Pay Back Time

Lefties are sometimes called cynical. The Rev Williams spoke recently about how inequality and vast wealth create 'alienation' and 'cynicism'. But it has always seemed to me that cynicism is only partly about "attitude" or approach to the world. It is about seeing it in the actions of others. Take this story from the Guardian about donations to third world, a gesture at first greeted with fanfare and self-congratulation, that now have been reinterpreted as loans payable with interest. "Britain's £800m international project to help the poorest countries in the world adapt to climate change was under fire tonight after it emerged that almost all the money offered by Gordon Brown will have to be repaid with interest.
The UK environmental transformation fund was announced by the prime minister to international acclaim in November 2007, and was widely expected to be made in direct grants to countries experiencing extreme droughts, storms and sea level rise associated with climate change.
But the Guardian has learned that the money is not additional British aid and will be administered by the World Bank mainly in the form of concessionary loans which poor countries will have to pay back to Britain with interest."

There could not be a political at act so steeped in cynicism, at least this week, - so why bother feeling cynical when it's there, all around, in front of your very eyes?