Too PC over population

11 January 2016 | Leicester Mercury

(Headline by Leicester Mercury)

Many readers will agree with James A Hutchinson that our overseas aid would be better spent at home (Mailbox, January 6). And yet, if only this aid and other countries aid had been spent on family planning, the benefits to these countries and to Europe would have been enormous.

The five countries noted by Mr Hutchinson which receive huge amounts of aid need the aid because they all have high fertility rates and the resultant huge population growth causes poverty, hunger, occasionally conflict and migration of millions.

World Bank figures for the fertility rates are Somalia 6.6 (second highest in the world after Niger); South Sudan 5.1; Afghanistan 5.1; Zimbabwe 4; Syria 3. Europe has a low fertility rate- UK 1.9; Germany 1.4 – and is doing well.

Political correctness prevents any national figure or aid agency from campaigning for the provision of family planning for these countries, so poverty, hunger, and migration continue. The politically correct have a lot to answer for.

Gerald Danaher