedly political. The Liberal Democrats suggest a tax on super rich tech corporations; the Greens suggest a wealth tax. And then there is the question of whether Reeves should ease her own fiscal rules, perhaps the one about borrowing only to invest. All these measures might be necessary in the end if the UK’s military capability, in partnership with other European nations, is to meet requirements. Europe must fight its own battles from now on, quite literally. If Keir Starmer has promised higher defence spending just to try and curry favour with Donald Trump, he will likely fail. Trump first complained European countries didn’t reach the Nato minimum of two per cent of GDP in defence spending; by 2018, he was demanding they spend four per cent; now it’s five per cent (higher than the US itself at 3.4 per cent). Like Colonel Cathcart in Catch 22, forever raising the number of missions Yossarian must fly before his tour of duty can end, Trump doesn’t seem interested in coming to an agreement – probably because, as new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz puts it, America “does not care much about the fate of Europe”. This week, America even sided with Russia, North Korea and Belarus against Europe in a UN resolution on Ukraine. That’s downright scary. America for the first time in decades is being perceived in European capitals as an unreliable ally. Britain has no choice but to adapt. But cutting aid must be a temporary measure. Even in an era of protectionism and self-interest, Britain cannot just give up on its wider international role as a force for progress.](/img/yazi/300/181034247_1.jpg "Starmer is right, UK has to prioritise arms over aid for world's poorest countries If the weirdness of Donald Trump’s first month hasn’t been enough to convince you the world has turned on its head, watching a Labour Prime Minister slash the overseas aid budget should do it. Uncharted water, terra incognita, dystopian nightmare – pick your metaphor, we’re in it. Labour promised they would reinstate spending on the overseas aid budget to 0.7 per cent of UK GDP after Boris Johnson cut it to 0.5 per cent. Instead they’re cutting it to 0.3 per cent, to fund increasing the defence budget. Has Keir Starmer gone mad? How can this be the action of a Labour Prime Minister? In a sense it isn’t. This is no longer Starmer the Labour leader, but Starmer the British Prime Minister, a man now facing one overriding priority – maintaining the security of the nation in a new world order where the invisible defensive shield of Nato has been abruptly switched off by an America First president. The biting easterly wind we are now exposed to is felt by everyone, across Europe and across political divides. A totalitarian aggressor is already at war with Europe. There’s been not a peep of disagreement from any party about the need to increase defence spending, which is set to rise further to three per cent of GDP in the 2030s. It makes you queasy to concede it, but in these alarming new circumstances, the Government does have to prioritise tanks over aid. Whether they have to hollow out the overseas aid budget to quite such an extent, however, is another question. Funding the defence boost out of existing spending is not a surprise – Starmer needed the cash fast and couldn’t borrow the required billions within his own fiscal rules – but the surprise is why target just this one budget? Why not spread the burden more fairly? With defence spending set to rise much further after 2027, it’s hard to see how other departments can avoid being trimmed further down the line. Why not just spread the reductions now, instead of singling out overseas aid for a military buzz cut? Aid isn’t a large budget but a little cash goes a long way. Many lives are saved through programmes like vaccination and malaria prevention. Some Labour MPs will be wondering why the road-building budget, say, couldn’t have been tapped for a bit of cash. There is also the strategic argument for aid. Starmer knows perfectly well that it promotes security. His own Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, recently said that American aid cuts under Donald Trump were a “big strategic mistake” as they allowed China to extend its influence. More instability means more migration. Former Labour foreign secretary and president of the International Rescue Committee aid agency David Miliband has pointed out there are 300m people in humanitarian need around the world and more than 50 civil wars going on, just as the UK, US, France and others are withdrawing aid. “That [aid cut] is going to contribute to international instability, not reduce it,” he says. So why do it like this? Targeting aid, unfortunately, was the easiest choice politically. It protects public spending here in the UK, but also helps neutralise populist attacks by Reform UK, who would bay for Labour’s blood if the potholes budget were slashed and foreign aid left in place. A regretful Lammy offers a different rationale: “that … we have had to balance the compassion of our internationalism with the necessity of our national security”. And while its undoubtedly a retrograde step for international development and will affect Britain’s standing in some countries, there is truth in this. The Government hopes to increase the proportion of aid money being spent on actual aid by reducing the huge amount currently paying for asylum seeker hotels and remains committed to raising aid spending to 0.7 per cent of GDP once again though God knows when that will happen. At least this cut is not ideological, unlike with Boris Johnson. We can trust aid will be increased again if those pesky fiscal conditions every do allow. There were no easy choices here for Starmer, but what were the alternatives? John Swinney seems to believe that at this critical moment, the UK should give up its nuclear deterrent to free up cash for conventional weapons – in order to protect itself against a nuclear-armed tyrant. Scottish voters will draw their own conclusions about the First Minister’s grasp on reality. Others have tried not to be so nakedly political. The Liberal Democrats suggest a tax on super rich tech corporations; the Greens suggest a wealth tax. And then there is the question of whether Reeves should ease her own fiscal rules, perhaps the one about borrowing only to invest. All these measures might be necessary in the end if the UK’s military capability, in partnership with other European nations, is to meet requirements. Europe must fight its own battles from now on, quite literally. If Keir Starmer has promised higher defence spending just to try and curry favour with Donald Trump, he will likely fail. Trump first complained European countries didn’t reach the Nato minimum of two per cent of GDP in defence spending; by 2018, he was demanding they spend four per cent; now it’s five per cent (higher than the US itself at 3.4 per cent). Like Colonel Cathcart in Catch 22, forever raising the number of missions Yossarian must fly before his tour of duty can end, Trump doesn’t seem interested in coming to an agreement – probably because, as new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz puts it, America “does not care much about the fate of Europe”. This week, America even sided with Russia, North Korea and Belarus against Europe in a UN resolution on Ukraine. That’s downright scary. America for the first time in decades is being perceived in European capitals as an unreliable ally. Britain has no choice but to adapt. But cutting aid must be a temporary measure. Even in an era of protectionism and self-interest, Britain cannot just give up on its wider international role as a force for progress.")
