Soft power, hard hearts

WHEN it comes to overseas aid, the British are hard-headed but not hard-hearted, David Cameron declared on July 19th in Nigeria, on the last day of an African tour cut short by the phone-hacking scandal. The line was in part a snappy soundbite. But it was also a plea, as voters rebel against the idea—popularised under the previous, Labour government but embraced by Mr Cameron—that Britain should become an “aid superpower”.

In Lagos, Mr Cameron painted a vision of British aid as a catalyst for economic growth. To reassure “aid sceptics” back home, who worry about money going astray, Britain will focus its cash on things that are “quantifiable and measurable”, such as campaigns to vaccinate millions of children, he vowed. The prime minister talked of unclogging regional and international trade with investments in new internet links, roads and more professional customs services. He positively boasted that he had flown to Africa with a plane “full of business leaders”. Yes, Britain should help the starving and those ravaged by war, drought and disease, he said; but growth, nurtured by free trade and political reforms, had the potential to wean Africa off aid altogether.

If Mr Cameron sounded defensive, that is because he is. Amid tough public-spending cuts designed to right the country's public finances, the budget of the Department for International Development has been spared. The Conservative-led coalition vows that it will keep a pledge to increase aid spending to 0.7% of gross national income (an internationally agreed target) from 2013. Measuring aid flows as a proportion of national wealth, Britain already outstrips fellow G7 members such as America, France or Germany, let alone such laggards as Italy (see chart). Along with his photogenic fondness for environmentalism, Mr Cameron's enthusiasm for helping the poorest in the world was a central plank of his long campaign, while still in opposition, to convince British voters that he was the leader of a kinder, gentler Conservative Party.

That political calculation, at least, might be mistaken. A new opinion poll commissioned by Chatham House, a think-tank, shows deep scepticism about Mr Cameron's foreign priorities. Two-thirds of respondents say that British foreign policy has changed for the worse under this government. Fully 57% say aid spending should be reduced, with Tory voters particularly scornful of arguments that it boosts national security by preventing states from sliding into anarchy, by halting chaotic migrant flows, or by any other means.

By a big margin, the British think the top foreign-policy priority should be protecting Britain at its borders, followed by ensuring energy security and promoting the interests of the country's businesses. Reducing poverty and tackling climate change come much lower down the list. And if there is money to spare? Spend it on the armed forces, say most voters—but only for some purposes: nearly half of the respondents said Britain should not involve itself “at all” in uprisings like the one in Libya. Hard heads, indeed.