The Grauniad seems to be dying - hurrah!

No one will realise that there'll all really working for the Man.

Place flags and banners at pop cencerts and festivals. Spread the message, "save the planet". Knight the pop stars, practically canonize them, hold them up for the public to see. Get them young, hook them early, sign them up to donate. Get the politically naive younger pop fans, show them pictures of the polar bear. Spread the word, get the political message across. For a progressive somewhere, it's all going swimmingly to plan.

There seem to be lots of stories like these

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314543/Bonos-ONE-foundation-giving-tiny-percentage-funds-charity.html

jackstarb - nope, my point is voting intentions have fuck all to do with your ability to do something positive for charity. The millionaires who want to hang out with royalty are actually doing something useful, even if it's for a selfish reason. Their money funds the organisation. (And I assume most of the millionaires are Tories but some of them may not be.) The people who want to be treated as VIPs and swan around with everyone thinking they are jolly clever are also doing some good, even if it is irritating that their egos need quite so much stroking. The people who are motivated by seeing something that is wrong and trying to fix it are also doing something good. And the voting intentions of those three groups are presumably varied - it's not as simple as 'this lot are all automatically Tories, this lot are all automatically Labour'.

Coz - you are implying one group is more worthy than others...

Do some of the saints have feet of clay?

Oh, there are all sorts of reasons people are involved. Some of them for prestige and the chance to hang out with royalty. Some of them because they genuinely believe in the aims of the organisation and want to change things for the better (and these two groups overlap - wanting people to treat you as jolly important doesn't preclude wanting to make things better for everyone). One of them because he desperately wants to remain best friends with the royal patron and knows full well the royal in question drops people as soon as they are no longer useful to him.

Edam - you kinda stamp on your own point .

edam, I think that is right. But is there hypocrisy right at the top? Is some of it done for political purposes at the very top? Is it sometimes not what it seems at the top?

I'm also involved in another newer organisation that is applying for charitable status. Huge range of backgrounds/bank balances/viewpoints, from millionaires to people desperately trying to make ends meet. I can't see that one lot are more worthy than another, or that their voting intentions have fuck-all to do with their contribution to the charity. Although some of the millionaires are clearly in it for the side benefits - we have to offer them the chance to meet royalty to get them to stump up.

I'm a school governor. We've never discussed our own voting intentions, but I'd guess 2/3 of the governing body are Tories and 1/3 not (although dunno the breakdown between Labour/Lib Dem/AN Other). None of us ever claim expenses.

It's extremely daft to claim one lot of charitable supporters/workers are 'nice' and another lot 'nasty' based on an assumption about their voting intentions.

sorry, not U2. I think it is Bono who campaigns for that, not the rest of the band.

sorry, should have typed MoreBeta

MoreBetas, good point about the charities.Never thought of that.

U2 are big on poverty etc., I think

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music/news/u2-reject-tax-avoidance-claims-14203636.html

'never actually doing any front line work'

Yes, that about sums it up and I speak as a public sector worker.
As I put it to a colleague the other day, everyone paddles and dips in at the edge but very few actually wade in and do anything.
I find it utterly nauseating.

May I share (yet again) Parkinson's Laws for your wry pleasure?

Parkinson's First Law: Work expands to fill the time available.
Parkinson's Second Law: Expenditures rise to meet income.
Parkinson's Third Law: Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay.
Parkinson's Fourth Law: The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.
Parkinson's Fifth Law: If there is a way to delay an important decision the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
Parkinson's Law of Sience: The progress of science varies inversely with the number of journals published.
Parkinson's Law of Delay: Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
Parkinson's Law of Data: Data expands to fill the space available.
Parkinson's Law of Meetings: The time spent in a meeting on an item is inversely propotional to its value (up to a limit).
Parkinson's Law of 1000: An enterprise employing more than 1000 people becomes a self-perpetuating empire, creating so much internal work that it no longer needs any contact with the outside world.
Mrs. Parkinson's Law: Heat produced by pressure expands

moondog - yes that's true. As a 'right wing' charity worker I used to see our Board made up of the local left wing intelligensia, local Labour councillors and trade union officials all claiming their expenses for turning up to a meeting but never actually doing any front line work. Meanwhile me and other volunteers, mostly retired or or benefits, paying their own travel costs.

I left in the end because of the way the Board behaved. Nothing illegal but just the stink of rank hypocricy and political self interest.

Although I would argue that philanthropic/charitable work more the domain of the right winger as it is carried out by choice.

Lefties liek state imposed and state funded 'intervention' for the very reasons you state. Noone more so then the lefty 'intelligentsia' who love telling the proletariat how to live while they swan about living the life of the privileged.

Refer to Polly Toynbee and her odious husband as fine examples. He used to work for the Audit Commission on a very handsome package. She refused to answer questions about his hefty pay package despite urging all other public servants to do so.

Beautifully put Morebeta!

claig - the climate change agenda is and always has bene a perfect 'left wing' tool to allow more interference in peoples' lives. Its why the left is so embedded in 'charities'. No one can criticse you for interfering in peoples' lives if you have the cover of 'doing good for the underprivelleged' or 'saving the planet'.

The Guardian reflects the general agenda of the left which always wants yet more interference and control over peoples' lives. I have no idea why liberal and Liberal minded people read it.

'If this paper has been running at a loss for years, then why have it? Unless it its to get a message/messages/agendas across to public.'

Claig I agree that Complimentary's question gets the the hub of the dilema facing the Guardian.

The Guardian was run as a charity a while ago. In recent years it's been more of a 'trust fund babe'. Freed from the need to pay it's way, by a very well funded, very commercially savvy parent company.

Now this trust fund babe needs to start earning her own living!!

The issue is - how will this impact the Guardian's 'agenda', culture and image?

To be fair, they have made Tim Brooks redundant, so they have culled at least one 'top dog'.

He's made thousands of people redundant in his time, so it's difficult to feel any sympathy for him (and none of his victims walked away with massive pay-offs, either).

Private Eye has been following stories about the Grauniad's overspending and expensive, unproven new media strategy for some time. TBH I'm not surprised that they're culling jobs. Though if they put their money where their journalists' political mouths were, they'd be culling some of the many vastly overpaid top dogs rather than trimming at ground level.

We know what's in it for Rupert Murdoch, if as complimentary says The Times is losing money, but what's in it for the loss-making Guardian?

Is trying to shape public opinion over the environment, global warming, and other progressive messages worth every penny lost in profit? Who is so philanthropic that they are prepared to lose money in the losing battle to turn the public progressive? What's in it for them? Is it because they want to "save the planet"? Are they doing the people a favour? Do they think we need more New Labour?

I think complimentary has asked a very important question that gets to the heart of the matter.

'If this paper has been running at a loss for years, then why have it? Unless it its to get a message/messages/agendas across to public.'

Is the purpose to spread the progressive message, no matter what the cost?