The British economy is in fiscal meltdown, Government spending is outstripping tax revenues, borrowing is increasing beyond our ability to repay, and poverty and unemployment are at record levels, but the Government has just announced a further £255 million aid package to Afghanistan.

Speaking in Kabul, Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander today outlined the “UK development support for the Afghan government.”

Standing alongside Afghan Finance Minister, Omar Zakhilwal; Minister Mohammad Asif Rahimi from the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock; and Minister Wais Barmak, Deputy Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development, Mr Alexander announced an immediate UK contribution of £60 million to the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) for 2009-2010.

He also announced £30m over four years towards the Afghan government’s Comprehensive Agriculture and Rural Development Facility (CARD).

The ARTF contribution of up to £225 million over four years is the main way the UK contributes aid to the Afghanistan national government’s central budget.

According to the DFID press release, this gives the Afghan government “certainty of long-term finance in the years to come” and that an “increasing proportion of the UK’s contribution to the ARTF will be conditional on the policies and performance of the new Afghan government.”

British taxpayers will be thrilled to know that their money will be spent on paying the “salaries of teachers, doctors and nurses” in Kabul.

To add insult to injury, the money will also be used to “extend micro credit facilities to 450,000 Afghans” –  in other words, to give personal cash ‘loans’ to nearly half a million Afghans.

Minister Zakhilwal said in his response that: “Since the ARTF was launched in 2002, the UK has been one of the largest and most committed contributors.

“This has allowed the Afghan government to pay the wages of key workers such as teachers, and thereby contributed to the dramatic increase in the number of children enrolled in school here — up from under one million under the Taliban to over seven million now.”

* Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in Britain was 7.6 percent for the three months to May 2009, up 0.9 over the previous quarter and up 2.4 over the year. The number of unemployed British people increased by 281,000 over the quarter and by 753,000 over the year, to reach 2.38 million. This is the largest quarterly increase in the number of unemployed people since comparable records began in 1971.

Most recently, the Government has announced that it will be cutting back public spending, a view echoed by the Conservative Party. The Tories have promised, however, to increase foreign aid if they are elected.