Charities think it may be warmer under the old comfort blanket than wrapped up in a new duvet, says Ian Allsop.
It's pretty much an open secret that the general election will be on 6 May. If that’s wrong, the online version of this piece can be amended. Or digitally airbrushed, as is the fashion in the lead-up to what could be the most policy-lite battle in political history.
But where does civil society stand as we approach the possible end of 13 years of New Labour? The sector’s umbrella bodies have been dusting off their demands and happily in these green aware times have been largely able to recycle last time’s. Gift aid, fairer commissioning and VAT – all reasonable aspirations but in itself a reflection of how far things have yet to go, although the VAT campaign has at least succeeded in keeping the word “irrecoverable” in common usage for the last 30 years.
Sector leaders have also been putting in the hard yards by cosying-up to twice as many politicians as before. But is there any real difference in the policies of the two major parties when it comes to whatever they are calling charities this week? Sure, there will be a very different environment after the election but that has more to do with the state of public finances for whoever holds the purse strings rather than ideology.
The perfect platform for hands to be revealed came at an event last month where both the minister for the third sector, Angela Smith, and the latest in the
Hurdesty, Tory shadow Nick, were on the same stage. The event was the hugely popular Funding the Future conference (nearly 1,200 delegates each paying £148 – that’s one way of doing it) but by all accounts there was more talk about what had and hadn’t been done in the past rather than any sense of what could be expected in terms of concrete ideas after the election.
Hurd wheeled out a cliché about the sector being the glue that holds together society, thus proving this soundbite has now become the glue that holds together sycophantic speeches to a charity audience. Hurd, lest we forget, disappeared into a vortex of his own irony last year when he dismissed the campaigning fund as “gesture politics”, then in a display of classic gesture politics, criticised its axing. While he is able to use techniques learnt at the venerable school of “when in opposition tell them what they want to hear” at least Smith can point to some real progress during Labour’s tenure. She has been regarded as a committed champion of the sector during her short stay even if she has a funny way of showing it, following her much-reported refusal to attend a meeting at London Zoo because of her personal views on captive animals. This is either commendably honourable or extreme political naivety and was, however you view its success, the most dramatic attempt to seize the moral high ground since the Sermon on the Mount.
Not only was the meeting about something that is core to he government’s relationship with the sector (the Compact, stupid) but it was being held at a registered charity – albeit one with which Smith’s views put her in conflict. There was also the small matter of fronting up about the campaigning fund.
Incidentally, a spokesanimal for the Zoo’s inhabitants said that they in return were refusing to attend an event at the House of Commons, citing sympathy for its population of cooped up, wild creatures with their noses in the trough.
If only there was a third party. Tellingly, even when the electorate are faced with a choice between awful and very bad, the Lib Dems can’t make any headway. However, they could end up with a key role. The possibility of a hung parliament brings both a snigger from adolescents and an opportunity for the campaigning element of the sector. The importance that the Lib Dems and other elected but minority parties will have in key debates could be huge and presents chances to lobby in pastures new.
The expectation is that the Tories will squeeze home, in spite of their attempts to lose the unloseable. But things won’t alter overnight for charities as the new government will be too busy not implementing empty promises and pretending to put into place non-existent policies in other areas.The impression is that the sector would rather tolerate the devil it knows, and stick with a blanket which, while not always fitting properly, has at least provided increased warmth, rather than risk an untested duvet. The Tories should have a real empathy with old-school traditional charities, given that many of the members of its likely Cabinet were educated at one. But ultimately I suspect most in the sector worry for just that reason. Do they really want to end up as the government’s fag?
