Foreign aid is a topical subject, probably worth well over £20 billion annually if you include that swallowed up by the EU.

We can only save the EU portion by leaving the EU itself and none of the three old parties will do that.

In the past we stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our Commonwealth partners. But since then, because of EU rules, they cannot trade freely with us, so that we, in our guilt, shovel cash we haven’t got at them.

What they are really crying out for is the chance to develop their economies through fair trade. I

t seems they are giving up and turning to China and India for help. And as for the ‘bongo bongo’ business, that was from a Danny Kaye and Andrew’s Sisters’ song, popularised by the BBC in the 1940s and’ 50s.

You can check out the words at: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=bgDF2xfcbv8 It’s basically about how much better life is in bongo bongo than in the ‘civilised’ West.

I can vouch for that having spent five happy years myself working in Nigeria, where, incidentally they have an oil field named Bongo. It’s not the words themselves, but what’s in the minds of those who use them and those who read them, that matter.

You really have to wonder at some of those people who scream the loudest while ignoring the real scandal (waste and trade restrictions).

David Barnby New Yatt Road Witney