Thrift Builds Resilience

Junior Britons attempting to get by on what the Chancellor so charmingly refers to as "little extras" will be reassured to know that Her Majesty's Government is even less interested in the welfare of foreign infantine resources than it is in theirs. Some meddling persons from the charitable sector, which seems to have chronic difficulty understanding the foreign aid business plan, are complaining because only a small fraction of the UK's international aid budget is being spent on protecting children from violence. Even in Iraq, where British decency has been in particularly effulgent evidence for most of the present century, the UK has allocated no dedicated funding, though doubtless the Reverend Blair does his part. Still, given the degree of concern which the UK has shown over its native small shirkers and the job-stealers of tomorrow from Libya to Calais, to say nothing of the humanitarian miracle in Yemen, one would have thought that even a charity might be able to take the hint.