The latest Parliamentary campaign against charity campaigning provides Ian Allsop with food for thought.
My deadline for the July column usually falls just before the Charity Awards, which is unfortunate as I never have the chance to write about anything that happens during this star-studded annual gala. At least not when it is fresh.
However, this year the editor has relaxed his deadline, so I can describe just how sumptuous the lamb was; rich and juicy and bursting with Welshness.
Eating it reminded me of a Charity Awards several years ago when a very high-profile sector figure sat on my table wolfing down his main course proclaiming “this is beautiful lamb, beautiful”. Which was fine, except it was beef.
Actually, it may have been the other way round, but the point is that it made me question his suitability for leadership if he couldn’t distinguish between the two. Anyway, this year’s carnivorous offering was definitely lamb.
The new deadline also enables me to mention just how bored civil society minister Nick Hurd MP looked when on stage to present the award for the overall winner.
Honestly, he couldn’t have looked more dispassionate if he had tried. Everyone else seemed to be having a good time, well, except for those I kept harping on to about how bored Nick Hurd looked.
Maybe he’s just got tired of having to trot out the same old lines about valuing the sector, and realises there is ultimately nothing he can do to help in the wider context of what his bosses are up to. Or maybe he was just embarrassed to show up at a high-profile sector event after the latest lobbying scandal which had again damaged the reputation of all Parliamentarians.
David Cameron said a few years back that lobbying would be the next big scandal after the expenses row. As usual he was wrong – there have been plenty of other disgraces in the meantime. And lots of dirty laundry that has yet to receive a public airing.
Such as the not-as-yet illegal, but definitely immoral, act whereby people sit in the treasured front seat of a Docklands Light Railway train, when there are other seats available, and then sit there reading the paper.
Why has this not been exposed? Why are our MPs not being paid money to raise this with a select committee?
Maybe it was behind-the-scenes lobbying and cash incentives that kept behind-the-scenes lobbying and cash incentives out of the limelight for so long.
If I could offer one piece of advice to MPs or Lords involved in dodgy dealings it would be this: “Don’t blab to undercover journalists about it as they’ll probably tell the world.”
The government has responded by doing what governments always do in these cases – condemning the alleged offences and promising legislation sometime this century.
If anyone with enough money is concerned that such future legislation will affect their influence, surely they can just pay MPs to speak out against it.
The role of ‘proper’ charities
The cruel and obvious irony of all of this is that it comes at exactly the same time as some influential people, including politicians, are apparently keen to curb the lobbying and campaigning undertaken by charities.
It isn’t a new issue – ‘campaigners campaign to stop other campaigners campaigning’ – but seems to have a renewed momentum at present, which is worrying.
It stems from the view that a charity isn’t a ‘proper’ charity unless it is raising money and handing things out, or looking after people. It’s ok to set up a food bank but don’t dare speak out and change the circumstances that deemed the food bank to be necessary in the first place. Prevention and cure, etc.
Sir Stephen Bubb has vociferously argued against restricted freedom of speech, something that admittedly he has never personally had a problem with.
And charities themselves also have to make sure they speak up, by lobbying against any attempt to stop them being heard.
Otherwise, some of the types of organisations honoured for great advocacy and campaigning work at this year’s Charity Awards will not be there to share the lamb, or whatever is on the menu, at future events.
