Many years ago, the Late Mrs L and I joined the RSPB because we had a passion for wildlife and the RSPB seemed a good organisation. Unfortunately, over the years, that optimism appeared increasingly naïve. But as I’d set up a direct debit, I was somewhat lazy in doing anything about it. Then we get this.
Daniel Carey-Dawes is a 35-year-old Labour activist who has devoted much of his adult life to the cause, spending four years as the party’s constituency secretary in his native Hackney and five years as its research and support officer at London’s City Hall.
He stood, unsuccessfully, as a Labour council candidate in 2010, spent a couple of years as PA to the Corbynist London Assembly member Jennette Arnold and, according to his profile on the social network site LinkedIn, also ‘developed policy’ which ‘formed part of Sadiq Khan‘s manifesto’.
This week, Carey-Dawes, who describes himself as a ‘lifelong Labour voter’, was found to be helping advance the party’s agenda via his current day job.
His current day job being at the RSPB.
On Wednesday he used X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, to help his employer circulate a highly controversial series of social media posts calling Rishi Sunak and two senior Tory ministers ‘LIARS!’
The messages looked, and read, like party-political attack adverts. They featured a sinister black and white image of the Prime Minister alongside his housing secretary Michael Gove and DEFRA supremo Therese Coffey. ‘LIARS!’ was rubber-stamped across it in blood-red text.
‘You lie, and you lie, and you lie again. And we’ve had enough,’ they proclaimed, before listing, in a further 11 similarly designed tweets, occasions when the trio supposedly told untruths about environmental policy.
As a Labour activist, he is entitled to say this. As an employee of the RSPB, I don’t expect to be paying him to do it on company time.
At this point, you may be wondering what division of the Labour Party was paying this young propagandist’s wages. But Carey-Dawes doesn’t work for His Majesty’s Opposition any more. Not officially, at least.
Since May he’s earned his crust as Government Affairs Manager for one of Britain’s largest charities: the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. It was this organisation, rather than his beloved Labour Party, that used Twitter to publish the ad hominem attack on Sunak, Gove and Coffey.
The trouble is that charities, which enjoy tax-free status, are prohibited by law from running political campaigns. While perfectly entitled to comment on matters of public policy – provided they affect a particular charitable remit – these wealthy organisations must remain resolutely non-partisan in the process. What they are not supposed to do is behave like a provisional wing of the Labour Party, abusing ministers to help score points.
I have now cancelled the direct debit and informed the RSBP exactly why.
I should have done it years ago, of course. but, well, one sinner that repenteth and all that.
One by one they fall/comply.
RNLI, National Trust, Historic Scotland, NHS, Our Police Service, the Church of England, you can think of others.
“…the trio supposedly told untruths about environmental policy.”
Well he wasn’t wrong about that at least. The insane government is now seriously discussing fining and imprisoning people for having houses that don’t meet the government’s demented environmental standards. The RSPB are on record as supporting the building of wind farms, yes really, protecting birds by chopping them up.
Indeed. I did see that idea. Pure bloody evil. However, that this man is right doesn’t make it right to use a charity account to do it. I’m inclined to agree with his sentiments, but I’ll be damned if I go along with using a charity to say it.
I cancelled my membership over 20 years ago precisely because they put climate change bird chopping policies above the welfare of birds.
A Corbynist Labour activist, colour me surprised. I doubt that the Charities Commission will do anything about it, but if I were PM, I’d give serious thought to cutting their funding. If they want to do shit like this, let them do it on their own coin, not mine.
Time for government to stop giving taxpayer money to charities. Let them sink or swim on their own.