1. The #ForeignAid debate follows a familiar pattern. Cherrypicked and distorted examples of "waste", years out of date, to paint a picture of incompetent civil servants flinging cash at dictators and dodgy consultants. It does happen but it's a grossly unfair portrait of UK aid.

2. The more egregious examples stem from the Blair era but we closed a lot of it down in 2011. What remains is export finance, investment and technical assistance. Much of the fabled excesses are complete fabrications by the Daily Mail.

3. The debate is distorted because aid is such a wide subject header much like trade with multiple methods and disciplines all interrelated. To say "aid doesn't work" is to write off a galaxy of foreign policy initiatives. It's stinking populism.

4. This is nit to say that further reforms aren't needed. Many projects have questionable value because of a faulty mindset. There is a lefty liberal institutional bias prone to fashionable groupthinks. They lack political direction and public oversight.

5. Part of the problem is the lack of adequate scrutiny. Out of touch MPs share the same mindset and aid ministers eventually go native with nothing bring them down to earth. Thats why no one raises the alarm when they go off the reservation.

6. Following #Brexit, aid and development is still an essential foreign policy tool and a companion to our independent trade efforts. FTAs alone are not going to cut it. We need to invest in overseas good governance and trade infrastructure.

7. We also need to act in unison with others to tackle organised crime that funds terrorism, and criminal operations thst harm the profitability of supply chains. Financial fraud and money laundering. Building capacity internationally matters.

8. We also need an active aid programme to tackle the migration crisis. Maybe we can't slow it but by tackling the push factors we can at least stop making it worse. To pull away from that is isolationism. It doesn't save any money. We'll end up spending it on border controls.

9. Ultimately we have to put up with a certain amount of waste. Much of what we do is experimental. Waste and government go hand in hand. As does a degree of corruption. But again, that's the exception in what is otherwise an internationally respected effort. It buys soft power.

10. If Britain is to make a go of independence then we're going to have to buy influence and lead by example. That's how the game is played. Aid may be expensive but the costs of isolationism are higher. Britain must be fully engaged internationally.

11. The aid industrial complex hates the merger between DfID and the FCO but it's actually the one sensible thing this government has done in bringing strategic direction to a department spread too thin, without coherent credible objectives.

12. But the new department can't build the sort of economic partnerships we expect of it if it doesn't have the tools or the cash. With that we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

**and yes, we should scrap the statutory spending target. It's arbitrary and it creates waste. But if we spend more than the target the right way, that's no bad thing either. Effective foreign policy costs money.

If there is one thing we can do to vastly improve output, it's to break up the DfID cosy club. Too many LSE/Oxbridge types in the field making it an upper middle class creche, which is why its values are so out of kilter with anyone remotely normal. Need to broaden recruitment.

There's a prevailing Waitrose remainer mindset. One that sees itself above grubby notions like national interest and has a certain contempt for the people who pay their wages. Theres a certain anti-patriotism at work as can be found in academia. Liberal internationalism gone woke

This is why the department did need a radical shake up and will require further reforms. Our aid and development efforts should not seek to replicate Oxfam. We need more focused goals, centred on improving governance, trade and the proliferation of international standards.

Some further thoughts... https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/trade/sunak-must-ignore-the-populists-on-foreign-aid/