Christina Odone discusses charity in the tellytubbygiraffe. Like Eric Pickles a day or so ago, she acknowledges what some of us have been saying for a while now; that charities are increasingly less about providing support for the needy and more about political pressure.
I wonder if the animal lovers whose legacies sustain the RSPCA would have left their money to that charity if they had known it would be spent on a £300,000-plus court case against the Heythrop hunt? Similarly, the Amnesty International supporters, for whom the name is synonymous with campaigning to free political prisoners – do they know that their money is funding abortion-rights campaigns?
Well, quite.
I may or may not support pro-choice legislation in Ireland, or protests against “cuts” in government spending. But that is political campaigning, not the charity’s business. I detect a sleight of hand: the nabobs of the charity industry raise money for good works, but spend it on the enjoyable business of lobbying.
Precisely. There is charity and there is political lobbying and the two should not mix. We are now in a position where political lobby groups such as CASH, ASH and Alcohol Concern are masquerading as charities, yet if they had to live by public donation alone, they would disappear overnight. They are not charities, they are thinly disguised front organisations for the temperance movement, intent on lobbying the state to interfere in our lifestyle choices and the Charity Commission should do the right thing and remove their charitable status and the state should do the right thing and withdraw all funding for charities. It is up to us, the public, to decide what causes are worthy of our support, not for the state to take our money by force and divvy it up according to its own whims and fancies. Ultimately, some – possibly many – of those causes will disappear through lack of support. This is how it should be – those that provide a service people feel strongly about will survive. If not enough people want to support it, it won’t. Survival of the fittest and all that.
Some of their contributors are rebelling: I know a few who cancelled their direct debit donations to Save the Children last September when the charity, founded to help children in dire straits in poor countries, decided to tackle poverty in the UK. The campaign seemed politically motivated: CEO Justin Forsyth had worked with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and his veiled attacks on the Coalition sounded partisan to many – and ironic to some. As the Tory MP Philip Davies put it, Save the Children for years had been urging Britons to send abroad as much money as possible – “so it’s no good now telling us there’s no money left to go round to British children”.
Although I would never support this organisation because they send money abroad, the point being made here is sound – the organisation is involving itself in a political campaign and that crosses a line. A line that more and more seem to have noticed and are withdrawing their support in response.
When the Devil’s Kitchen first coined the term “Fake Charity” he ignited a small spark in the darkness. That spark is now a flame that ordinary people are noticing and the MSM and politicians are commenting upon. If we keep fanning it, we may yet see that bonfire of the fake charities.
ASH, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
When you consider specific organisations like ASH, you can understand why Drugs Companies fund them. After all, ASH is pushing their products. The reality is that they actually do very, very little except make noises. They have claimed in th past to have originated studies of various kinds, but it is hard to see where they get the skills to orgininate studies. The probability is that the studies are created by the BMA or the RCP and attributed to ASH. I should think that most people who matter already know that ASH is no more than an adertinsing agency and is staffed by advertising people and lobyists. In my opinion, they should be treated for taxation purposes as advertising agencies. But I have no objection to them being treated similarly to ‘not for profit’ organisations like golf clubs and such which do not declare dividends and have no share holders. They should however pay VAT and such like any other such organisation. Nor should they be able to claim back tax on contributions. It would be good to see Pickles or the Charity Commission investigate this situation properly.
Charities are actually supposed to be barred from political lobbying. The National Secular Society decided against registering as a charity, which would have saved them a lot of money, because political lobbying is a large part of their business and, as a charity they would not be allowed to do any. It appears that the fake charities are used by the government as a vehicle to use taxpayers’ money for propaganda purposes. I am pretty sure this must be illegal and the powers that be are simply turning a blind eye. It is good that people are waking up to the scam, odd though that a prominent Roman Catholic should be pointing all this out, since she seems to have an enormous beam in her eye.
Well bollocks to crawling little brainwashed Roman Catholic liar Odone.
Abortion rights for women, oppressed & enslaved by hunderdss of generations of blackmailing priests, whether chistian or muslim is something that needs campaigning for.
It only enters the “political” arena, because said priests make it so, in their desire to control women.
Stonyground obviously has a slightly different take on this, but then lke his noticing that the RC church has a nerve on this one!
Beware, incidentally of a thoroughly vile “conservative” MP, one Peter Bone, supposedly representing Wellingborough, who wants to make ALL CHURCHES “charities”.
Euuuwwww……
Not by charities, though. That is not their place. And that it what Odone was saying, and in saying it, she is right. Her Catholic faith is irrelevant.
Why not?
Allowing poor, oppressed women to have abortions (or better still, proper birth control) certaibly falls under the orbit of: “Relief of the poor”, I would have thought.
Providing the means would be. Political lobbying on the matter is not. It is illegal for charities to indulge in political lobbying and rightly so. It’s just a shame we don’t see any prosecutions.
And, is it “political lobbying” if you, say are in favour of women controling their own bodies, & you have to publicly confront and show up (to pick an eaxmple emphatically not at random) the deliberate lies and ploiticking and crookedness of the RC church?
Because the RC have already gone into politics, you have to enter the same areana, whether you like it or not, because these lying, blackmailing bastard already have much too close a relationship to the ears of slimy politicians.
So far as I am aware, the Catholic Church does not have any of my money given to it by the state. If it does, then I stand corrected and the same applies – they shouldn’t.
That’s the line in the sand. If people or organisations want to indulge in political lobbying, they should be free to do so – but not take state handouts.