Grants? But You're A Charity

Local charities are complaining already about the cuts in funding which they are expected to endure in order to facilitate our return to a philanthropic Big Society of socially active voluntaristicity. The chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations summed up the attitude problem: "Small scale community activity is fundamentally important to civil society. It depends on small grants, and if these are wiped out this will remove the very support structures that community groups depend on and undermine the big society." The idea that charities should depend on grants shows the fundamental misconception behind the epidemic of unpositive thinking that now afflicts the voluntary sector. In cash terms at least, charity is meant to be cost-free. That is why the Government likes it so much. To the Conservative mind, charity is something one does for no pay, in order to fill up the time between share dividends and keep up one's reputation with the little folk. As above, so below: in Daveybloke's classless society, there is no reason why the little folk shouldn't join in the great voluntaristic philanthro-activitude, in between job-hunting and family values. Throwing public money at charities instead of bankers merely makes the charities look like (shudder) public sector organisations, and we all know that Daveybloke's Big Society is nowhere near big enough for slackers of that kind.