Now the good news.... the orange-fleshed sweet potato

By Harry Phibbs
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This morning in the Daily Telegraph Charles Moore called for more good news. Later this morning the Prime Minister David Cameron gave a speech including an important piece of good news - it concerned the orange-fleshed sweet potato.

Mr Cameron said, of beating hunger:

It’s about harnessing the power of innovation to develop better seeds and more nutritious and productive crops……like the African breeder Robert Mwanga who bred the orange-fleshed sweet potato.

Regular sweet potatoes in Africa have little or no Vitamin A - an essential nutrient that prevents blindness and infant deaths. But just one scoop of orange sweet potato meets a child’s daily Vitamin A needs. And if you want to know the difference that makes – take the story of Maria Mchele a mother and farmer in Tanzania who for years struggled to grow enough even to feed her family.

When she began to farm the new orange sweet potato her life was transformed. Today she is not just providing nutritious food for her own family…….but selling it to others, educating her community and lifting herself out of poverty.

She has managed to send her children to school and used the proceeds of her farming to build a brick house for her family. And Maria is not alone. Programmes like this have helped local farmers to increase their incomes by up to 400 per cent.

But the orange-fleshed sweet potato production depends on profit not subsidy. On consumers wanting to buy it and producers finding it a viable crop. On free trade, low tax, multinational investment. On capitalism.

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David Cameron doesn’t need to legislate for an aid target to meet his aid target

By Peter Hoskin
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The last Conservative manifesto contained a commitment not just to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on overseas aid, but also to ‘legislate in the first session of a new Parliament to lock in this level of spending for every year from 2013.’

The Coalition Agreement made a similar promise to ‘enshrine this commitment in law’.

But – what’s this? – today’s Times reports (£) that the legislation to enshrine the 0.7 per cent commitment into law will not be mentioned in this year’s Queen’s Speech, which will be delivered on 8th May. Three years into this Government, and this particular pledge still hasn’t been met.

At which point I should probably say that we at ConHome are – on the whole, and with all the usual caveats about transparency and efficiency, etc – sympathetic to the aid target. I won’t reheat the reasons here, not least because most of them are contained in Robert Halfon’s post for our Compassionate Conservatism series today.

But, even so, I still think there are good reasons for David Cameron not to enshrine the target in law – or at least understandable ones. Some of them are political: any attempt to legislate will provoke an awkward level of opposition from Tory backbenchers. We have already seen this in miniature, with Christopher Chope terminating the Labour MP Mark Hendrick’s efforts to this end.

And other reasons are more fiscal. As George Osborne confirmed during his Budget speech this year, Britain is going to become the first G8 country to achieve the aid target anyway. That hasn’t required reams of legislation. It’s just required a Chancellor with a mission.

Of course, the idea is that legislating for 0.7 per cent will dissuade other Chancellors from backing away from it in future. But, as important as the aid target is, I’d prefer our finance ministers to enjoy flexibility to act as the situation demands. As Labour’s child poverty targets have shown, legal requirements can quickly be subverted – and yet politicians still unfairly catch flak when they then try to take a different approach.

When it comes to enshrining the aid target in law, much depends on whether you believe manifesto commitments ought to be inviolable. But, in any case, given the polling, I doubt too many voters will weep if Mr Cameron gave this one a miss.

Aid in a cold climate

By Paul Goodman
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Until fairly recently, Select Committee enquiries were a courtly and decorous business, and reports were written and presented in a style of headline-defying narcolepsy.  Then culture change came, and they started to be - surprisingly often - sexed up.  John (now Lord) McFall hauled credit card company bosses before the Treasury Select Committee, when he chaired it during the last Parliament, to be scragged over usurious interest rates.  Keith Vaz was furthering the new ethos during this one when he summoned Russell Brand to give evidence about drug abuse.

And now we have Sir Malcolm Bruce, whose International Development Select Committee today publishes a report saying that Pakistan's elite doesn't pay its taxes, so British aid to the country shouldn't rise - in future, that is, if they don't pull their socks up: "We cannot advocate that the British people finance, through their own taxes, the proposed substantial increase in development assistance to Pakistan unless this wealthy minority demonstrates much keener interest in improving conditions for all," he writes in today's Daily Telegraph (£).  (See also the Times's spash.)

Sir Malcolm's logic invites probing.  If Pakistan is so corrupt (and relatively well-off, as the Times points out), why give it aid at all?  And if we are to slash aid in response to the misconduct of criminal elites, why stop at - rather than start with - Pakistan?  At one level, his committee's report looks like a venture to grab attention during Easter week.  At another, it is a sign of change in the political landscape. The austerity revolution has shaken MPs expenses, local government, "aggressive" tax avoidance and (as we're seeing this week) the welfare system.