If the weirdness of Donald Trump’s first month hasn’t been enough to convince you the world has turned on its head, watching a Labour Prime...
Can the Scottish Government justify pay hikes that are well above inflation for public sector workers? Are higher levels of public sector pay in...
Surely there are more important things to get uptight about than 20mph speed limits. You can’t eliminate all risk from our roads, but when a...
In an age of iconoclasm and insurgency, the ultimate political insider is holding sway in Scotland. John Swinney as First Minister has shown a...
It is one of the most horrific cases ever to be aired in a Scottish court. The child sexual abuse carried out by five men and two women sentenced at...
Never underestimate the SNP. After more than 17 years in power and counting, the party could well emerge as the largest party in Holyrood once again...
Well here’s a thing: Aberdeen and Grampian Chambers of Commerce (AGCC) is praising the climate change sceptic Donald Trump, would-be wrecker of the...
It’s been a torrid start to the year. The incoming US president is expressing Putinesque territorial ambitions and the megalomaniac weirdo Elon Musk...
Could 2025 be a turning point for the Scottish Conservatives? Russell Findlay thinks he may be “blessed with [an] opportunity” because he has...
A semi-feral childhood. If you were born in the 70s or before, you probably had one. We played in woods and fields, in burns and of course on roads...
Do you recoil at the thought of the world’s richest man and US resident Elon Musk potentially donating nearly £80m to Reform UK to try and win the...
They love an acronym in the Scottish Government. GIRFEC: have you come across that one? It means Getting It Right For Every Child. It’s the...
Jack McConnell was six years old when he was belted for the first time. His “crime”? Not eating his carrots. The former First Minister recounted...
It’s panto season at Holyrood and camping it up this week we have Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes. “Disastrous for the economy and public...
Is everything broken? It sometimes feels like it. Take one example. Edinburgh City Council is considering reductions to the education budget, with...
Whisper it, but things may not be quite as bad as you think. If you’ve spent the last week feeling as if you can’t face the news, so alarming are...
Nausea. Is it the weariness or the shock? Perhaps both. Donald Trump will be the 47th US President and we all have to live with it. Hold your loved...
The new Labour government, so slick in opposition, started tripping itself up almost immediately on taking office. The decision to axe winter fuel...
Kamala Harris’s Democratic running mate Tim Walz made an impassioned appeal to Americans this week: “Don’t be the frog in the boiling water and...
The Budget had better be good. An elaborate rescue package is required, not just for the country but for Keir Starmer. Eye-catching measures...
Are smartphones detrimental to kids? When this question comes up, I always remember the same image. My daughter was a toddler and we were...
Scotland is warming to the heat pump. Sales are improving, with 5,700 units put in this year so far, up a third on the same period last year....
Want change? Well, it’s starting to feel like we’ve got it. Keir Starmer is taking on, not just right-wing thugs, not just criminal smuggling...
Hell hath no fury like a man scorned. Like a disgruntled thesp overlooked for a lifetime achievement award, Alex Salmond has been strongly hinting...
It’s been a good week for US Democrats, superficially. Kamala Harris won the first TV debate and has a chance of winning the US election. So why...
Sometimes as a woman you watch the news and you just feel sick. It happened this week. First there was a horrendous story from France about a...
Labour are still in opposition in Scotland. In case we forget, Anas Sarwar has been all over the papers talking about his “dossier” on SNP fiscal...
Ah, the romanticism of the railways. Late trains. Reduced timetables. Standing in the aisle for want of a seat. I wonder why more people don’t...
When you’re a frequent visitor to the south of England from Scotland, you notice certain things. There’s a lot more traffic. You can grow tomatoes...
Dyslexia a learning disability? No: it’s an asset. These might sound like consoling words for children who find school difficult, but that would be...
So I’m driving along the motorway doing the speed limit in the outside lane, when what do you think happens? I find myself in what feels like a...
Have you been on X (still better known as Twitter) since Sunday? I wouldn’t. It’s where reason and hope have gone to die. Here’s a brief taste...
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