I'm in agreement with this. I increasingly seem to get confronted in supermarkets by people with buckets asking for money for this or that charity. I think I'm right in that to register as a charity only 20 percent or so of takings actually has to go to the cause so needless to say, none of these get anything from me.

Similarly there's the office 'good egg' usually a twentysomething male who wants me to donate to their just giving page for their latest trek across some challenging but exotic mountain climb. To them I usually point out that my charitable giving involves a monthly direct debit to wateraid and they should fund their own adventure holidays. However, I'm not terribly popular.

Albeit the UK is spending ~£11Bn this year on Overseas Aid (inc emergency disaster relief), i.e. taxpayers money, why should I therefore feel emotionally guilty into giving any more, or not questioning whether the money is well spent ?

You don't have to feel guilty and not question if the money is well spent. You just need to realise if we didn't spend a penny on overseas aid you would still see what you see locally such as libraries closing etc. It's government policy and a deliberate choice on the part of government to implement these cuts and they would still do it if they closed the overseas aid budet tomorrow.

This absolutely.

+1

Let's not forget the free publicity that new Supergroup 'McBusted' got from performing on CIN. Performers should have to pay to appear on CIN IMO