I suspect it is coming soon to an aid charity near you.  Although I broadly share Tim Montgomerie's view on aid, I've tended not to write much about the subject to date.  I will look broadly at it soon but, for the moment, want to stick to a narrow point - namely, that this chill spring is also a cold climate for international development.  Were I one of the bigger aid charities or ventures, I would be looking very closely at my budget and spending, before Fleet Street gets there first.

David Cameron celebrates hitting 0.7% overseas aid target in his Easter message

By Tim Montgomerie
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David Cameron once downplayed his faith but he used his Christmas message to suggest he took faith very seriously. His Easter message, just released, is also emphatic:

“I send my best wishes to all those in the United Kingdom and around the world celebrating Easter this year in what is an incredibly exciting time for the Christian faith worldwide.

This year’s Holy Week and Easter celebrations follow an extraordinary few days for Christians; not only with the enthronement of Justin Welby as our new Archbishop of Canterbury, but also with the election of Pope Francis in Rome.

In the Bible, Saint Peter reminds us of the hope that comes from new birth through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Christians, it also reminds us of Jesus’s legacy of generosity, tolerance, mercy, and forgiveness. That legacy lives on in so many Christian charities and churches both at home and abroad. Whether they are meeting the needs of the poor, helping people in trouble, or providing spiritual guidance and support to those in need, faith institutions perform an incredible role to the benefit of our society. As long as I am Prime Minister, they will have the support of this Government.

With that in mind, I am particularly proud to lead a Government that has kept its promise to invest 0.7 per cent of our gross national income on helping the world’s poorest*, and I am grateful that we have been able to partner with both Christian and non-Christian charities to relieve suffering overseas.

I hope you have a very happy Easter.”

I'm not sure it will convince George Carey however. The former Archbishop of Canterbury used an article in yesterday's Daily Mail to suggest that David Cameron was increasing British Christians' fears of persecution. Lord Bates was very unimpressed. In an article for ConHome the Tory peer argued that if anyone was to blame for Christianity's marginalisation it was churchleaders like Dr Carey who talked a lot about issues that weren't central to the lives of their declining flocks.

* Most Tory MPs in marginal seats told Matthew Parris of The Times that the PM was right to honour his aid commitments.

Why Samantha Cameron went to Syria

By Paul Goodman
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Two of the behind-the-scenes players in the Syrian drama are Britain and Russia - Britain, because it is one of most intervention-leaning western countries, and Russia, because it is the Assad regime's main diplomatic backer (Iran excepted).  The possible emergence of a hardline Sunni Islamist government, were the regime to fall, is an important part of their conversation.  Russia argues that this would be a disastrous outcome for the region, that other evils could govern Syria that are even worse than Assad, and that backing the Syrian resistance is therefore unwise.

Britain agrees the appearance of such a government would be alarming and that, were Al Qaeda to have institutional influence in Syria, this would obviously be even more so.  But it disagrees strongly with Russia about how to deal with Assad.  The longer he clings on in government, the Foreign Office argues, the more time Al Qaeda and other extremist elements will have to strengthen their position.  In a nutshell, its case is that all Russia is achieving by helping Assad to cling to power is making the outcome that it fears more likely to happen.

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Cameron can claim three historic moral achievements --- 0.7% spent on aid. 2.7 milion people lifted out of income tax. Gay marriage.

By Tim Montgomerie
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In my other blog this morning I give the Coalition low marks for its record on deficit reduction. Progress has been dismally slow. Let me celebrate two other things that the Budget delivered, however, and point to three big achievements overall.

First, Britain will become the first major economy to spend 0.7% of national income on international development. I realise that most readers of this website and most voters object to spending more on aid when domestic budgets are so tight but the plight of this nation is nothing compared to the plight of many hundreds of millions of people in parts of the developing world. It's true that some aid is wasted and some goes into the pockets of corrupt officials and politicians. Most, however, puts food in hungry bellies, innoculations in vulnerable bloodstreams and resilience in subsistence farmers' crops. We should be very proud that a Conservative Prime Minister and Chancellor have delivered this commitment and have done so in the teeth of very significant opposition from people who give the impression that our aid budget is much bigger than it is and that incidences of corruption are the norm rather than the exception. Even readers of this website become much more positive about aid when the very specific benefits of it are spelt out. What is vital is that the reforms begun by Andrew Mitchell and maintained by Justine Greening are accelerated. They include greater transparency of the aid budget, redirection of aid to poorer countries, more market-driven aid and streamlining of the DFID bureaucracy.

