I thought this piece on charity – a sector so beloved of our government – by Tom Serpell, from Sussex Bylines was very powerfully written (I thought of my own recent piece on the same subject and thought ‘must do better’): … if filling in the holes in the needs of the people is left… Read more
Category:
Charity
Health is made at home, hospitals are for repairs
Is the wonderful title of an article, concerning his own book, in the ‘New Local’ by Nigel Crisp former CEO of the NHS, and now a crossbench peer. He says: I argue in the book that we need to think about health differently and recognise that health creation plays an important role alongside health services… Read more
Charities are just another unequal tax
When I discovered that last night’s ‘Children in Need’ television programme had been going for forty years it led me to think about charity. This is really a version of the very Victorian concept of ‘the poor will always be with us’ – because after four decades we still have children in need. So foggy… Read more
Britain is becoming a GoFundMe nation..
This is the headline for a very good Guardian article by Nesrine Malik, which is well worth a read. To start towards the end she states: It is a common feature of corrupt regimes – when the people resign themselves to the fact that they are on their own, they develop all sorts of coping… Read more
Something else we seem to be world beating at..
Or at least beating the rest of Europe at… According to the 2020 release of the annual Good Childhood Report from the Children’s Society, children in Romania enjoyed the highest levels of life satisfaction, with 85% feeling positive, Finland was next with 84% and Spain and France were respectively 82% and 80% . The UK… Read more
If the NHS is not a charity why are private providers?
It seems to have received little publicity but I have to say I’m pleased that the government is going to be taken to court over rates bills. Apparently: Hospitals in England and Wales will pay a combined £408.6 million in business rates this year – a rise of 42.8% since 2017 when the Government carried… Read more
The public spirit of the poor will provide
I have long been struck how the lack of government care – really much reduced government spending in key areas – requires more charitable giving by the rest of us. Although tax never pays for government expenditure, increased charitable giving has become the direct effect of government policy – in other words it has become… Read more
The supplicant classes
There is much fuss about a priest supporting the Prime Minister’s Brexit scheme on BBC Question Time who was an actress as well as a dog-collared priest in her own church. Indeed the Daily Mail even managed a picture of the lady, who unfortuitously rejoices in the name of the Rev Lynn Hayter, worshipping. She… Read more
Charity begins with government
I’d like to start with a peon of praise as to how the Hospice de Beaune has raised as much as £12million for charity this year. I notice two things since I last attended – an embarrassingly long time ago: The auction is now run by Christies. So the auction is now properly international and as… Read more