Britain's development secretary is helping to destroy the lives of 20 million people.
Clare Short is a paradoxical figure. She has hinted that she might resign if Britain helps the US to invade Iraq. She has bravely blocked the aid money which would have been spent on a useless British air traffic system due to have been deployed, at great expense, in Tanzania. Her picture appears on the cover of this week's New Statesman magazine clutching a diminutive Tony Blair, whom, we are told, she is "cutting down to size". The development secretary is widely portrayed, as the Sunday Times puts it, as "the cabinet's left wing conscience". Yet many of those she claims to be helping regard her as the angel of death.
For the past fortnight, a delegation of Indian farmers has been travelling around Britain, raising support for their campaign to prevent Clare Short from destroying their lives. Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) has promised 65 million pounds to the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, to help implement a programme which the state government claims will "totally eradicate poverty". The people it affects say it is more likely to eradicate the poor.
Clare Short is a paradoxical figure. She has hinted that she might resign if Britain helps the US to invade Iraq. She has bravely blocked the aid money which would have been spent on a useless British air traffic system due to have been deployed, at great expense, in Tanzania. Her picture appears on the cover of this week's New Statesman magazine clutching a diminutive Tony Blair, whom, we are told, she is "cutting down to size". The development secretary is widely portrayed, as the Sunday Times puts it, as "the cabinet's left wing conscience". Yet many of those she claims to be helping regard her as the angel of death.
For the past fortnight, a delegation of Indian farmers has been travelling around Britain, raising support for their campaign to prevent Clare Short from destroying their lives. Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) has promised 65 million pounds to the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, to help implement a programme which the state government claims will "totally eradicate poverty". The people it affects say it is more likely to eradicate the poor.