The Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow – For Women Scotland

[IwantToRetire]

But who is the puppet and who is pulling the strings? It’s hard to tell if the Scottish Government is doing the bidding of Equality Network or if Equality Network is happily pushing forward the policy aims of Government. After all, the Scottish Ministers proudly informed the court back in 2020 that “transwomen are women” was a longstanding Government policy.

This is quite a long article with lots of data about links between Scottish Government and funded organisations which are impossible to summarise for an OP!

If interested in the detail, full article at https://forwomen.scot/19/07/2026/the-pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow/

Meant to add may already have been posted with a different heading?

I've seen similar articles before, it's a corruption of power. The quangos receive the money from government, which they then use too lobby government, it a self feeding system of cronyism. Quite a lot of the people at the top, bounce around from top job to top job, and are related in someway to the people who are high up in government.

It's like an elite group of families controling everything, like in the middle ages, or the current Middle East.
Just as much nepotism as fudual system and the aristocracy. 🤮

It's why we in Scotland are taxed so heavily. To pay the fuckers to keep themselves in power and fancy campervans.

Scottish politics, at this point, with a handful of notable exceptions, looks like a total racket from top to bottom.

Entirely depressing how bad it is here in Scotland. I don't even know what the solution would be.

Reversing devo.

I dont think most want that, but we simply cant go on like this.

That model works EXACTLY the same way here in Ireland, in both jurisdictions. NGOs are there to prop up and launder government policy and to keep naice people in employment. So frustrating because it blocks real, popular change.

I don't know if it's an endemic problem of smaller countries, or it's just the determination within politicians of the Celtic nations to be as unlike England as possible, but it doesn't seem to happen quite as much (or maybe quite as visibly) in English politics.

Am I right or is it just as prevalent in England?

I think this is fairly universal. Many small to medium groups start out taking money from funders convinced it will not impact on their aims or ethics.

But like it or not funding it never purely you are doing a good job and here are unrestriced funds to help you keep going and expand.

Originally the Lottery in the UK was meant to be this. Whether big or small if a group could demonstrate how they were working and the beneficiaries approved and appreciated the service they could get funding. (This was John Major's proposal)

As some point (cant remember when) basically the politicians took over on the basis it was better that money was targetted to meet agree aims.

And originally, local funding was on this basis. But sooner or later someone says even those doing the work are the experts we, who control the money, should direct it.

Inevitably this leads to the self serving circle above. Some truely believe better to keep going even with pressure from funders, but other think not and leave.

In a very short period of time the link with the past, founding aims and objectives are no longer the motivation of the group. The motivation is what is the best way to continue to secure money.

Made more likely to happen because many are attracted to the jobs being funded as they are often well paid, so whereas original founders etc., accepted a lower wage to help kick start something, now there is a strong element of employees saying well my life style needs this level of wage so what's the best way to ensure we keep the funding.

And of course the other element, which many of us on FWR are aware of, is there are always entryists. Those who think this is a good platform to push my politics.

And even without funding this can happen. There is a really sad thread on AIBU about a women who with others set up a women's knitting group. It grew, became quite big, got constituted, etc., and guess what the new director is saying the group should be trans inclusive. So the founder member has to accept this or leave the group. She is not getting much sympathy on her thread. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5557689-aibu-to-consider-leaving-our-knitting-group-over-its-new-policy

We are talking about human nature here.

For women's groups the problem has been the success of the Stonewall etc., propoganda about gender identity. So nearly everyone joining an organisation after its initial set up will be as likely as not TWAW.