An interesting view of how government works

Apparently we're all right to be sceptical of how that 0.7% of everything everyone does is spent. That official development aid budget is indeed wasteful, even corrupt. This is something admitted by the bloke in charge of spending the cash extracted from us.

Well, that's nice, so, what are we going to do about it? Reduce the amount? Do it better? Stop wasting it? Ah, no, that's not how government works, is it?

Public criticism of foreign aid spending as "corrupt" and wasteful is "valid", the civil servant in charge of the International Development department has admitted.

Matthew Rycroft, Dfid’s Permanent Secretary, also suggested that politicians are out of touch with ordinary people by not being more sceptical about the aid budget.

Dfid is so concerned that it is trialling a new programme which involves British aid workers telling their own stories in local papers about the value of their aid work.

Not wasting money isn't what government is for. Instead, we should up the propaganda so that money can continue to be wasted upon corruption.

Which is an interesting thing to know about government, isn't it?