Via Chris Snowdon, I am made aware of this document from Eric Pickles. Down at number 37 on his list of recommendations for saving money in local government is this little gem:
Cease funding ‘sock puppets’ and ‘fake charities’: Many pressure groups – which do not deliver services or help the vulnerable – are now funded by state bodies. In turn, these nominally ‘independent’ groups lobby and call for more state regulation and more state funding.
Quite apart from this being refreshing – and a nice little Christmas present to all of us – it is the use of the term “Fake Charity” that hit me between the eyeballs. For a couple of years or so the land of blog has used this term on a regular basis. Now, it seems, it has hit the mainstream to the point where politicians are using it. All they have to do next is the decent thing…
Good for Pickles. He seems to be not quite as bad as the rest of them and he deserves credit here.
It’s nice to know—as the coiner of that phrase and author of the original site—that I have had some influence on the political discourse (other than coarsening it, of course!)…
DK
Don’t suppose you’ll get the site up and running it again, DK?
I’ll certainly try, when I get some time. I might do something this week…
DK
I thought of you when I read it. That spark you ignited is now a flame. What we are waiting for is a bush fire 😈
Normally, I think of Pickles as a greedy & stupid christian shit, but even he, occassionally, gets it right!
Actually, someone has been falling down on the job.
The Charity Commissioners, who could put a stop to this nonsense inside a year.
At the same time, some nutty tory’s proposals to make “ALL religious bodies” subject to charitable status should be stamped on, and hard.
Yesterday.