06/10/2025 07:50
The Guardian
Shadow chancellor sets out cost-cutting plans as Tory party conference continues in ManchesterMel Stride, the shadow chancellor, has defended plans to slash spending on overseas aid to 0.1% of national income – the lowest level on record.In an interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, the presenter Ed Balls (who himself was a Labour shadow chancellor more than 10 years ago) pointed out that the overseas aid cuts proposed today (see 7.59am) would take aid spending to 0.1% of overall national income. When David Cameron was Tory leader, he got it up to 0.7%, the UN target. Balls said this would be the lowest level for UK aid spending since records began in the 1960s, and the lowest level for any European country other than Cyprus. Russia would be the only developed country spending less, Balls claimed. He asked Stride what this said about the Tory party.What it speaks to is the position that we are in as an economy. We are living on borrowed time. And unless we have a government that recognises that, and takes these tough decisions … then we will end up in a very, very difficult position.There is a point on that journey at which the wheels of this economy will completely come off. And that will not help anybody around the world if Britain becomes impoverished, bankrupt and unable to further its values across the globe.So yes, these are tough decisions, I accept that. But they are the right ones.The Tories let welfare bills, civil service numbers and asylum hotel use skyrocket on their watch - and they’ve never apologised. Now they want to rehash failed promises from their failed manifesto to try to solve the problems they caused.This is the same old Tories, with the same old policies. They didn’t work then and you can’t trust them now. Continue reading...
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