Many people in the voluntary sector will feel a small glow of satisfaction at the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader, no matter what they think of his politics, the mode of his election or the fraternal ‘psychodrama’. His first job in government was at the then Office of the Third Sector, a new… Read more »
Posts Tagged: Conservative Party
Was the Charity Commission right not to publicise the findings of its investigation into the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative?
The long-awaited verdicts from the Charity Commission on the last two of the charities it investigated over political activity during the pre-election period are out. Both the employment charity Tomorrow’s People, which was probed over the appearance of its chief executive in the Conservative Party’s election manifesto, and the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative, which… Read more »
Should think tanks be charities at all?
There are some senior figures in the Conservative Party who are not very keen on campaigning charities. Oliver Letwin, now Minister of State at the Cabinet Office with the role of providing policy advice to the Prime Minister, was more vocal than most about this before the election. There is a certain irony, then, surrounding… Read more »
Nick Hurd claimed to be serious at his first meet-and-greet, but mutterings were audible
Earlier this week I went to the first meet-and-greet by Nick Hurd with the sector since his appointment as the new charities minister. It wasn’t exactly at the coalface: it was a small gathering of around 50 senior charity staff at a smart central London hotel. But it was a good debut for Hurd. He charmed… Read more »
Volunteer or else! How a nudge could turn into coercion
Is the concept of volunteering as time freely given to the community being subtly undermined? A couple of recent developments suggest that, while no one is being coerced exactly into volunteering, it could soon become an expectation which influences whether individuals get housing or progress in their career. The carrot of material self-interest is certainly… Read more »
Cameron pushed his big society, but his charity audience was not convinced
Yesterday I watched David Cameron give a speech about his big society agenda at a meeting hosted by think tank the Centre for Social Justice. Previous announcements by the Conservatives about the idea have been relatively well-received by much of the national press, so I was interested to see how an audience that consisted… Read more »
The Charity Commission’s guidance on political campaigning is proving a weak deterrent
The pre-election warning to charities by the Charity Commission chief executive Andrew Hind, telling them “not to engage in any party political activity or leave the charity open to the perception that they might be”, looks like one of those police clampdowns on cyclists riding on pavements: more request than threat. It was always going… Read more »