Applying the rigourous intellectual standards of the BBC, Simon Clark brings us incontrovertible evidence for the above two contentions.
As is tradition on this 'blog, I'll do a quick run down on the organisations whose spokesmen are quoted in the BBC articles and how they are financed:
The Children's Society, charity reg. number 221124, 'only' gets a quarter of its total income from "central and local government fees and grants" (£9 million, page 34 of the accounts) and 'only' spends a third of its gross income (£13 million) on fundraising and admin costs (page 43).
The National Schools Partnership is a straightforward marketing consortium for "a wide range of quality, ethical businesses with whom we have developed tools to help enhance pupils' learning experience" (altho' they get bonus marks for 'whom'; 'pupils' instead of 'students' and for getting the apostrophe in the right place).
Dr Rowan Williams needs no introduction, f*** knows why the BBC or anybody care about his opinion any more.
And finally, The Institute of Child Health, London is run by University College London and the NHS so that's just a quango.
What have we wrought in the UK?
2 hours ago
2 comments:
from The Childrens Society website:
Retail
We run over 80 shops throughout England, each of which relies totally on goods donated to us to help us continue our work with children and young people. Our Retail operation includes a variety of specialist volunteer roles in our shops, including Shop Managers.
...
From the recruitment section it appears that not all shop managers are volunteers. A retail shop manager earns between 14-20K, which presumably has to come out of profits as otherwise donors would be giving generously to help a second-hand goods shop stay in business.
So, is it only materialism if the goods are new, such as all those soapstone trinkets which Oxfam sells from African producers?
WOAR, there are two halves to this second hand idea. Most people are happy to take their stuff down there, but far fewer want to buy it. When I took stuff down to Sue Ryder's, I always made a point of buying something as well (paperbacks for 50p or whatever) to even things out. I own absolutely no soapstone trinkets, BTW.
Post a Comment