Foreign aid: An open letter to David Lammy

Dear David, I trust you are well. I am writing to you about foreign aid cuts.

Red Nose Day, 2019

In response to Stacy Dooley’s visit to Uganda in 2019, you sought to redress the Red Nose Day narrative which, in your words, promoted a “white saviour” colonial attitude to Africa. You opined on the Victoria Derbyshire show: “Comic Relief is a 20-year-old formula that asks comedians to perform and sends celebrities – most often white – out to Africa, and that image evokes for lots of ethnic minorities in Britain a colonial image of a white beautiful heroine holding a black child, with no agency, no parents in sight.”

Bruised Nose Day, 2020?

I fully understood your concerns about colonialism, but were you best placed to speak for sub-Saharan Africans, or fair in your estimation of the Red Nose Day movement? Lenny Henry strongly disagreed with you. Red Nose Day suffered a Bruised Nose Day after your interjection, losing as much as £8 million in donations.