Public funding of campaigning charities 'subverts the democratic process'

What with the Gagging Bill, and now this I wonder just what the current shower in power are scared of when it comes to charities criticising government.

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/1230081/public-funding-campaigning-charities-subverts-democratic-process/


A report, written by Christopher Snowdon of the Institute of Economic Affairs, says government departments should be banned from funding charities that lobby

Public funding of campaigning charities "subverts the democratic process" and government departments should be banned from funding charities that engage in lobbying, a new report says.

The report, published today, was written by Christopher Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, the think tank that in 2012 published Sock Puppets: How the Government Lobbies Itself and Why, a report that was criticised as at the time for being "woefully short-sighted" by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

The Sock Doctrine: What Can Be Done about State-funded Political Activism? provides further evidence of campaigning by charities that receive public funding and gives a number of recommendations for its prevention.

Thatcher closed down the London County Council, applied Central funding to local Councils, and emasculated the Trade Union movement. Since then, Tory policy has always been to restrict the ability of any group focus of power to threaten central government.

Trussell Trust told ‘the government might try to shut you down’
 
From an article by Alice Sharman
 
Chris Mould, chair of the Trussell Trust, was giving evidence to the Panel on the Independence of the Voluntary Sector when he said that the charity had been criticised by the government for raising awareness of the need for food banks. He said he had seen several examples of how “people in power do pretty inappropriate things at times to try and curb and curtail independence of a voluntary organisation when it proves to be inconvenient to them”. In a face-to-face conversation in March 2013 with "someone in power", he was told he must think more carefully otherwise “the government might try to shut you down”.

Mould also spoke of when the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions' office contacted him in 2011 in response to publication of the Trussell Trust’s concerns about the benefits system. He said he received a phone call “which was basically to tell me that the boss was very angry with us because we were publicising the concerns we have over the rising number of people who were struggling as a consequence of inefficiencies in the benefits system”.

Earlier this year, a critical article by The Daily Mail’ about the Trussell Trust led to the charity's appeal raising more than £50,000 in two days.

A new political attack on charities was seen when a Tory MP reported Oxfam to the Charity Commission for its “perfect storm” promotional campaign on austerity. Conor Burns, MP for Bournemouth West, said the campaign was "overtly political and aimed at the policies of the current government".
 

 
http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/governance/news/content/17632/trussell_trust_chair_told_the_government_might_try_to_shut_you_down

What's the explanation for news that 40,000 people are anxiously awaiting passports to go on holiday, coinciding with queues for food banks?

There are two GB's - some of us live in the one where everything's OK and you could go abroad on holiday if only the bloody Home Office would employ enough staff to get passports issued in a timely manner
- the others live in the one where even a roof over your head and regular meals is too much to ask because you are POOR - the two groups seem rarely to meet

It was ever thus. And always will be.

The trick is to try to minimise the numbers in the poverty-ridden category - although even that is populated with some who have brought their impoverished situation upon themselves.

The real crime is committed by a government which cares not one jot for the disadvantaged...

As night follows day, in an Election Year there will be a give-away budget designed to persuade the above-mentioned disadvantaged that things really aren't so bad under a coalition.

The comparison is with the Robin-Hood style of wealth redistribution allegedly practised by FIFA.

I think the only thing the Tories & the Fib-Dems could give away to get working people to vote Tory would be a price they would not let us have OW, Scameron Osborne & Clegg being "HUNG DRAWN & QUARTERED"

Government oversight of charities is actually shot full of holes, and the entire "industry" needs a judicial review before long. Almost every collection of business interests has itself registered as a charity, but when push comes to shove the Charity Commission quango's power is very often limited to sucking its teeth in disapproval.
http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/

oftenwrong wrote:Government oversight of charities is actually shot full of holes, and the entire "industry" needs a judicial review before long. Almost every collection of business interests has itself registered as a charity, but when push comes to shove the Charity Commission quango's power is very often limited to sucking its teeth in disapproval.
http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/

Just let us all hope the Trussell Trust & Oxfam are not bullied by this "Nasty piece of Work that calls itself the gov't of the UK" and give them the TWO FINGERED SALUTE which is overdue to this Tory & Fib-Dem coalition OW. I will never be able ato understand the people of the UK standing back and allowing the Tories to S**T on them then RUB IT IN They where up in arms when Thatcher brought in the Poll Tax where has that spirit gone ??

It's often been said that the mellowing of old age brings with it a slow emigration from student left-wing tendencies to more right-wing beliefs as an individual acquires worldly possessions. Contemporary media investigation suggests that today's youngsters, seeing themselves isolated from the property-ladder and mired in debt just to live, are adopting the right-wing intolerance of a benefits culture and immigration which they feel as threatening their future.

Unless the main political parties acknowledge such feelings, and do something about them, the way could be opened to a dictatorship.

oftenwrong wrote:It's often been said that the mellowing of old age brings with it a slow emigration from student left-wing tendencies to more right-wing beliefs as an individual acquires worldly possessions.  Contemporary media investigation suggests that today's youngsters, seeing themselves isolated from the property-ladder and mired in debt just to live, are adopting the right-wing intolerance of a benefits culture and immigration which they feel as threatening their future.

Unless the main political parties acknowledge such feelings, and do something about them, the way could be opened to a dictatorship.

Unless the main political parties acknowledge such feelings, and do something about them, the way could be opened to a dictatorship. I thought this had already come to pass OW, from where I am standing this is a DICTATORSHIP that we are living in at the moment, as this lot are preventing the media from reporting on certain things that happen in the UK eg the march that took place last week by the people's assembey.

Not quite a total censorship, Redflag:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/russell-brand-calls-for-peaceful-effortless-joyful-revolution-again-9554651.html

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/21/protest-march-austerity-london-russell-brand-peoples-assembly

http://news.sky.com/story/1287053/russell-brand-calls-for-joyful-revolution

BUT: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-d65b-BBC-defends-scant-coverage-of-Peoples-Assembly-march/#.U6mtI_9OU_4

Update on BBC non-coverage of The People's Assembly march:

BBC Radio 4 has a regular programme called "Feedback", which has received a number of complaints, and evidently asked the BBC News Dept. for a comment, which they evidently declined.

Feedback look like continuing the process, so help them by sending a comment of your own:

https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006slnx/contact?formSubmission=success

I have sent my two pence worth to the BBC OW, thank you for providing the link do not know if it will do any good because it seems that the BBC are on the side of the Tories. Its a wonder they reported on yesterdays EU slap in the face for Scameron.

I have a feeling that the Tory MPs that want us out of the EU will force DC to have the referendum that is supposed to take place in 2017 sometime before the next election what say the resto of you on the forum.

The rule among Barristers is that, in cross-examination of a witness, you never ask a question to which you do not already have the answer. They seek confirmation, not surprises.

That argument must apply strongly to asking such a question between now and the General Election. Only an idiot would claim to know the outcome of an "in or out?" referendum on EU membership just now.