The Express newspaper conveniently buried a small detail on its front page news story concerning a supposed £536 million giveaway to overseas farmers orchestrated by Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
An investigation has found that hundreds of millions of pounds worth of taxpayer’s money has been allocated to agriculture in the overseas aid budget, most of which was signed off during the reign of Boris Johnson and David Cameron.
The foreign aid budget was set at 0.5 per cent by Johnson’s government, and kept in place by successive Conservative administrations.
But that didn’t stop former cabinet minister Robert Jenrick from criticising Labour for spending “hundreds of millions on foreign farmers while British livelihoods are destroyed by their cruel inheritance tax changes”.
Despite leading with a front page linking the overseas budget to Labour, the Express admit further down in the article that most of the funds were signed off prior to July 2024, when Labour came into power.
Buried deep in the copy, the newspaper notes:
“The 10 active foreign aid programmes cover multiple years, with one £206 million fund to improve agricultural productivity in developing countries launching in 2012 and running through to 2031.
“However many began less than five years ago, including nearly £1 million to bring about “economic transformation in Ghana through developing markets for agriculture and trade”.
“Another programme launched in 2023 by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office created a new programme worth a whopping £105 million to develop more resilient farming systems in “unspecified developing countries”.
For anyone who is good at maths or owns a calculator, they’ll note that all these dates a prior to 2024.
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