Keir Starmer has significantly cut international aid and diverted money to defence. This seems to have made Trump temporarily happy. As numbers have pointed out aid and defence go hand in hand rather than being seen as two different things.
The international development Secretary Anneliese Dodds has resigned and in doing so she, rather than Starmer, stands in the mainstream Labour tradition.
In 1976 Jim Callaghan had become Labour PM and the Chancellor Denis Healey was looking at significant spending cut. These were carried through in 1977 and paved the way towards Thatcherism.
What was then called overseas aid was considered for budget cuts.
Tony Benn records in his diary the Cabinet meeting that considered this (15th July 1976)
Callaghan said ‘it is agreed that we exclude overseas aid because I think that would be very unpopular’
Callaghan was a figure of the Old Labour right…
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