£38 Million government bribe paid to China

ONLY £38,000,000 - insulting to PRC I should have thought.

They must think we are absolutely 'barking' ! The Indian Government thought we were when we (New Labour actually) paid them a similar sum recently (last year).

Who signs these cheques against my tax payments?

Everyone with more than one working brain-cell understands that this frantically frightful government has 'lost the plot', but is there no - highly paid - functionary empowered to stop this ludicrous waste of 'my' money?

 

Isquared
Is it a waste of money though ?
£38 million sounds like alot, but if UK companies get £billions in export orders, which they do, then the bribe , because lets be honest thats what it is, is worth paying.

There was a similar discussion on the benefit if giving aid to India, which is why I entered the discussion (for obvious reasons)Infact I recall your name from that thread.
Here is the link:
http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/t=110943/postdays=0/postorder=asc/start=0.html

This isn't really "aid" its a bribe, it is uncalled for and demeaning, the only thing I can compare it to is when back in the days of old, when British and other european traders went east looking for opportunity they would rock up at some Maharajahs/Nawabs/Emperor/Kings palace, present an expensive gift and then ask for trading concessions.
My opinion is that if this so called "aid" (bribe) is going to be given to gain trade for UK companies then it should be recovered from the companies that benifit in the form of a tax or they should have to put profits into a pot that is then given away as "aid".
All it does is disaappear into swiss bank accounts.

Regards

John Singh

 

What John said.

It's distasteful but this is the way that the global economy works, it's just a much bigger version of the way that most companies do business.

Everyone, one way or another, is on backhanders once they rise to a position where they are decision makers. Be this a trip out, a free meal during a "meeting", a few cases at Xmas or 38 mill in "aid", the end product is always greater than the "sweetner". That's just life.

If someone said to me "Find 38 million and I'll guarantee you the same return that the UK is getting from China", I bet you I'd find enough people to raise it within half a day.

 

I don't think this money is going on backhanders. I've no doubt that some of it will be siphoned off by corrupt officials but that's straightforward theft after the cash arrives in country rather than bribes from the UK government.

Both India and China are developing rapidly. In both countries, the new, wealthy, urban middle classes have abandoned the rural poor to a life of sometimes extreme poverty. This is anathema to fans of redistributive socialism like dear old Gordon.

His response is to take money from the 'undeserving rich' (i.e. anybody with a job) in this country and redistribute it to the 'deserving poor' at home in abroad. In this country, Gordon's wealth redistribution fantasies result in unemployed, single mothers commanding six figure incomes from welfare and our own dear Sven has his Sky Sports subscription funded by the state. Meanwhile, our welfare bill, currently running at 30% of all government expenditure, is the main reason why the country's heading for bankruptcy later this year.

Abroad, we feed starving Indian peasants while their government spends 2 billion quid to drop a postage stamp sized Indian flag on the surface of the moon. In China we provide HIV drugs for people infected when rural hospitals decided to save cash by reusing blood transfusion needles. China is the fourth richest country in the world.

Should a country that's heading towards bankruptcy be getting the chequebook out for foreigners abandoned by their own, wealthy governments? I think not, even if out foreign aid budget gives Gordon wet dreams about saving the world from poverty.