Breaking the Blob is an important, shocking and radicalising piece of research. The paper, the first publication from the Cambridge Circus Research think tank, reveals the extent to which our charity sector has become corrupted by political activist networks, often sharing funding and seemingly coordinated. These are generally broadly Leftist, advocating for Net Zero, open borders and the sex-denying trans cult, although in some cases it appears that hostile state interests are being advanced by charities as well. Lack of control of government funding, and a network of financial intermediaries, also often mean that the state itself is funding organisations which oppose it in the courts, on the streets and online. Despite a notional requirement on charities to be non-political, the truth is that the Charity Commission is a desperately under-resourced and ineffective regulator, clearly unwilling or unable to act. The broad strokes of this may not be a surprise to many Sceptic readers, but what makes Breaking the Blob stand out is quite how much work has been done to map these networks, identify the causes of the problem and identify solutions.
The report has identified a consistent pattern in which large foundations and public bodies fund intermediary funders, who in turn fund or support campaign groups. Those groups in turn produce ‘evidence’ and media and ‘public’ pressure, while legal charities pursue or fund judicial reviews and other legal action to oppose the state.
While immigration and asylum are the most obvious areas in which these
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A link to the report would be good.
Can’t find it out there…
Para 3 from foot: it depends what you mean by a democratic mandate. Does 20% of the electorate qualify? If so, how?
I agree. I will search for the paper.
the problem is wider. It seems to me all tax payer funded bodies seek to widen their role into areas for which they were not founded or funded. It is a much more cosy life to claim woke credentials and attend lanyard meetings than actually to deliver the appointed job.
The “vires” of an. Tax payer funded entities, local authorities and charities should be very tight. Billions could be saved. It would also release hundreds of thousands of sociology etc graduates to get jobs wiping bottoms. We would then not notice when all the recent immigrants went home to care for their families.
Influencing policy is already excluded from that counts as charitable. This means that – strictly speaking – neither campaigning charities nor litigating charities are allowed to exist. This is just being ignored on an industrial scale.
Very interesting, thank you. How can I get my hands on a copy? I can’t find the report via conventional search and it’s not linked above.
Blair/Brown/Mandelscum deliberately set up The Blob to ensure that whilst you could vote for whoever you liked, the left-wing activist class would always rule.
Prof David Starkey has set it out for Reform. We need a “factory reset.”
What is the primary point of all these interconnected organisations? Beyond each organisation’s ‘mission’ is a background of providing employment to the sons and daughters of the well off (whether in wealth or worthiness) in ‘suitable’ employment for their class. Since the sons and daughters often know of each other socially there is an easy acceptance of forming joint endeavours.
While the drop in fertility will eventually reduce the feed of Henrys and Henriettas, well established organisations will continue, refining their ability to live off the money they attract. Arguably many questionable charities are ‘wealth extraction’ organisations.
So a key counter will be defunding the political charities and other NGOs that have been captured. Easy to say but an immense task that will be resisted by social challenges.
Good point. I suppose it keeps the Henrys and Henriettas from infesting otherwise productive organisations and making a nuisance of themselves there. Even in the private, relatively productive sector, there is a fashion for jobs and firms whose main passion seems to be to save the world rather than making money by providing goods and services people want to buy. I wonder if we will see that fade in ours lifetimes, and the extent to which it is a superficial fashion or whether it’s representative of something deeper.
Ending tax relief on donations to ‘ campaigning ‘ organisations should be the first step. Setting up food banks is fine, but pressing for political / legislative changes by propaganda mustn’t be charged to taxpayers. Donors to, for example, Oxfam should be given the choice of tax advantageous giving for actual famine relief or tax neutral giving for advocating for resetting refugees here or promoting Net Zero to ‘solve’ climate crisis.
“What is the primary point of all these interconnected organisations?”
The charitable industrial sector in many respects has been corrupted to serve special interest groups. The very powerful and rich (companies and individuals) have seized upon this opportunity to further their interests. Soros and Gates stand out as two leading players with this regard.
Because companies and individuals receive tax breaks for their charitable giving, taxpayers are essentially subsidizing the politics of special interests.
https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/how-corporations-use-charitable-giving-wield-political-influence
There’s another element to this. I work in trust and foundation fundraising (don’t @ me!). More and more trusts are becoming interested not in funding front-line work but campaigning to change the system. Surely changing the system is why we have elections? But many of these trusts, where previously the Trustees were Lord Thingummy and Lady Whatsit, who may have been part of the aristocracy but had been raised for a lifetime of good works and benevolence to the less fortunate, have been taken over by what I call activist trustees with a political axe to grind and they’re completely changing the charitable purposes of the trusts. There’s a reason that many trust fundraisers are in the doldrums, and it’s not just increasing demand, there’s too much money being diverted away from the front line.
The left can never get elected by honest means, so they have to lie, cheat, steal and undermine the truth at all times. I utterly despise socialism – the red (communist) kind and rhe brown (nazi) kind. The left refuses to admit that it is a bedfellow of the National socialists.
As Ayn Rand said: fascism and socialism: two statist totalitarian systems fighting over the same ideological ground. Disgusting ideologies.
Cancel all charity funding by the taxpayer and then prosecute all the leadership of chariries that have tried to underminegovernment policies on immigration. Foe starters
Investigate them all. Make them squirm.
Well said. Part of the problem though is that our rulers themselves support the open-borders “charities” (i.e. the haters of our country) rather than the wishes of our people. But our rulers know that this support is in opposition to the interests of our country. Which is why they try to obscure their support for open borders by passing our money (our money!!!) to third parties which hate us.
Rand is (or rather was) still a dumbass Russian housewife who emigrated to the USA where she spent the remainder of her life obsessing over sex and writing a few truly atrocious novels. She was so spectacularly clueless and uneducated that she didn’t even know that the Russian Bolsheviki created the position of a dicator modelled on the public office of the Roman republic of the same name for Lenin to deal with the emergencies of the immediate aftermath of the Russian revolution. Stalin inherited this office from him and had everyone in the party who wanted to abolish it on the grounds that the temporary emergency was over executed as closet fascist. It took until after his death before the political system of the USSR could be implemented as it was actually meant to operate. The following Wikipedia page has more details on this than anyone could ever want to know:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism
In contrast to this, the fascists, including the Nazis, actually wanted a strictly hierarchically organized society led by “born leaders” with little or no legal restrictions on what these leaders might or might not decide.
All of human society since prehistoric times outside of the very limited… Read more »
Ayn Rand did correctly warn of the rise of corporatism which now pollutes the Western world.
Russia leads the way in reform of the politically active Western charitable industrial sector. Putin saw through how the West was using charities as a front to undermine Russian society through their promotion of progressive politics – the American ones being the most prominent. Over a short period, fifteen years or so ago, they were all booted out.
Whilst it is highly unlikely that a British government would do the same it could remove the tax relief that the rich and corporations enjoy to further their interests via politically active charities and foundations.
Also, lottery monies are directed to politically active charitable organisations which could also be ended.