Guardian letter on Yemen aid cut

When Andrew Mitchell says that "cutting aid to Yemen by 50% is unconscionable" (Health crisis looms, say agencies ahead of UK funding cuts, 03/02/21), and adds that "this is not who we are", John Crace disagrees, and is right up to a point (Sketch, 03/02/21). It is what this nation has become, largely because of what can only be described as brainwashing. Being told constantly by the mainstream media that the national debt needs repaying urgently and foreign aid has to be cut leads to a gradual acceptance, as Johnson well knows when claiming to have popular support, and mocking Starmer for devoting all six of his questions at this week`s PMQs to the subject of a poor country`s imminent famine. Similar backing from the media in 2010 meant Osborne`s unnecessary austerity, based on the ridiculous notion that the country was near bankruptcy, and leading to untold misery for thousands, whilst the rich were given tax decreases, went through with little opposition. Having too many low paid public servants and key workers, a "forgotten third" of our children underachieving in underfunded state schools, top universities dominated by students from the private schools, numbers relying on food banks increasing daily, when London-based banks announce billions of profit yet insist poor countries repay debt rather than buy Covid vaccines, is, it seems, also what "we are". Perhaps if the media repeatedly insisted that we are the world`s 6th richest economy, with enough untaxed wealth to pay everyone a living wage, and provide everyone with a decent home, who "we are" would change dramatically. Aid to Yemen pales into insignificance when compared with the figures associated with the government`s "chumocratic" contracts and failure to rein in tax avoidance! 6 Budget-day questions on Yemen? Well done, Mr Starmer!