Should we bin foreign aid?

The scandal surrounding overseas charity workers is being used as a pretext for demanding cuts to the aid budget. Matthew Partridge reports.

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Rees-Mogg: opening up a new front in the culture wars
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"Every year we continue to pile 0.7% of our GDP into aid, no questions asked, so that we can stand up at international conferences and say we're doing our bit'," says The Sun. Yet this cash "is ploughed into vanity projects that do little to help the world's poorest" while "overpaid and underworked consultants" live "the high life at our expense". The shocking revelations about high-level Oxfam workers using prostitutes is the last straw. It's time "to bin the spending target".

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri