Not content with throwing vast amounts of cash at the uncontrolled number of asylum seekers running up the beaches of the southeast coast (nearly £50 a head weekly plus free accommodation and free healthcare)*, we throw £11 billion annually at a variety of hopeless international causes in the shape of the overseas aid budget. It is worth noting that one of the countries to which we send money is China which recently received £391 million. At least they don’t fritter it away on fast cars, villas and private jets as is the custom in some parts of Africa. The Chinese probably use it to fund their vast spying and espionage system which a recent government report exposed as making significant inroads into our industry, universities and defence systems. That’s gratitude for you, but I digress.
One of the countries to which we send overseas aid is Turkey, to whom we recently sent £42.8 million. Admittedly, they have a hell of a situation on their southern border with hordes of Syrian refugees crossing in. The logic in giving them money to help with this is sound as it keeps these refugees where they are and not in France casting their beady eyes across the channel to the UK. Turkey also had a terrible earthquake recently, and nobody would grudge them a few quid to help rebuild the affected parts of the country.
On the other hand, Turkey is a civilised and advanced society with a reasonable industrial base, a massive tourist industry and—if you’ve been there—quite an impressive infrastructure, including one of the newest and swankiest airports in the world. Turkish GDP is lower than the UK’s but at 19th in the league table (the UK is 6th) there are still a hell of a lot of countries a lot less well off. Instead of pouring our hard earned taxes into Turkey which seems to be moving slowly but surely towards being a fundamentalist Islamic state run by a rather unpleasant president, maybe the answer to their apparent woes is to run their country better, and make better use of the resources they already have. But it gets worse.
I was glad I was sitting down when I heard the news: ‘UK announces £680m for new high-speed electric railway in Turkey.’ My precise response is unprintable, even here. We cannot get our own high speed rail project, which has been postponed again due to soaring costs (in the region now of £100 billion) on the rails, why on earth would we fund one in another country? And how long, having kicked off the project, before we are lumbered with its ‘soaring costs’ as Turkey finds it cannot afford to get the job done?
Turkey already has an impressive rail system, some of which was built by the Germans (enough said). It was good enough for a series of former rail enthusiast politicians and celebrities—Michael Portillo, Chris Tarrant and Bill Nighy—to extol its virtues on television. It even has an impressive night train system joining major cities; we only have two overnight trains in the UK.
If you have ever waited for a train in Britain then, chances are, you are still waiting for it. If you manage to catch one and reach your destination at anything like the time advertised on the timetable then it is considered an achievement. People here remark on train journeys that take place on time. In other places, Hong Kong for example, if a train is delayed by only a few minutes then it makes the front page of the South China Morning Post.
In most other countries comparable to ours, many of them on continental Europe, the rail systems are remarkable. Take Italy, often the butt of jokes about the state of its economy and the tardiness of its inhabitants; the rail system is wonderful. Huge trains run frequently to almost any destination you want; the trains run on time, they are clean, incredibly cheap, and the lines are fast and smooth. In the UK, once you have purchased your rail ticket it becomes very hard to board a train, having left an arm and a leg behind at the ticket desk. On the far side of the world, the rail infrastructure in Australia is excellent and, nearer to home, the rail systems in the Far East and some parts of South East Asia are a joy to behold.
While some companies in the UK have greatly improved their rolling stock—the recent introduction of the Japanese designed and manufactured Azuma trains on the East Coast line is a welcome step up from the previous trains many of which had seen their first service before they were privatised by Mrs Thatcher. But, even if the trains have improved, the lines have not, and in many places you wobble about to such an extent that it is unsafe to have a hot drink on your table. Not so on almost any European or Far East rail system where anything you put on the table in front of you stays exactly where it is, despite the train travelling at several hundred kilometres an hour.
The current situation in the UK is that we seem to be becoming overrun with uncontrolled immigration, mainly of young men who are clearly economic migrants at best or rapacious, knife-wielding misogynists at worst, at whom we are throwing vast amounts of money, thus making the situation worse and encouraging more to arrive. Having bankrupted ourselves during the ‘pandemic’, we are now printing money at a great rate leading to inflation. One of our least efficient industries, the NHS, one of the few groups paid fully over lockdown, has just held us hostage for a massive and inflationary pay rise (and wants more), while energy and food prices increase beyond the reach of members of the population with less muscle. Meantime, we are helping to build an advanced rail system in another country while our own system crumbles and creaks to a halt.
If I have got any of my facts above wrong, then the comments section is open below.
* Worth noting that one of my sons, until then a UK tax payer and national insurance contributor, experienced a period of redundancy and all he got was free healthcare.
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
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Thank you. And did you notice that the Turkish company Rönesans Holding, the main beneficiary of this export credit guarantee, “has already engaged with UK suppliers to negotiate contracts for … ESG consultancy services ….”.
This quote from Hitler seems appropriate: “Everything I am, I am through you alone.” We are responsible for this mess because we elect and continue to elect the idiots who do this to us.