The Government has just pledged an additional £1.1 billion in foreign aid to Africa – while the National Health Service faces a £15 billion deficit.

The £1.1 billion pledged by Gordon Brown is part of a global £12 billion aid deal to “help Africa’s poor.” The £1.1 billion being handed over from British taxpayers’ pockets will go to ‘agriculture projects’ in Africa.

Meanwhile, the NHS Confederation has predicted a £15 billion black hole in the service nationally and that the “NHS will next year face its biggest financial challenge ever.”

Just one day after the increased foreign aid to Africa announcement, the NHS Trust in Tayside, rural Scotland, has announced a scaling back of services which will see around-the-clock GP care vanish.

According to the proposals which appear to have been motivated by funding shortfalls, NHS Tayside and the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) are doing away with a 24-hour doctor service and replacing it with what they call “first responders.” These are volunteers trained in basic first aid services. The cost of maintaining 24-hour General Practitioners appears to be too high.

Earlier this month, it was announced that North West London Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Northwick Park and Central Middlesex, is facing a £4.5m deficit.

Meanwhile, at the G8 summit at L’Aquila, Italy, Mr Brown continued playing Father Christmas with British peoples’ tax money, announcing that it was “unacceptable that today people should go hungry in a climate as fertile as ours and that there was an urgent need for decisive action to free humankind from hunger and poverty.”

Mr Brown’s remarks were endorsed by US President Barack Obama, who, obviously not realising the implications of what he was saying, said that “There is no reason Africa should not be self-sufficient for food.”

The World Food Programme said the extra cash would be “greeted with great happiness.”

* The Government has also put £55 billion into Northern Rock, and has spent £7 billion on the Iraq War, and a similar amount in Afghanistan.

The one lesson to learn is that the current ruling elite always puts British people last.