There can be little doubt that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un has done nothing to ingratiate himself with the powers-that-be in the West. His ongoing feud with US President Donald Trump has been rumbling on for months. Nevertheless, since 2010 the UK has donated around £4 million of the Official Development Assistance fund to the communist regime that has shown it already has developed its own nuclear arsenal.

Daily Express crusade

The national daily newspaper, the Daily Express, was rightly horrified by this and began a campaign to persuade the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to stop donating funds from the ODA to regimes with such horrific histories in human rights violations.

The crusade by the Express set out to highlight a succession of donations that form part of the UK's annual bill for foreign aid of £13.4 billion. It questions Prime Minister Theresa May's target of spending 0.7% of Britain's annual income on foreign aid and calls for her to scrap it in favor of investing more heavily into the UK's infrastructure such as the NHS and education.

After a donation in excess of £200,000 this year alone to North Korea, the Foreign Office has issued a statement showing their support for the campaign. It clearly states that they resolutely condemn North Korea's human rights abuses and that " North Korea's attempts to develop nuclear weapons are unacceptable."

UK Foreign Aid

The cancellation of foreign aid to North Korea is but a drop in the ocean however to the gargantuan amount that we commit annually to overseas aid to countries that have resources for space and nuclear weapons programmes like Pakistan ( £463 million last year).

We also send £2 million a week to Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. The country which has recently seen Mugabe's despotic government overthrown in a peaceful military coup receives the funds, bizarrely, to 'promote democracy'. Amongst the other nations benefitting from the generosity of the UK taxpayers are Sierra Leone, Syria, India, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Tanzania.

The situation in the UK

There seems to be little common sense in the decisions made by the Official Development Assistance fund to donate money to countries who have the capabilities to develop their own nuclear programmes, particularly where headteachers in the UK are begging parents for money to fund schools, NHS hospitals are crippled through lack of funding and there is a massive housing crisis throughout the UK.

Chief Executive of The Taxpayers Alliance John O'Connell has expressed serious concern that the UK is building up serious debt problems for future generations because we are still spending much more every year than we collect in taxes.

It does indeed seem to be a serious disparity when families are forced to go to food banks, homelessness is at an all-time high and yet we can still 'afford' to donate billions in foreign aid to countries with nuclear programmes.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED