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By  David Craig, on November 17th, 2014 A few months ago, I became concerned at how my increasingly frail 88-year-old mother, who likes to donate to a few charities, was being bombarded by requests for money by huge numbers of charities which she had never heard of. Clearly one of the charities to which she donated had sold her details so that now she was on a charities “suckers list” and would be pestered for the rest of her days.
So I did a little investigation and wrote my latest book THE GREAT CHARITY SCANDAL.
If anyone wants a little sample of the book, there was an article about it in the Mail On Sunday yesterday
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2835947/The-Great-British-rake-really-happens-billions-donate-charity-Fat-cat-pay-appalling-waste-hidden-agendas.html
Here’s an email I received by a reader of this website
“Thanks for writing The Great Charity Scandal. As a pensioner and wanting to give back to society I volunteered at The British Heart Foundation. I walked out two weeks ago as I no longer wanted my name associated with them. The straw that broke the camel’s back was being told that during my Sunday shift I had to sell an x amount of raffle tickets. I said I did not feel comfortable selling these tickets. So, the next Sunday they got a lady to come in to accost customers. It was really embarrassing. I walked out and told them I volunteered with the BHF and not Ladbrookes. I also cannot appreciate that during a recession they have tripled their prices. Some used articles are being sold for more than original cost. There is nothing charitable in their politicies. For example a gentleman on limited income wished to purchase a warm pullover, priced at £9.99 The said article was acrylic and would have cost that new, the man had £5. I asked if I could give it to him for that and was told no. Same applied to a lady who wanted baby clothing”
And here are a few of the 1,192 readers’ comments on the Mail on Sunday article:
“Yesterday I received 2 envelopes from the British Red Cross through my letterbox. In each one was 2 Christmas cards and their envelopes, 2 place mats, a page of sticky labels, a bookmark and a pen, along with a letter asking for £5. They claim that these kits cost 24 pence to produce and bring in a lot of revenue. In the block where I live, it would have cost them almost £30 alone to distribute these. Waste of money, they will not be getting anything from me until they manage their finances more wisely”
“I am so pleased this is finally coming out. After having a friend who did the accounts for a charity whose chief exec drove a flash car on the back of it. I have only ever given to the Salvation Army and the Lifeboats, who don’t seem to take off loads for those at the top”
“I researched the wages of some CEOs of major charities & decided to donate to smaller local charities who cannot afford thousands of pounds to advertise for money.Quite honestly none of us knows what goes where, especially with the largest cancer research charities, but I do know that we are no closer to a cure now than when I was 5 (56 years ago)”
“My friend works for one of these charities and he says most of the money goes on salaries and parties for the staff, they waste more 75% of the money you donate”
“I have for many years donated to WWF under covenant. I found that I was receiving at least 1 letter a month asking me to give another £20 for this and another £20 for that. I wrote objecting that MY donation was apparently being used to demand more money from me. The regular mailings stopped for a few years but have started again. WWF have also increased my covenant although I don’t remember being told about that. I also noted that WWF was clearly spending money campaigning about “man-made climate change”. I again objected and wrote to the CEO saying I would stop contributing if they carried on with that. The CEO wrote back saying “goodbye”
“It’s about time someone raised the lid on this. I had been donating £20 per month to Plan International for 12 years until I found out the CEO was getting a salary of £185,000. Then I stopped. I have decided now that if I donate to charity, whoever is the boss of that charity must be earning no more that £75,000”
“Another problem is with charity shops which now seem to think they are boutiques. I have volunteered in 2 different ones and became very frustrated at all the rules and petty restrictions. For example the manager wasn’t allowed to have a sale or reduce prices. All unsold stock was sold by the sack to dealers for around £1. whereas more could have been raised for the charity if they had been put on a sale rail. I felt that the purpose of the shops i.e. raising money for charity had been lost and it was all about image and employment for a large layer of managers etc”
“If you sign up for the TV ads for only £3 a month charities, you are then bombarded with telephone calls putting you on a guilt trip to increase the payment to £5 and when you comply it starts all over again”
“I did a DD to a charity and then started getting phone calls, all asking me to increase my donation, one smarmy little git suggested I stop buying books and send them the money, when I said ‘no’ he became very abusive so I told him to go away and then stopped the DD. More phone calls asking why I stopped and this time it was the tug on the heart string approach, I eventually had to block the number as I was getting three to four calls a week”
“Never give personal information to the chuggers, cold callers, idiots with red noses on, large one eyed yellow bears or junk mail. Once they’ve got you get ready to be pestered every day by them wanting more”
By David Craig, on November 16th, 2014 This is just to inform you that my latest book THE GREAT CHARITY SCANDAL has been released today.
