The turbulent extremist underbelly of Waziristan, Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan, may be a long way from Westminster, but it seems set to bring the UK's fiscal crisis into sharp relief.
According to Lady Kinnock, the Foreign Office has a shortfall of around £110m this year - a problem exacerbated by the weakness of the Pound (and the failure of the FCO to effectively hedge against the possibilities of devaluation). As a result, the anti-terror effort in Pakistan has simply been left without the money it expected.
This is crunch time. The situation in Pakistan is far too serious to simply scrap our work there, given that the country's militants are explicitly linked with attacks directly targeted against Britain. There isn't any more money in the pot, nor can taxes be raised without doing huge harm to the prospect of economic recovery. Therefore, if we want to maintain these crucial efforts then we need to cut somewhere else. This is the new politics, and the sooner our politicians get used to it, the better.
So, where to cut? Interestingly, the Lib Dems' Lord Wallace (no relation) made the case on the Today Programme this morning for the International Development budget to be cut. He made the very good point that economic and social development are rather difficult to do if your country is overrun with trigger-happy extremists. Of course, at the moment this option has been forbidden to Conservative Shadow Ministers by the current policy of ringfencing DfID's spending.
Alternatively, the British Council spent an impressive £209m last year. With such a pressing public finance crisis, their work looks more and more like a luxury that we can ill afford. Whilst well-intentioned, their programmes are often extremely costly and are really an indulgence. Foreign Office Ministers need to ask themselves: which is best for Britain and for Pakistan - defeating violent, organised terror plots targeted at Pakistani and British civilians, or organising sports exchanges between Rugby and Kabbadi teams?
Thus far, the spending cuts promised by the main parties have been either very small or very general. We all know that the need to get into the nitty gritty is inevitable, but the inhabitants of Westminster are still clearly nervous of being up front about that with the public. This is a mistake - and as the developing controversy over these anti-terror cuts shows, either they can choose to come clean soon, and on their own terms, or they will be forced to face up to it by circumstances beyond their control.
