Holland is far from unique: Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Japan, Poland and Spain are among other nations that also reduced assistance in 2014. Last month a new centre-right Finnish government followed suit, hacking back aid budgets by almost half as it abandoned the target and warning 300 development bodies to brace for big funding cuts. Compare again with Britain, which already gives away more than any other European nation, even handing £361m in unrestricted funding to a group of favoured charities – plus more than £2bn for the European Union, which spends aid on trapeze lessons in Tanzania and helps prosperous Turkey prepare to join the EU club.