In order to get the book out quickly, my agent proposed that it be done as a “Kindle Single” on Amazon. A “Kindle Single” is a short book – less than 30,000 words compared to a standard book which is usually 60,000 words or more. If we had gone to a traditional publisher, we’d have had to wait 8 to 10 months before the book was published. Also a “Kindle Single” is much cheaper than a traditional book.
You DON’T have to have a Kindle Reader to read the book. You can download the Kindle Reader app completely free of charge from Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html?docId=1000425503 It can be downloaded to any device – computer, PC, laptop, tablet, iphone or other kind of phone. You just go to the link above and choose your device then the free app will download in a few seconds. Then you can buy and read any Kindle book.
After that you go to https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Charity-Scandal-happens-billions-ebook/dp/B00PNPOQGG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416117084&sr=1-1&keywords=the+great+charity+scandal where you can buy and download THE GREAT CHARITY SCANDAL to read whenever and wherever you wish.
Britain’s bloated charity industry claims that almost £70bn of the £80bn it takes and spends each year is used for ‘charitable purposes’. But in reality probably less than half of the charity industry’s £80bn a year actually goes to ‘good causes’. The rest is spent on executives, managers, administration, political campaigning and fundraising.
It’s time the truth about Britain’s bloated, self-serving charity industry was revealed. That’s what THE GREAT CHARITY SCANDAL tries to do.
Many thanks to those readers who support this site by buying copies.
By David Craig, on November 15th, 2014
About three weeks ago, our lying PM, the Right Honourable Dave ‘Cast-Iron-Promise’ Cameron made it absolutely clear there would be a parliamentary vote on the European Arrest Warrant before the Rochester by-election – Exhibit A : “I am not delaying a vote on it. There will be a vote on it.”
Last week, Home Secretary the Right Honourable Theresa May defended denying Parliament a vote on the European Arrest Warrant – Exhibit B : “The European Arrest Warrant is not in that list because it does not require to be transposed into our legislation because that has already been done.”
Conclusion 1 – Cameron cannot be trusted on anything, especially when it concerns the EU
Conclusion 2 – The Conservative leadership gang are happy to bypass the democratic process when it comes to surrendering ever more of our sovereignty to their bosses in the corrupt, wasteful, undemocratic EU
Conclusion 3 – Because of Conclusions 1 and 2, Conclusion 3 is that Cameron is NOT to be trusted on giving us a real referendum on EU membership in 2017. He simply will not allow it
Conclusion 4 – PR spiv Cameron is a recidivist liar. Yet, even with all the practice he has had, he’s still not very good at it
By David Craig, on November 14th, 2014 You have to laugh or else you’d cry. The FIFA Ethics Committee (probably one of the greatest oxymorons ever invented) have now concluded their great investigation into whether there was any corruption involved in awarding the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
FIFA’s conclusion – absolutely no evidence of any dodgy dealings.
But how did FIFA reach this truly incredible conclusion? Well, Russia refused to hand over any documentation to the investigators claiming all the computer files had been deleted. So, that cleared Russia.
As for Qatar, the guy doing all the bribing wasn’t an official member of a footballing organisation and so FIFA conveniently decided that he would not be included in the investigation. That was Qatar in the clear.
But in a truly staggeringly brazen case of nuking the messenger, FIFA’s Ethics Committee (stop laughing) decided that England’s bid had been corrupt and that England had ‘damaged the image’ of the totally clean, totally honest FIFA.
Sometimes, situations are so absurd that it’s almost impossible to comment on them. No doubt, if FIFA were investigating the Pope, they’d clear him of being catholic and if they were investigating bears, they’d probably find that there was no evidence of bears defecating in woods.
Anyway, the two world cups will now go ahead and the corrupt FIFA members will be able to hang on to the millions they got from the Russians and the Qataris.
But at least it will be possible to play some football in Russia as it’s reasonably cool in the summer. It’s still doubtful that the teams will manage to play effectively in that overheated cesspit Qatar, whether the competition is held in the summer or winter.
Hopefully nobody will travel to that Arab hell-hole and the teams will be playing to almost empty stadiums in almost unbearable conditions. Then a few FIFA sponsors might start having second thoughts about pouring their many millions into FIFA’s ever welcoming pockets
Apparently Qatar has a population of 1.8 million. That’s 278,000 lazy, useless Qataris plus 1,500,000 expatriate workers labouring in slave-like, dangerous conditions . . . sorry . . . 1,499,999 expat workers. Ooops, crash 1,499,998 expat slaves. Watch out below! Aaaarrrrgghh . . . 1,499,997 expat workers . . never mind, there’s plenty more where they came from! And they’re cheap. In fact they’re free if they get killed as you don’t have to pay them.