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David Cameron uses PMQs to confirm that he's considering more intervention in Syria

By Tim Montgomerie
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Ed Miliband asked a first set of questions about the banking crisis in Cyprus. Cameron replied by saying that the UK has exempted itself from €urozone rescue deals but, on a general point, he stated that deposit protection schemes should be respected.

Ed Miliband's second set of questions focus on whether the arms embargo to Syria should be lifted. David Cameron replies by saying that the current set of policies are clearly not working and 70,000 people have already died under Assad's "hateful regime". The Labour leader struck a very cautious note, worrying that the situation could be made worse if the arms embargo was lifted. The PM replied that the discussions of EU leaders that he had intended reminded him of the arguments made in the 1990s with regard to Bosnia. The British government - along with France - is clearly tip-toeing towards a more interventionist policy.

David Cameron reaffirmed Britain's commitment to the aid budget. He said that Britain should be proud of its help for the hungriest people of the world. The IF campaign ran the above photo stunt yesterday to urge the Chancellor to maintain aid spending. He has. This year Britain will become the first major economy to hit the UN's 0.7% development target. I am proud that that has happened under a Tory PM and Chancellor.

Hague and Cameron are right to consider arming Syria's rebels but the region's wealthy oil states need to deliver more life-saving aid. And quickly.

By Tim Montgomerie
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William Hague and David Cameron are seriously considering sending arms to help the Syrian opposition in their civil war with the Assad regime. Assad's armed forces are being financed and equipped by Russia and are getting a helping hand from Iran's Revolutionary Guard. The combination of Russia and Iran is a particularly horrible one. Moscow's fingerprints are all over the Grozny-style bombing of Syrian cities that means many of them now resemble 1945 Berlin. Tehran's contribution has been to help brutalise the Syrian regime's anti-insurgency operations. Many prisoners of war aren't detained but are mutilated before being killed.

It is no wonder that, in Mr Hague's words, Syria is producing the world's "biggest human catastrophe of recent years". At least 70,000 people have already died. Four million people are in acute need. More than one million refugees have fled Syria and that flow is accelerating rather than declining. Last week, as a guest of the Save the Children charity, I visited the Zaatari refugee camp on Jordan's border with Syria.

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Tory Cabinet ministers and Lib Dems have one message for Osborne: Cut the ring fences

By Tim Montgomerie
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George Osborne is getting a very similar message from his Conservative and Liberal Democrat colleagues: Lift the ringfences.

Liberal Democrats are telling the Chancellor that they won't accept further cuts to welfare if he isn't willing to cut richer pensioners' benefits and, potentially, also "gently trim" the budgets for the NHS, schools and aid. Unlike the Tories, the Lib Dems' 2010 manifesto did not promise to ringfence key Whitehall budgets or the perks paid to better off pensioners.

And from his Right, Tory Cabinet colleagues are also saying that the next round of spending cuts will only be acceptable if the whole of Whitehall shares in the pain. Cabinet ministers like Theresa May feel that she's already achieved the near impossible. She has cut the budgets of the police for the first time ever and without a breakdown in law and order. On the contrary, crime has actually fallen by 10%. Eric Pickles is equally proud of the cuts he has made. Cuts to local government have been frontloaded but there hasn't been a meltdown for Tory councillors at the ballot box. Public opinion polls suggest that voters are seeing through Labour attempts to 'shroud wave' while, for example, maintaining reserves.

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Cameron's Christmas message described "as the most Christian of its kind from an incumbent prime minister"

By Tim Montgomerie
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The Telegraph describes David Cameron's Christmas message "as the most Christian of its kind from an incumbent prime minister". The Daily Mail concludes that Mr Cameron "went further than ever last night when he quoted from the Bible, referring to Jesus as ‘the light of all mankind’ and the ‘Prince of Peace’".

Here is the key section of the message that has aroused reporters' interest and is being interpreted as an attempt to woo Christians offended by the Coalition's plans to introduce gay marriage:

"Christmas also gives us the opportunity to remember the Christmas story – the story about the birth of Jesus Christ and the hope that he brings to the countless millions who follow him. The Gospel of John tells us that in this man was life, and that his life was the light of all mankind, and that he came with grace, truth and love. Indeed, God’s word reminds us that Jesus was the Prince of Peace."

It is certainly more emphatic than the way he described his faith in 2008:

"I believe, you know. I am a sort of typical member of the Church of England. As Boris Johnson once said, his religious faith is a bit like the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes. That sums up a lot of people in the Church of England. We are racked with doubts, but sort of fundamentally believe, but don't sort of wear it on our sleeves or make too much of it. I think that is sort of where I am."

Read Mr Cameron's full Christmas message here.

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