General Chat

From April 2011 the Government will be reducing the amount of Gift Aid a charity can claim on donations from UK taxpayers from 28% to 25%.

Why won't they stop & think about what they're doing. I know they have to get the money from somewhere but this seems so wrong.

They expect the charities to pick up the slack that they are not able or willing to deal with. Why make the job more difficult?

Nothing like throwing in a book keeping nightmare as well?
I hope the smaller charities can cope.How much will the public be able to contribute with the VAT increase being heaped on as well.Maybe the Goverment will fully fund all of the health/research charities & the air ambulances,life boats etc ....I'm not holding my breath on that one :(

I think it's wrong.
It's just another way for them to take from the poor and needed, and make the rich richer.
Charitys need every last penny they can get.
Many health issues need charity funding, to find ways to cure millions of suffering people that are suffering in so many bad a cruel ways.
Maybe our Goverment should remember they work for the people not the other way round.
Thats just my view of course.

But they dont! Its their own pockets most of them fill first. I truly believe that they dont have a clue what it is like to manage on a small amount of money for years, Its not the same as the publicity seeking one week living on benefits that some have tried. When your shoes or your coat wear out and there is NO money to replace them, or no money to keep the car on the road that you need to get to work.

while this counrtry is in such a state
its foreign aid that should be cut
why should we pay for other countries to breed
more kids so more mouths to feed
it goes on in a never ending circle


if they want aid give them contraception

Even though it's a coalition the one side seem more than happy to renage on their election promises (student grants grrrrrrr) to the point I limit what I read or listen to for the sake of my blood pressure.

At one point I had charity envelopes arriving by the cart load & decided to chose a small number of them that related to me. I admit Joy I tend to look at charity requests & think "if it was the other way 'round-would they help me"?

its an easy question to answer Carla
how may counties sent donations
for the Cambrian flood victims




the answer is NONE

It might be a good Idea if those people who Head these Charities took a dip in their very large salaries and refused to have the free cars /subsidised Mortgages etc.**M**.

Exactly Joy & it happens all the time.

With medical charities it is reasonable that resources are pooled to speed up any research as everyone effected will benefit. It does grieve me when there are areas in the UK under such hardship & there seems to be no "Aid" structure similar to the ones put in place for any crisis overseas.

In an ideal World there would be no suffering but when it comes to charities it is hard to say no,harder to understand why (in some cases) countries don't "look after their own"- & now why our own Govt is taking away this 3% that can make such a difference to so many.

when did anybody last see a charity shop abroad
ive never seen one ever
they dont want second hand they want cash

why cant we all hand our unused medication in and re cycle it abroard
i worked in a vets years ago
and lots of our medication was often old stock
it has a much longer shelf life than it says on the packets

so send it to disaster areas

In our local hospital, we have collection points, such as in opthalmics, we can put our old glasses in there and twice a year the consultants take them to Africa (unpaid, and in their own time), a good idea, doesnt always cost money to donate to a charity. Unless of course, you are one of the doctors, thank heaven for them x

We have one of those boxes at our Doctor's Surgery & the Charity concerned collects it.
The Veterinary meds,now that is a brilliant idea & personally I've had meds for myself that I've had to stop taking & returned what's left to the Pharmacy to be "disposed" of-I wonder what really happens to them???????

Charity shops....oooh I used to love them,returning home with my "bargain" & hearing a wise voice say either "what the heck is it" or "what possessed you" !!!!!!!! Recently though the prices have rocketed locally & a lot of my friends have said it's really taken the fun out of it.

while this counrtry is in such a state
its foreign aid that should be cut
why should we pay for other countries to breed
more kids so more mouths to feed
it goes on in a never ending circle
if they want aid give them contraception

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I really just never ceae to be amazed. Despite myself.

"We" do give "them" contraception, my dear. Family planning services are not as accessible as they should be, (a) because we don't give *enough* aid, and (b) because the RC Church sticks its ugly nose into the process every time women's reproductive health issues come up.

"They" "breed" children because they don't have pensions, for one thing. OAPs in the UK may not have it easy, but they aren't left to starve. The countries in question, e.g. in Africa, do not have economies that will support the elderly through pensions. Their children have to do it.

"They" also do it because they have to live off small farms and the like, and that calls for children to help work the land.

And then there's the small problem of child mortality -- the number of children who simply do not survive, because of hunger and disease and conflict. People have to have enough children to be sure that some make it.

Long experience shows that all people everywhere in the world will choose to limit their family once they have the conditions that make that possible -- access to the methods for doing it, and assurance that limiting the number of children will mean they are better off, not worse off.

They are people, just like us.

Why didn't our own ancestors, all those good white English folk, stop having so many children? Why don't some people even today do the same?

People who have three or four or, heaven help us, more children in developed countries today are putting a huge burden on the earth that they have no business doing, in my ever so humble opinion. A far greater burden, in resource use and waste and pollution, than any child in a developing country will ever create. And the climate change they will contribute to will hurt the people in developing countries far, far more than themselves.

But those children will be fat and happy all their lives -- fat literally, these days -- simply because they had the pure luck to be born in a place where society can afford to send them to school and pay for their healthcare and pay their pensions when they retire.

The way some people talk about other human beings in public, and others chime in to agree, just makes me nauseous, is about all I can say.