By David Craig, on November 13th, 2014 You’ll probably have read that five banks are paying over £2bn in fines for rigging foreign exchange markets. You may even have seen regulators blethering on about ‘getting tough’ with banks – “The FCA does not tolerate conduct which imperils market integrity or the wider UK financial system” and Osborne “Today we take tough action to clean up corruption by a few so that we have a financial system that works for everyone.”
And, of course, bank bosses have been crying huge crocodile tears as they pretend to be sorry for encouraging fraud which has made them unimaginably rich – “To say that I’m angry would be an understatement” claimed the head of one of the worst offending banks.
In the latest series of fines, HSBC will be paying £236m, Barclays £500m and RBS (which is 80% owned by British taxpayers) £400m.
British banks have also had to put aside over £10bn to compensate for PPI (Payment Protection Insurance) mis-selling:
Banks in the UK, US and Europe have now paid tens of billions in fines and compensation.
But who pays these extraordinary penalties? The individual bankers who committed fraud on a massive scale? Nope. The bank bosses? Nope. The fines get paid by the banks’ shareholders who get less in dividends and see the value of their shares fall as the billions in fines and compensation are cut from the banks’ profits.
And who are the banks’ main shareholders? Mainly you and me. In fact anyone who has any savings in a pension fund or unit trust or has a company pension probably owns shares in a few banks. So, we’re the ones being punished. Not the bankers.
Talking of punishment, how many of these corrupt bankers have been prosecuted for fraud? Yup, you guessed right – none.
So, please don’t believe the mainstream media’s hyperbolic lies about banks being fined and the regulators getting tough. We’re the ones being fined and the regulators are getting tough with us while letting the bankers off.
That’s why our bankers are laughing all the way to the bank.
By David Craig, on November 12th, 2014 During the dreadful 1984 Ethiopian famine, we all gave lots of money to Sir Bob’s Band Aid to help feed the starving. Sir Bob has, if I remember correctly, repeatedly denied reports that Ethiopia’s Marxist government sold large quantities of the food we donated to Russia in exchange for weapons. I found another lovely story that in 1984, when over 1,000 Ethiopians a day were dying from starvation, Ethiopia’s government bought 480,000 bottles of Scotch whiskey for a celebration of their tenth year in power https://hornaffairs.com/en/2014/10/27/ethiopia-buys-liquor-1984-famine/
Anyway, this time Sir Bob is raising money to fight Ebola. The problem is that those countries with Ebola outbreaks have already had plenty of money in aid. But almost all that money has been stolen by the incompetent corrupt rulers of those countries:
If these countries’ rulers hadn’t stolen so much money, then they would have had all the clinics and doctors they needed. Moreover, their people would have been better educated and have food and water and roads and all the other basics of a civilised society so there probably wouldn’t have been any Ebola outbreak in the first place.
The professional hand-wringers bleat “we need a new Marshall Plan for Africa”. But the Marshall Plan gave a devastated Europe around $20bn a year (in today’s money) for five years to rebuild after WWII. Since 1965, Africa has had $1trn in foreign aid. That’s $20bn a year for almost fifty years – equivalent to 10 Marshall Plans – and most of the continent is still mired in poverty and destitution.
The people responsible for Ebola and all Africa’s many problems are Africa’s leaders. Not us in the West.
So, in answer to the question “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” – yup, every time someone raises money for the latest catastrophe in Africa, it’s definitely Christmas for this lot – Africa’s worthless, greedy, brutal, corrupt, kleptocratic rulers.
As for ordinary Africans – with the rulers they have, they’ll be waiting an awful long time before Christmas ever arrives for them, however much money Saint Bob manages to raise.
By David Craig, on November 11th, 2014 As Sir Bob Geldorf does another of his “give us your f*****g money” appeals, here are some inconvenient truths from my forthcoming book THE GREAT CHARITY SCANDAL What Really Happens to the Billions We Give to Good Causes?
In 1984, the song ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ was released by Band Aid to raise money to help the starving victims of the 1983-85 Ethiopian famine. The record plus the following year’s Live Aid concert raised around £150 million and made those behind the venture into national heroes.
In 1965, eighteen years before the start of the famine, the population of Ethiopia was about twenty five million. In 1984, in the midst of the famine, the country’s population had passed thirty nine million. Today, Ethiopia’s population is around ninety six million – well over twice the level during the 1983-85 famine and almost four times the population in 1965. There have been similar situations in two other neighbouring African countries where there are regular famines. In Sudan (including South Sudan), the 1965 population was twelve million. Today it’s around fifty million:
In 1965 the population of Somalia was three million. Today it’s above eleven million.
