More BBC doublethink

A link in the BBC's newsfeed catches my eye: Free book scheme handed 50% cut, with the teaser "A charity that gives free books to children is told of a 50% cut in funding, two months after fears over its future sparked a political 'U-turn' row". (Note that the actual headline, when you get there, is somewhat less informative.)

It's hard to fault it as an example of systematic double thinking: a charity (nice people, good) has its funding cut (less to spend, bad). So simple! And yet so wrong.

Charities collect voluntary donations and then disburse them. To the extent that this 'charity' is funded by government, to that extent it is acting not as a charity, but as a spending agency of the government. It's now "giving" away not money that has been freely given, but money that has been extracted by force, or the threat of force, and that's not good.

Even worse than the moral point though, is the way government funding, even when it's done as "matching", exerts a chronically corrupting influence on the charities that receive it. Their managements start to work closely with the Home Office, they produce position papers to illustrate how their intentions align with government objectives, people go on secondment in both directions; instead of writing their budget to match their expected income, they start to produce "requirements" budgets that, naturally, show enormous deficits... Eventually, the lure of money results in the charity becoming an extension of whatever department funds them: instead of government funds supplementing private charity, private funds end up supplementing government spending.

Government already allows tax breaks for private charitable contributions. If it wants to encourage charities even more, it could simply allow tax breaks at more than 100% of the tax payable. The curernt system of co-opting favoured charities for subsidy and control is deceitful and corrupt, and should be discontinued.

Libya

Quite apart from what one thinks of Gaddaffi and his regime, it's interesting to see how his elite are breaking away from him by ones and twos and little groups. There's clearly some signalling going on (in perhaps a rather more general sense than discussed in the link). As each person signs off and makes a public announcement, they signal to others that it's alright to do the same. At some point this will reach a critical mass, and then it will all be over.

Requiescat in pace

Marek Rybinski, priest and martyr.