Christmas: Fact or Fiction?: "
John Ford is famous for saying that if the legend is better than the fact, then print the legend. This came into my mind at church during the nativity service, the last Sunday service before Christmas day. As usual, the junior church presented the nativity story, and as usual it was about Jesus being born in a stable with shepherds and wise men arriving soon afterwards. The traditional story is in fact inaccurate on several points, but it is nonetheless a story that people warm to.
The ConDem regime has announced that British taxpayers have been forced to pay for the repair of 1,500 schools in nuclear-power Pakistan, while at the same time ordering the halting of a building programme which would have given Britain 715 new school buildings.
The shockingly arrogant display of ‘British people put last’ policy is contained in the latest press release from the Department for International Development (DFID), issued by minster Andrew Mitchell.
The statement said that Mr Mitchell “confirmed that the UK will help 200,000 children return to education in Pakistan, by repairing 1,500 schools damaged by the recent floods and providing 200 temporary facilities for children whose schools have been destroyed across Sindh and the Punjab.”
In July this year, Tory education minister Michael Gove cancelled a school building programme in Britain which would have built 715 schools, citing “budgetary constraints.”
The DFID statement went on to inform us that the “UK” (read “British taxpayers”) have also provided “shelter for 25,000 people” in Pakistan, and will still provide “basic health care for more than half a million people over the next six months.”
British people who are currently unemployed and struggling to find jobs because of the destruction of this nation’s economy and manufacturing base by decades of Tory and Labour misrule, will no doubt be ecstatic to hear that the DFID has also given our tax money to another project in Pakistan which will “help around one million people in rural areas to earn a living by providing jobs, skills training, and farming tools, seeds, animals so families can restart farming.”
The announcement of further millions to Pakistan forms part of the £134 million previously committed by Mr Mitchell to Pakistan in September 2010.
Total UK bilateral aid in Pakistan for the 2009/10 year totalled £140.4 million, broken up as follows: Humanitarian assistance: 33%; Governance: 20%; Education: 18%; Growth: 15%; Health: 8%; Other social services: 5%; Other: 1%.
According to the World Bank, Pakistan has the 25th largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power, and the 45th largest in absolute dollar terms. It is also officially classed as a “semi-industrialised economy,” which mainly encompasses textiles, chemicals, food processing, agriculture and other industries.
In 2009, Pakistan’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was set at $185 billion, with its manufacturing sector showing double-digit growth from 2000 to 2007. Large-scale manufacturing in Pakistan grew from 1.5 percent in 1999 to a record 19.9 percent in 2004-05 and averaged 8.8 percent by end of 2007, mostly the result of the deindustrialisation of the West.
The Pakistani armed forces are the seventh largest in the world in terms of active troops, with approximately 617,000 personnel on active duty, 513,000 in reserve and 304,000 in its paramilitary forces giving a total of almost 1,451,000 personnel.
Britain’s army, by contrast, has 194,440 professional soldiers and 39,420 volunteer forces, giving a total of 233,860 troops.
Pakistan’s defence budget stands at $7.8 billion (the 23rd highest defence spend in the world) which consumes 4.5 percent of its GDP (2006 estimate).
In addition, Pakistan posses at least 90 nuclear bombs, and has refused to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
These figures make it absolutely clear that Pakistan requires no “foreign aid” at all and that it is nothing short of treason against the British taxpayer for the ConDem and Labour regimes to continue to pump money into that region while there is such crying need at home.
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