This one was funny, though: no charity shops in those nasty demanding overbreeding countries.

Do you actually think those people have money to spend on what charity shops sell? Good lord. Go google "refugee camp Sudan" or "children Congo" or a few others I could suggest. Educate your %$#@ selves.

Janey while i respect your views i to am entitled to mine also
most of the aid given is spooned off by the governments
of these country as well you must know
and what respect do those people give our aid workers
yes we have all read the news
have you ever had a phone call at 4 am
to say your sons been kidnapped in Nigeria
well i have
fortunately for me
my son was at the time at home on home leave
having arrived home that night
and they had the wrong person
i praised the lord for that even as a non believer

JoyBoroAngel, what does

"most of the aid given is spooned off by the governments
of these country"

have to do with your appalling comments about the PEOPLE in those countries?

Nothing. Nice try at changing the subject, though.


"and what respect do those people give our aid workers
yes we have all read the news
have you ever had a phone call at 4 am
to say your sons been kidnapped in Nigeria
well i have "

Hey, good for you. And was it the people he was helping who kidnapped him? I'm very sure it was not. So what is your point?

That there are conflicts in the places where aid is delivered? You betcha there are. Children are used as soldiers and have their childhoods stolen and their limbs cut off, in some of those conflicts.

Many of those conflicts are over things like diamonds that are sold to fat rich people in the developed world. Children suffer and die because there is so much money to be made from selling diamonds to fat rich people in the developed world that civil wars are fought over the diamonds. Now that's "aid".

Some of the conflicts are over the things that foreign corporations do when they take oil and other things out of the land so that fat rich people in the developed world can drive their big cars around and text one another constantly. (You do know what blood is being shed over the minerals used in your cell phone?)

And some people in those countries don't like having their environment poisoned and their livestock killed by those corporations, and they try to fight back. Aid workers are the wrong targets, usually, very true.

And some of those conflicts are fought by people who create ethnic/religous hatred in order to gain wealth and power.

And foreign governments often supply the arms the conflicts are fought with.

But none of any of that has anything to do with aid to ordinary people in those countries.

Except to say that if we stopped buying useless trash like diamonds and disposable cell phones and driving big cars everywhere we went, and stopped invading other people's countries and murdering them, there might be fewer problems that lead to poverty and to people kidnapping aid workers.

Does anybody actually know how much the UK gives in foreign aid?

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-letter/2010/Pages/rich-countries-foreign-aid.aspx for 2008

The US gives 0.19% of GDP in foreign aid -- about the worst. That is about $2 of every $1000 dollars of income in the country.

(Canada sucks right now; we've had a right-wing government in power for a while: 0.32%. The average of the developed countries is 0.45%.)

For the United Kingdom, the figure is 0.48% -- about £5 out of every £1000.

That is the equivalent of a person who earns £25,000 a year giving £125.

Less than one-half of one percent of a country's total income is really not a humongous amount.

The UN recommends 0.7% -- £7 on every £1000.

Just to inject a little fact.

Just something from Bill Gates at the link I gave above:

"I am concerned that some of this money [the money cut from foreign aid] will come from reducing other categories of foreign aid, especially health.

If just 1 percent of the $100 billion goal came from vaccine funding, then 700,000 more children could die from preventable diseases.

In the long run, not spending on health is a bad deal for the environment because improvements in health, including voluntary family planning, lead people to have smaller families, which in turn reduces the strain on the environment."

janey it was indeed the people he was helping
and it also never stopped them machine gunning
the jeep in front of him in his convoy in Lagos


also we gave aid to Ethiopia
and what did they do
spent it hundreds of thousands of pounds
on their governments entertainment
the rich people in these countries are not helping their own people
so why should we
while our country is in financial state
i have no problem giving them aid when we are better off
but the truth is we are no in the position to give aid at this time
there are old people in this country scrimping an exsistance and they are the ones who helped make our
country a good place to live
anybody can google Janey try living in the real world
i have no problem them been sent food
but i have cash

http://www.poverty.com/internationalaid.html
googgle that janey


see how much aid your country gives compared to ours
maybe yours should give more and ours less
until we are back on our feet

Really JoyBoroAngel?

"janey it was indeed the people he was helping
and it also never stopped them machine gunning
the jeep in front of him in his convoy in Lagos"

The women and children he was helping machine gunned the jeep?


"also we gave aid to Ethiopia
and what did they do
spent it hundreds of thousands of pounds
on their governments entertainment"

THEY? Who are THEY?

THE PEOPLE did not spend the money on their government's entertainment.

I don't get quite so muddled when I think, myself.


"the rich people in these countries are not helping their own people
so why should we "

I dunno.

It isn't raining, so why should I have breakfast?

What do the two things have to do with each other?

Do THE PEOPLE decide what the rich and powerful in their countries do?

NO.

Do you say: My neighbour doesn't give money to the local animal shelter, so why should I? My neighbour doesn't wrap their garbage properly, so why should I?

Again, let's try not to get quite so muddled in our thinking.


If anybody can google, why don't you try it occasionally?

Like I said: educate yourself. About the real real world. Not the imaginary one in which "those people" in developing countries spend their time plotting how many children they can have to make you pay for.


If spending 50p out of every £100 is going to bankrupt a country, it's in worse shape than any of us know.