We're sure as you trudged around the shops at Christmas various people dressed as Santa or elves rattled collection tins at you, and being enthused with festive cheer you gave generously. Here's a question for you - when you threw those coins into the collecting tin, did you give any thought as to whether the money collected went to the people who needed it, rather than sitting in a bank account making money for the charity that collected it?

Nearly twelve months on from the Haiti earthquake, the people there are still living in cardboard boxes and dying from cholera, whilst hundreds of millions of dollars donated from around the world are still sitting in well known charity's bank accounts, being gobbled up by “admin” charges – big salaries to CEO's in other words - and on researching further we have discovered that a well known musician, who fronts a charity that collected £9.6 million from well wishers in 2008, has handed over just £118,000 (1.2%) to actual aid schemes, while £5.1 million was earmarked for salaries: shocking, by any standards.

And when is charity not charity? When the British government decides to take £8.4 billion a year out of your pay without asking, some of which ends up buying hookers, bodyguards and limos for politicos and gangsters in third world hell holes all around the globe, all in the name of “overseas aid”! Fake charities and overseas aid are two of the biggest scams being perpetrated on people in this country,  and the English Radicals say all this must stop – especially when people in England are in need. For example those on disability living allowance (DLA), face having this benefit withdrawn. ERA has a member who has to claim DLA as a result of injuries sustained during military service, why should he be deprived of this allowance, paid for in spilt blood and broken bones? Why should a disabled person in England have to do without this money, whilst funds can be found for able bodied foreign despots?

And would you like an example of how much £8.4 billion is, and what it could buy? £8.4 billion a year would provide free English university places for 933,000 students, at £9,000 a year, every year! Something to keep in mind, next time a ConDem Coalition minister tells us we must all tighten our belts........

The overseas aid budget for 2010 – which is extra money the British government will actually have to borrow and the taxpayer pay back, with interest, as the country is in debt - is effectively dead money, with no expectation of any return. So we make this plea to the British government: Stop stealing this money from us, which is simply gifted to foreign governments - instead, encourage British taxpayers via a tax allowance, to lend money (via local credit unions and microfinance programmes) directly to poor people in the third world instead of throwing money straight into the pockets of corrupt foreign government officials. Britain has one of the best records anywhere in the world for charitable giving – why not build on this generosity, instead of thieving it from us? Why not make it part of your “Big Society” programme, Mr Cameron?

Each borrower (or group of borrowers) could initially take out one small loan, whether it be to build a schoolhouse, or to buy seeds, livestock or farming tools – further loans would be made available on the condition that any earlier loans are repaid on time and in full. Typically, people who borrow this way rarely default, because they want to be able to borrow again as their lives improve and their businesses grow. Also, the funds can be managed by local representatives (which would provide some much needed local employment), who would be expected to maintain the highest standards of fiscal accountability, or face removal from their post.

This type of financing can, and does, change lives for the better in the third world – and is totally in tune with our Distributist principles, because:
We believe that corrupt and inept centralised institutions like the British government should not be able to just steal from us and simply hand it over to other corrupt and inept central agencies, with no conditions or any chance of any return: 

We do not believe in subsidy and hand outs to hard men and gangsters, as successive British government's have done, but we are willing to offer a helping hand to the very people that need it - the poor -  by enabling them to escape their lives of grinding poverty through hard work and enterprise. 

Once this scheme was up and running and the bugs ironed out, we would then offer this financing deal to English people interested in starting, or buying out, their own business. Imagine how useful this facility would have been to the workers at Cadbury, or Corus steelworks in Teeside!

Governments have a responsibility to spend taxpayer's money wisely and frugally, but sadly the British government feels it is accountable only to the EU and itself. So please Mr Cameron, with the festive time of year still in our minds, remind yourself and your rich chums in Cabinet to spare a thought for your own countrymen: many struggling to make ends meet while you stop their DLA, others priced out of higher education, while the money that could have given them that education is wasted on kissing the backsides of foreign crooks and thieves, because as they no doubt taught you at Eton – CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME!