Cameron: such a twat

From the Telegraph

When beer is cheaper than water, it’s just too easy for people to get drunk on cheap alcohol at home before they even set foot in a pub.

There you have it folks, the neo-prohibitionist groups that are funded by government get their dishonest message repeated by government. The neo-prohibitionists have used exactly this line, despite the fact that it is completely factually incorrect.


We can now categorically state how fake charities work:-


1. Someone creates a pressure group. Calls it a charity.
2. Political party in power thinks it's an excellent idea and funds them to keep doing it.
3. Charity gets to repeatedly spread the message, throwing money at PR while enjoying the "good guy" status of being called a charity (while not being so).
4. Charity can make a load of foul-ups while remaining distant from damaging the government. If they really foul up, the government can just drop funding.
5. Once government feels they can sell the public the policy, once the fake charity lies have been repeated enough or have been tweaked enough, they do so.


That's why I'm so against fake charities. If there are things the state needs to do, they should properly be called government departments, subject to Freedom of Information act requests and people should be clearly aware that the government wants these things done.

An Excellent Paragraph from Tim Worstall

From his blog:-

This is perhaps the saddest thing about ASH and all the rest: they’ve poisoned the well. Someone as achingly liberal (classically so) as myself, one who believes fiercely in the power of voluntary cooperation to solve human problems, finds that he can no longer trust those who make claims to be part of the little platoons.

I'd have to agree with this. Any time I read a pronouncement from a charity, I'm off to the Charity Commission web site to read their accounts and see the sources of their funding (although the Iron Rule on this is if they're on the BBC making statements, they're probably a fake).

Fake Charity Spot #2

From the Swindon Advertiser:-

FORMER patients at Great Western Hospital are to be given the chance to have their say on the way health services are run.

Independent research agency The Picker Institute has posted questionnaires to 850 people who have recently used the hospital.

I'd never heard of The Picker Institute, so I did a little googling and they appear here and are charity number 1081688.

It seems that most of their work is running various surveys for the NHS. So, their money comes from the government.

Incidentally, going back to that "Independent" thing, have a look at their trustees. Two of them are currently chief executives of NHS Trusts and one is the ex-president of the GMC.

Don't expect any earth shattering suggestions about how to improve the NHS (like destroying it).

Fake Charity Spot

I know that every blogger does these, but maybe if we keep posting them, someone in the mainstream media might just get this.

Today's little offering is: Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation.

You just have to look at the beautifully photoshopped photo to know that deep in the depths of the accounts it's an FC, so let's take a look at the numbers.

Now, they say that they received £446,000 of "Voluntary Income" out of £691,000 of total income, but of that, the following were received:-

1) £300,000 from Sport England (who distribute national lottery money).
2) £6,000 from Sport Scotland (like 1) )

and of the "Consultancy Fees", £84,000 came from the "ESC Lottery Fund" (English Sports Council).

There's a few accounts items like "Gender Equality" which I can't trace, but we can say that at least £390,000 of £691,000 has come from the state.