[big mick]

The Tories seem to be making a big deal over 143 million being used to make Cycling safer in England.We give 1 Billion in oversea’s aid every month 12 billion a year! Don’t think they are doing us much of a favour really.One billion would make cycle super highways and really change life for millions of people/4 weeks aid to aid Britain’s future seems more like it to me.Most of the aid sent over sea doesn’t reach the people in need and we need to invest in your own country first.

Topic

[The Rumpo Kid]

Mart wrote:Last year the

Mart wrote:

Last year the British government gave £280 million to India to help feed and medicate their poor.
India has their own space exploration program, Nuclear weapons and are now building their own aircraft carrier.
It kind of puts it all into perspective, reviews are needed.
The majority of the billions we give in aid is not spent in the best interest of us (UK citizens) or the people who need it. We need to help educate the world out of poverty.
Don’t forget, as individuals we also donate £10 billion to local and foreign charities without the government dipping into the coffers every year.
We are a very giving nation.
Cycling should be seen as infrastructure and investment in the future, not as charity.
** rant over **

British aid to India has been stopped. Existing committments will be met, meaning that by 2015, India will get nothing.
I agree that provision for cycling should be seen as part of any coherent transport policy, but it isn’t. Less money for Aid would not mean more for Cycling, even if such a trade-off were desirable.

[Mart]

Last year the British
Last year the British government gave £280 million to India to help feed and medicate their poor.
India has their own space exploration program, Nuclear weapons and are now building their own aircraft carrier.
It kind of puts it all into perspective, reviews are needed.
The majority of the billions we give in aid is not spent in the best interest of us (UK citizens) or the people who need it. We need to help educate the world out of poverty.
Don’t forget, as individuals we also donate £10 billion to local and foreign charities without the government dipping into the coffers every year.
We are a very giving nation.
Cycling should be seen as infrastructure and investment in the future, not as charity.
** rant over **

[The Rumpo Kid]

And I would agree with you
And I would agree with you Sniffer. I’m just trying to point out that some people will scapegoat various areas of spending (Aid, Heritage, The Arts, Sport etc) that have what I can only describe as a “populist unpopularity.” Cycling is more likely to be inside the scapegoat group than outside.

P.S. I’m sure you like living where you do, but unless you are CofE, you will not be represented by the “Lords Spiritual” in the House of Lords. Presbyterianism, and Welsh and Northern Irish Anglicanism, are not established Churches.

[Sniffer]

Please don’t make the trade
Please don’t make the trade off between these two causes. I want to ride my bike safely and help people in other parts of the world. I’d pick very different areas to reduce spending to afford both.

PS Gkam and I live in the part of the country where the established church that the monarch is head of does not have much of a presence.

[The Rumpo Kid]

The trouble is, many people
The trouble is, many people see Government spending on cycling as a “Giving taxpayer’s money to cyclists”, and as unwarranted as Foreign aid.

[big mick]

I would rather put my own
😐 I would rather put my own house/country in order than try to fix everyone else’s first.Cycling in Britian is Dangerous.The roads are knackered with no cycling network even on newly built roads.The car is King.Charitable payments should be just that.Made by happy clappers not from the public purse.Wake up people we are being turned over by a bunch of Public school rich boys again.

[Colin Peyresourde]

I wish any of us knew the
I wish any of us knew the impact that the respective spends have. I would guess that Parliament feel that foreign aid is actually good value for money, rather than some great coffer lining wheeze for dictatorship…..though I agree that questions have to be asked. Unfortunately we might not really like the answers either, and what they mean for us, and how they benefit us……life is a morass and you can’t know everything, and at some point you do have to trust people are doing the right thing.

I’m hoping they’re not make ‘charitable’ payments which benefit reprehensible types.

[The Rumpo Kid]

…With an unelected second
…With an unelected second chamber.

[Gkam84]

Yes its a constitutional
Yes its a constitutional monarchy I didn’t want to get into that part, but its also a parliamentary democracy….

[The Rumpo Kid]

Gkam, the UK is not a
Gkam, the UK is not a Democracy, but a Constitutional Monarchy, where the Head of State is also the head of the established Christian church. And 26 English Bishops sit in the unelected House of Lords, governing the rest of us with no mandate whatsoever.

[Gkam84]

I have to disagree Jim,
I have to disagree Jim, Britain is NOT a Christian nation, its a secular country, although its also a democracy, the way the government act, it might aswell be a dictatorship sometimes.

Our law is not based on biblical law, like some in the middle east, which are religious nations.

I don’t want to see an end to oversea’s aid, but it needs re-jigged, because we are sending money to places it is needed, only for it to go to the wrong people.

[Cycle_Jim]

Social responsibility that we
Social responsibility that we care for those that can’t care for themselves, we are a Christian nation after all. Not saying its right or the best way to spend it, throwing the cat out

[Author]

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