Okay so the title is a bit mean to the TUC. After all, they’ve only had £1.2 million of an epic splurge that’ll hit £1 billion by 2011 on ‘winning hearts and minds’ by the Department for International Development.

See, this department is theoretically untouchable – they’re helping starving Africans right? They’re pure altruism, the best and purest thing that Labour does. You can’t have a go at International Development, right?

The Tories, it’s worth remembering, have promised to maintain spending on International Development – that’s how untouchable the DfID is. Let’s have a quick quote:

We will retain the present system of Partnership Programme Agreements (PPAs) through which DFID supports leading NGOs and development organisations.

There’s a mantra every Conservative can get behind, oh yes! But what does it mean? What are PPAs? Turns out they’re the way that the DfID (Department for International Development) funnel hundreds of millions of pounds of unrestricted funds to non-Governmental Organisations, or NGOs.

So let’s see what it is that the Tories have committed themselves to: Turns out that the Government has been giving rather a lot of money to NGOs for “communications” purposes – you know, “awareness” or “promotion” or “advocacy” – you know: free money. In 2008-2009 alone, they spent £140 million on this. £140 million!! That’s enough money to pay for 5,600 full time, average wage jobs.

I know what you’re thinking: How do you get your hands on this bounty of free money just to to promote yourself? Sadly, there’s some bad news: New applications are currently not allowed. If you’re Oxfam, or VSO, or ActionAid then, hurray! Free Money! But anyone else? Sorry, this particular party isn’t for you. Getting access to this money depends on having a very close relationship with the Government. Hmmm.

I’m absolutely positive I could have very long and intense arguments about the value of aid to Africa (I’m going for full global Free Trade Not Aid), but I don’t think I’m going to find many people willing to defend a £13 million (520 jobs) on the “Development Awareness Fund” – a blatent piece of self-serving slush funding to promote “awareness” of aid. When the Tories agreed to continue the DfID’s budget, does that include the spend on propaganda?

Then there’s the TUC getting £1.2 million since 2003 to pay for their lobbying activities. How about £300,000 to the National Union of Teachers to help teachers become “global agents for change”? Will the Tories do this sort of thing too?

Clearly when Brown plucks impressive sounding figures out of his head – 6 billion budget for International Development! – and let’s face it, being generous with other people’s money is something of a speciality of this particular Government,  no-one really pays that much attention to where the money really goes. The reality is that it’s not all going to starving children in Africa. Can you cut the DfID’s budget? Almost certainly.

Very often the first step in helping people realise that ‘cuts’ is not always a bad thing is to ask a question: Is every single penny the Government spends value for money? Do they absolutely have to spend everything they spend? I think not.

[Source for all the figures in this post is a report by the IPN think tank in a report called, 'Fake Aid']