Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Life On Mars

Any planet has myriad characteristics peculiar to itself. Why should Earth's not include the ability to sustain life? They might not. But, so far as we have any grounds for thinking, they do.

We fund India's foreign aid budget precisely, so that she has the money for a mission to Mars. That's right. Mars. We are also paying towards Nigeria's active aspiration to launch a rocket into space by 2028.

The Statute Law should specify that the United Kingdom's aid to any given country be reduced by the exact cost of any space programme, or of any nuclear weapons programme, or of any nuclear submarine programme, or of any foreign aid budget of that country's own.

The money thus saved would, however, have to remain within the budget of the Department for International Development.

Only Labour could any longer propose this. Let it do so.

More generally, just as the British attitudes to America and to Russia ought to be the same, so the British attitudes to India and to China ought to be the same: unbelligerent and unsentimental in all four cases. Exactly as their attitudes are to us.

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