Happy Friday everyone and what a Friday it is. We stand on the cusp of a second bank holiday weekend in the space of a month! As the kids say: ‘huge mood’.
This week in charity sector satire: the leader of the free world has been blocked from blocking people on Twitter; the Small Charities Coalition has got an Amazon wish list; 'App' Hancock's glowing endorsement of us and a reluctant policy officer wears a pink shirt.
Trumped
We start this week, begrudgingly, in the United States of America and, more specifically, with Donald J.Trump – the Cheesy Wotsit-in-Chief.
Now, it’s well known that the tangelo terror is a big fan of the social media network Twitter. In Trump’s fake-tan-addled mind Twitter allows him to subvert the #fakenews #msm propagandistic lies and pump his own brand of ‘alternative facts’ directly into the eyeballs of the faithful.
What has emerged this week is the fact that The Donald - in between firing off insults while swaddled in his gilded presidential bedsheets - also quite enjoys blocking people on the platform who call out his nonsense.
A non-profit legal group has now sued the president in court, claiming Trump’s liberal use of the block button is unconstitutional, and infringes upon First Amendment rights to free speech.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University brought a lawsuit against Trump in July. On Wednesday, a judge in New York ruled in favour of the lawsuit, meaning that he can no longer legally block people on Twitter.
The White House have said they will appeal the decision but, for now at least, the lame duck a l’orange can no longer isolate himself from dissenting voices.
This block on his ability to block should happily coincide with Trump’s upcoming state visit to the United Kingdom in July. With a bit of luck, not only will he be met with tens of thousands of dissenting voices in real life, but also a barrage of dissent on his social media platform of choice.
This is as good a point as any to dredge up some fairly choice tweets made by angry Scots, following his public support of the vote to leave the EU in 2016.
Some of the more colourful tweets, and Diary is strictly quoting here, include: “Scotland voted Remain, you weapons-grade plum” and, perhaps Diary’s favourite: “They voted Remain and they hate your guts, you ludicrous tangerine ballbag”.
If you want to see David Tennant read out these, and more, watch the video below.
When you wish upon a…
Back in the UK now, and to the good folks over at the Small Charities Coalition.
Since taking over the reins at the organisation last year, Mandy Johnson, the coalition’s chief executive, has been an almost omnipotent presence in the sector – attending conferences, fronting up to the media and, of course, tweeting like crazy.
Johnson has also been an innovative force when it comes to raising funds to support the work the SCC does. Now however, it seems rather than asking for money, the SCC have gone full your-mate-from-school-you-haven’t-seen-for-years-who-just-asked-you-to-their-wedding.
Yes, the SCC has put together an Amazon wish list and it makes for… interesting reading.
For £3.28 for example you can gift the SCC an eight pack of “Staedtler Textsurfer Highlighter” pens! Or, for a bargain £8.58, what about a “mouse wrist-rest ergonomic gel wrist pad”.
There’s even an £80 “GTForce Roadster” office chair designed to look like the cockpit of a car that yer da purchased when he was seriously in the middle of his mid-life crisis.
Diary is quite into this idea of outsourcing stationery purchases to donors. If any of our readers fancy chipping in, Diary would quite like a multicoloured unicorn stress ball, a dual heat neck massager, and a pair of dark glasses with a rear view mirror.
We're better than TS, the minister said so... kind of
Diary was delighted to hear the government minister ultimately responsible for the charity sector, Matt Hancock declare, at a public meeting about the government's civil society strategy, that without a shadow of a doubt "civil society" was better than "third sector".
Did this also reflect Hancock's choice of reading material? After all, Diary has faithfully followed his movements in excruciating detail – from championing the duty of parliament to enshrine new laws on dead animal (#vivavellum) to the launch of a new social network named Matt Hancock. Had he been loving us, in turn, from afar?
Sadly, no. Diary's affection for Hancock is unrequited. When one of our Diary scribes sat down for a chat with the great man, together with a reporter from our bitter rivals, it turned out that Hancock had actually been explaining his take on the increasingly messy and complicated definition of our loose-and-baggy-monster of a sector, and has no idea about the charity trade press.
"Civil Society" he said (or words to this effect). "That's a mighty fine name for a magazine."
"I think it's already taken," said Tracey Crouch, the minister for civil society, while our scribe sat there looking uncomfortable.
In the pink
It was the Charity Finance Group’s annual conference on Wednesday and Society Diary has it on good authority that, along with some hard-hitting charity finance news and some quality eats, the quality of banter on offer was right out of the top drawer.
Exhibit A is, of course, this:
Challenge accepted @Tracey_crouch @CFGtweets ! thanks for speaking. Always great to see our Minister reaching out and engaging #charities #cfgac18 pic.twitter.com/bmCOUcxPkz
— Andrew O'Brien (@CFG_OBrien) May 23, 2018
Yes, that is Andrew O’Brien, departing head of policy and engagement at CFG, known best for his smiley face and adherence to a strict uniform of charcoal suit, shirt and brogues, in a very on-brand pink CFG polo shirt.
O’Brien had apparently been insisted that because he was speaking, and wanted to project some sort of gravitas, that he wouldn't be donning the pink polo shirt worn by all his colleagues who were organising the event. But then up turned Tracey Crouch again, who donned a pink T herself and insisted that O'Brien's sartorial snootiness be brough to a prompt end.
Doesn't he look happy?
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