Public opinion on international aid isn’t where Cameron thinks it is

Andrew Mitchell was recently informed that the public is split 50:50 for and against increasing the international aid budget to £12 billion in 2013. A YouGov@Cambridge poll for Politics Home suggests that he should get some better advice. The poll shows that while the public is indeed split fairly evenly on the general principle of aid (41 per cent in favour, 38 per cent against), when it comes to the government’s promise to increase the aid budget by a third, those against outnumber those for by more than 2 to 1.

The policy is by no means a Cameroon brainchild. In 1970 the United Nations set the target for government aid at 0.7 per cent of GNI; in 2004 the Labour government pledged to meet it by 2013 and in 2006 David Cameron signed the Tories up to that pledge. It was a key part of the wristbands and huskies “detoxification” of the ‘nasty party’.