New money for Cycle routes

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 **

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.

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 trouble is, many people see Government spending on cycling as a "Giving taxpayer's money to cyclists", and as unwarranted as Foreign aid.

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.

...With an unelected second chamber.

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

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.

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.

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