This year marks the tenth anniversary of the creation of the Department for International Development, one of Tony Blair’s first and most dramatic moves to shake up Britain’s Government.

To supporters of the overseas aid agency it underpins Britain’s claim to be a leader in helping the world’s poor, unsullied by national or commercial interest.“There is no doubt in my mind that aid works,” Hilary Benn, the Secretary for International Development, told The Times.

“I think if you ask people around the world about [the department], about Britain’s role in development, then people will acknowledge us as one of the leaders.”

But to its critics, it is a sop to idealistic campaigners to whom Labour partly owed its May 1997 election victory, and who it is now nervous of losing through their anger over Iraq. They argue that it spends money without accountability; that it lacks the staff and know-how to spend it well; and that its budget, which Mr Blair and Gordon Brown have promised will rise for six years, comes at the cost of traditional expertise in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Armed Forces.

Read the full article: Cracks under surface of the £5bn Labour mission for world’s poor