Douglas Carswell

Clacton campaign diary: Less overseas aid means more for our armed forces

Today we begin putting up garden boards. The great news is that lots and lots of them have sprung up already.

Here is a photo of Connaught Avenue, Frinton, yesterday afternoon. Folk keep coming into the office asking for window posters – so much so that we have had to order a second print run.

Over the past three years, the government has massively hiked up the amount of money we spend on overseas aid. So much so, in fact, that the Department of International Development was – according to some accounts – struggling to spend the money fast enough.

While we send £1 billion a month overseas, our own armed forces are underfunded.

If that was not bad enough, we face renewed global threats. Terror groups have a toe hold on the southern and eastern Mediterranean. Putin, in my view, spells trouble.

Any sensible government, you'd have thought, would recalibrate spending to reflect these new dangers. Alas, Ed, Dave and Nick all agree on the need to spend 0.7 percent of national income on overseas aid. They even joined forces to pass a law to insist we meet that overseas aid spending target.  They refuse to make any such committment for defence spending. 

Only UKIP is willing to commit to spending 2 percent of GDP on defence.

Can you imagine what it must have been like running election campaigns before we had mobile phones?

Mobiles mean that no one ever gets lost when out leafleting. It also makes campaigning much more fun, with photos and tweets. Yesterday, I even used an app to tell me how far I walked knocking on doors. Just over nine miles, apparently ....

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