The ancient Babylonians considered 60 a magic number; the ancient Egyptians favoured 12. Modern Conservatives seem fixated on 0.7 per cent. That is the proportion of GDP that is supposed, come hell or high water, to be the amount that Britain spends each year on overseas aid. The figure was first taken up by Tony Blair and adopted by David Cameron. It was a measure of compassion and it was and is economic bunkum.
The 0.7 per cent figure, nonetheless, holds captive Priti Patel, the international development secretary. When she came into office she promised a return to “core Conservative principles” and many taxpayers hoped that she would dismantle arbitrary and often wasteful spending on aid.
Instead, she is in an endless war against waste as her department rushes to spend money for the sake of meeting targets rather than spending it wisely. Those targets may have been met for the past three years but much of the cash is disappearing into international bureaucracies, rich consultancies and pointless projects.
The minister was right yesterday to address some of the concerns raised in the investigation by The Times. Companies working on British aid contracts are to be given 30 days to provide details of their spending. She will push institutions such as the World Bank to be more transparent.
Yet fighting talk means little until Ms Patel concedes that the spending target on aid squanders taxpayers’ money and betrays their trust. While the government is locked into the target by law for this parliament, it means that she has to spend about £50 billion over four years as wisely as possible. She must go into combat not only with the sloppiness of her department and the evident greed of contractors, but also against those whose sentimental attachment to a magic number has become pernicious.