Until he became Prime Minister, Boris Johnson's only Cabinet experience had been a brief spell at the nominal head of a Foreign Office from which both international trade, and relations with the European Union's institutions, had been hived off in order to make it possible for him to become Foreign Secretary. Even Chevening had had to be shared among the three Foreign Secretaries.
Yet today, Johnson has abolished, not either of those Departments, but the Department for International Development. But that is all that he has done. He has merely abolished the Department, not what it does, such as promote abortion on a staggering scale around the world. Still, such is his desperation to make even the most symbolic gesture to the Right that installed him as Leader, but which is starting to realise quite what it has done.
Hey, ho, the debate is open now, so let in be joined. We need the specification in the Statute Law 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, but with the money thus saved remaining within what we are once again going to have to patronise the world by calling the Overseas Aid budget, and with the 0.7 per cent target still resolutely intact.
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