By Charles Moore
Excerpt:
Charities in Britain are in trouble. Some of the bigger ones deserve to be. They tend to put government lobbying and Left-wing political activism before serving the causes for which they were founded. They become career paths for future Labour and Green politicians and quangocrats. Their top salaries easily exceed that of the Prime Minister. No wonder donations are dropping.
This is noticeable in nature charities. As a country-dweller, I like the work of the Wildlife Trusts in caring for rare habitats. Earlier this month, though, I received an email from Craig Bennett, the Trusts’ chief executive, reacting to the newly announced Conservative policy to abolish Natural England and the Environment Agency, two of our most overmighty quangos.
After sounding off against “Starmer’s war on bats and newts”, Mr Bennett launched into the Tories: “Now the Conservatives want to try this divisive, scapegoating tactic again, but on a much bigger scale… they will expose the UK’s economy to dangerous weather, the UK’s food supplies to biodiversity collapse and UK homes to flooding and extreme heat.”
Why this angry, overblown and tendentious rhetoric? It is uncharitable. The Trusts appear to be mindlessly aligning with bureaucratic and statist interests. Mr Bennett reminded us that the Wildlife Trusts gang together for polling with the RSPB, National Trust, Woodland Trust and WWF to help campaigning. Is that charitable money well spent? Big Nature is acting like Big Oil.
