Debra Allcock Tyler, chief executive of the Directory of Social Change, has become embroiled in a hostile war of words with Conservative MP Sir Gerald Howarth, sparked by the DSC’s press release condemning the government’s cuts to the Charity Commission budget.
After the DSC emailed the press release to its contact list on Wednesday, Sir Gerald, who received it, emailed the agency’s marketing director Richard Lee to say: “What bit of the budget deficit do you not understand? The Labour government destroyed the public finances and we are now having to rebuild them. Please don’t waste my time with your moaning and get on delivering a more effective service!”
In response to the “surprisingly rude” message, Allcock Tyler emailed back: “Which part of your Coalition Agreement do you not understand? Specifically the commitment to ‘support the creation and expansion of charities’.
“When will you and your colleagues stop ‘moaning’ about the ‘last government’ in response to every criticism? After the next election?”
Later she states: “If you had taken the time to read our message in full you would see that we recognise the spending constraints and argue that money would be better spent on a properly-resourced Commission than on other programmes which are effectively ministerial pet projects that achieve little.”
And she signs off: “I propose that in future I do not tell you how best to serve the citizens of Aldershot and you refrain from telling us how to service our charitable beneficiaries.”
Sir Gerald hits back
Sir Gerald hit back, making “no apology whatsoever” for his comments, and adding: “Within moments of the Chancellor sitting down yesterday, your Mr Lee sent me – entirely unsolicited – a pretty scathing press release in which he quoted one of your staff as stating that the government seemed intent on ‘destroying’ the Charity Commission, followed by a diatribe of pretty offensive criticism of politicians struggling to restore the public finances devastated by Gordon Brown. Your organisation’s response can hardly be classified as measured or calm.”
He also condemned the DSC’s “gratuitous insults” to politicians’ ‘hare-brained’ or ‘pet’ projects and ‘frothy’ debates in Parliament and cited his own charity work to prove he is “aware of the challenges”. He concluded: “I simply suggest that you make more effort to understand ours rather than patronisingly dismissing my criticisms of your statement as ‘amusing’. I am elected: you are not.”
Back and forth
Two more emails followed, one from each. Allcock Tyler reminded Sir Gerald that politicians are elected to serve their citizens, not the other way round, and that “being elected does not give you the privilege or right to determine which organisations can espouse views and which cannot”.
Sir Gerald’s subsequent message stated: “I did not at any time indicate that you were not entitled to express a view. It was your failure to acknowledge the catastrophic state of the public finances which annoyed me.”
He added that he would not be posting the exchange on his website, as the DSC had.
Sir Gerald, a staunch Thatcherite and former defence minister, was recently exposed by The Independent as a consultant to a payday lender. He also courted controversy in May for warning of the dangers of the “aggressive homosexual community”.
