ONE of the much hackneyed sayings the PM (any PM) is fond of trotting out during Prime Minister’s Questions is: “It’s what the British people would want.”

This is such arrant nonsense that it verges on the paradoxical.

The headline “Tories ditch plan to cap care home fees”, that I read in another newspaper, belies that glib “It’s what the etc” rubbish at one fell swoop.

How can they declare such when we sent, in 2015, an astronomical £12.16 billion to various countries in foreign aid. By 2021, foreign aid is expected to rise to £14.4 billion.

We even send £184 million per annum to India, a country with its own £600 million space programme. Nice to know our contribution will help them defray that colossal sum.

Yet day after day we are told about domestic cutbacks (such as the care home announcement) ad infinitum.

Should you mention curbing foreign aid, until our own fiscal problems are sorted out you would probably be told: “But our foreign aid budget is only 0.7 per cent of GDP.”

That doesn’t sound much until the figures are shown in actual pounds.

Surely a more sensible idea would be to send goods out to those countries rather than huge sums of money much of which could well be diverted.

Not only would the recipient country be getting first-class goods, it would also provide jobs for our domestic market.

Remember the old homily “charity begins at home” and act on it.

Philip Roe, Roman Avenue South, Stamford Bridge