For all three countries, the population has almost increased by a factor of four from 40 million to 157 million in just fifty years. In comparison, the combined population of Britain, France and Germany only went up from 180 million in 1965 to 211 million today – a rise of just seventeen per cent.
There have been droughts in these countries in 1892, 1913, 1929, 1935, 1942, 1951, 1958, 1966, 1973, 1984 and 1998. It should be more than evident that three largely infertile countries that are regularly affected by drought every seven to ten years cannot successfully support a population that is increasing at such a rate.
It’s understandable why people in these countries have so many children. With a high level of child mortality, few jobs and no pension system, the only way for adults to ensure their future is to produce a large number of children in the hope that some will survive, get jobs and provide for their parents in old age. But what is logical for hundreds of millions of individuals has been a catastrophe for their countries.
Unfortunately, foreign aid’s success in preventing child deaths and starvation in these countries has not been accompanied by a culture change that would lead to a reduction in family size.
Yet when regularly appealing for our money to help with the latest crop failure and famine in these three countries, the charity and aid agencies seem to forget to tell us about how fast these countries’ populations are actually growing and that, however much money we give, these countries will continue to experience droughts and famines because the land is simply unable to support the rapidly increasing numbers of people living there.
By David Craig, on November 10th, 2014 A couple of days ago, I used the following analogy to try to explain Osborne’s great negotiating “triumph” over the £1.7bn demanded by the corrupt, wasteful bureaucrats in Brussels:
I owe you £40.
You get a pay rise because you are working hard, whereas I get a pay cut for being lazy.
I tell you that it’s not fair you should get a pay rise for working hard while I got a pay cut for being lazy. So you should give me £80.
You complain, so I agree to offset the £40 I owe you against my demand for £80, so you only have to pay me £40. Thus you were due £40 from me, but now you are going to pay me £40.
You explain this to your wife as a triumph of hard-talking negotiation on your part and assure her that your relationship with me is essential for her future well-being. Does she:
a) regard you as a heroic defender of her standard of living?
b) call you a useless idiot and leave you for Nigel down the road?
But this analogy isn’t really accurate. Here’s why:
The main reasons the figures for Britain’s GDP have been so high and were revised upwards leading to an extra £1.7bn payment to the socialist komissars at the EU were the inclusion of three things in GDP that weren’t previously included in the UK’s figures – prostitution, drugs and research/development of new weaponry. Plus, of course, Britain spends much more on defence than any other EU country as our useless, grandstanding politicians still think we are responsible for all the world’s problems.
As a country, we are going bankrupt. Our national debt has rocketed up from £700bn at the last election to over £1.4trn now. We are borrowing and spending around £100bn a year, which adds £100bn a year to our supposed GDP. But according to EU rules, that extra £100bn a year of borrowing and spending makes us ‘more successful’ and so we should pay more to EU countries that are not borrowing and spending so much.
This situation is beyond being absurd.
So what should the analogy be?
I owe you £40.
You borrow money you don’t have and spend this money whoring, taking drugs and fighting, whereas I don’t earn any money because I sit at home as I can’t be bothered to work and nobody will lend me any money so I can’t afford any fun.
I tell you that it’s not fair you should borrow money and use it having fun, while I can’t afford any happy happy. So you should give me £80 from the money you’ve borrowed.
You complain, so I agree to offset the £40 I owe you against my demand for £80, so you only have to pay me £40. Thus you were due £40 from me, but now you are going to pay me £40.
You explain this to your wife as a triumph of hard-talking negotiation on your part and assure her that your relationship with me is essential for her future well-being. Does she:
a) regard you as a heroic defender of her standard of living?
b) call you a useless idiot and leave you for Nigel down the road?
By David Craig, on November 9th, 2014
By David Craig, on November 8th, 2014 Two blogs for the price of one today.
I just read this explanation of Osborne’s great negotiating triumph. Enjoy.
I owe you £40.
You get a pay rise because you are working hard, whereas I get a pay cut for being lazy.
I tell you that it’s not fair you should get a pay rise for working hard while I got a pay cut for being lazy. So you should give me £80.
You complain, so I agree to offset the £40 I owe you against my demand for £80, so you only have to pay me £40. Thus you were due £40 from me, but now you are going to pay me £40.
You explain this to your wife as a triumph of hard-talking negotiation on your part and assure her that your relationship with me is essential for her future well-being. Does she:
a) regard you as a heroic defender of her standard of living?
b) call you a useless idiot and leave you for Nigel down the road?
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