There has been a theme on the blog this morning. It is, I would suggest, misjudgement and mismanagement.
First there is misjudgement in the claims made by David Davis that are flatly contradicted by evidence.
Then there is both mismanagement and misjudgement by HSBC on its role in facilitating tax evasion.
After which there is misjudgement by the incoming chair of the FCA.
And the extraordinary mismanagement by ministers who thought it might be appropriate to appoint one of their own colleagues to head the Charity Commission when she has none of the required qualities for the job.
It was not my intention to make clear how widespread mismanagement and misjudgement appears to be around the government (and with two HSBC directors having served as ministers in recent years the suggestion of a link is appropriate) but the pattern is too obvious to ignore.
The Times, and others, are keen to highlight abuse in the charity sector at present, and some more recent revelations appear to have some justification. I am not keen on abuse anywhere. Who is?
But nor am I keen that those without sound judgement or qualification be permitted to continue in positions of trust either.
Consistency is desirable when demanding high standards, and we are not seeing it.
The question, of course, is why? And the all too apparent answer would seem to be that some think they have immunity to get away with it. I hope their time comes too.
The demand for integrity requires consistency or it looks like hypocrisy. There is a strong whiff of that this morning.
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Quite right Richard. For example, a campaigner for tax transparency who is offered funding from a private trust on condition that the name of the trust is not disclosed, should turn the funding down. Shouldn’t they?
You are well aware that the trustees of small trusts have been harassed
I agreed for that reason to respect a request for anonymity in this case
What would you have wanted? That you could troll them?
I know the name of the trust, but can’t find anything on them. No website, not a charity and not at companies house. How can you be held to the same standards as you demand of others? Unless you think your word is good enough?
I did my due diligence and decided to accept the income and voluntarily disclosed this
I think that’s extraordinarily transparent
I was happy with the provenance of the funds
Much more so than the vast majority of charities would ever be with regard to their funding
Maybe you’d like to ask all right wing think tanks why they do not disclose their funding and when they come back to you with answers contact me again
Interesting that these questions should be asked, don’t you think? One wonders why these people feel this is a good use of their time… I’d be encouraged, in your place, if I may 🙂
I guess it’s a bit like living in a Banana Republic.
With the promise of Global warming perhaps we’ll get the climate to go with it sometime soon.
Signs to watch for:
Military hats getting bigger.
Ditto epaulettes.
Goose stepping guardsmen outside Buck House.
Politicians wearing medals in a civilian context.
The problems of cronyism when the state gets too big has been a problem since the Pharaohs were in short pants.
In the Courageous State, why would this problem diminish? It hasn’t in the past when the state got courageous, what would change?
You dismiss this as a problem, yet act shocked when you see it.
You might say ‘there is hope that we could have things run by people like my dad/grandma/favourite teacher/vicar/me’.
But cronyism usually benefits the pointy elbow types. Rarely ‘good people’.
If you are looking to expand the role of the state, you need to ask: how many of these sorts of people can we tolerate? Thinking you’ll get rid of them is fantasyland.
And what is your alternative?
“And what is your alternative?”
Good people have to be coerced into public office.
Not exactly libertarian though is it ?
I suppose the alternative would be ‘real’ democracy where we have a more vocal and engaged public. I am of the conviction that the party system is dead as is the Parliamentary system with its bizarre, historically rooted and now irrelevant constituency bases which carve up the country in a meaningless fashion.
The problem is that we have a very passive and largely quiescent populace so it would take a significant transition to get to a more engaged citizen. Certainly the career M.P should become a thing of the past. Instead we need facilitators who can build up more localised democracy with rotating panels of citizens. Some of this is described in a book called ‘Against Elections’ by David Van Reybrouck where sortition is used to involve citizens. In recent years, he writes:
‘Political parties shifted from the core of civil society to the outer shell of the state apparatus. Elections became a fierce media battle for the floating voter.
I suspect we are living in that transition time and Corbyn’s espousal of bottom up politics is, strangely enough, the ONE area where this country could lead Europe somewhere useful. It will be a difficult transition with the Right waiting in the wings with serotonin reuptake inhibiting sound bites.
The “pointy elbows types”. Ah, yes. I seem to recall that Oliver Letwin MP for West Dorset once acknowledged in a spat about the discovery of parents using addresses where they did not actually live, in order to access good schools for their children located outside the catchment area in which they actually lived and were entitled to apply; I think tellingly, that he represented in Parliament ” families with sharp elbows”. Indeed; I am sure he does. It is the raison d’être of his Party.
I did not find this uplifting. People with sharp elbows tend to be more than able to look after themselves very, very well. Who looks after everybody else?
Sharon
Who is ‘we’?
Not me, that’s for sure.
Richard is very consistent in my view. He nails his colours to the mast and is his own master. Just because his thoughts and ideas resonate with others who fund him or come here does not make him less so.
But its also a question of degree. Knowing who funds Richard is not on my list of ‘eager to knows’ to be honest but I’d sure as hell like to know who Liam Fox has been talking to in America and where did all that money really come from for funding the Leave campaign in that now infamous referendum?
Disperse power, so no one person has too much of it on any topic.
If some of that power is outside the state, that’s fine, as long as it doesn’t get too concentrated in one place either.
If you get a bad egg (inevitable), he or she can’t do too much damage. There are checks (decisions can be reviewed) and balances (ie there are competing forces that will say ‘no’ to the bad egg). ‘Rule of law’ is one of those.
By world and historical standards, we’re not too badly off.
But I wouldn’t want to push things in the wrong direction. No ‘Courageous State’ please.
‘Disperse power’.
Exactly.
And its also called ‘proportional representation’.
“Maybe you’d like to ask all right wing think tanks why they do not disclose their funding and when they come back to you with answers contact me again”
If they came back and said “they had checked them out and it was ok, but I’m not going to tell you who they were” is that ok for you?
No
I’d expect the majority of their funds to be voluntarily disclosed
And you will note has been my voluntary practice
Nonsense Richard. What was it £20,000?
You seriously expect anyone to believe you if you say you’d be OK if a right wing think tank stuffed £20k in its pocket and refused to reveal the source of the funds simply because they disclosed some other sources?
You know you have no defence on this at all yet seem willing to lose credibility just to keep the money. What principles are those?
For the reasons given, yes I would be happy
When the old boys club trumps competence and qualifiucations – it’s little wonder.
“I was happy with the provenance of the funds”..what if the likes of Barclays were allowed to make the same internal judgement without scrutiny
You do realise that there may be a difference in the cases?
There may be differences. There may not be. How can we tell if you are so secretive?
The right thing to have done would have been to turn down a contribution from someone who wanted their identity kept secret.
Why did you not do the right thing?
You think protecting a vulnerable person the wrong thing to do?
You live in a very strange world
Stop obfuscating Richard
Turning down the money was the right thing to do. Then the trust would have never been involved at all. Only your greed stopped you doing the right thing.
With respect, your comment says a great deal about you
If I was greedy I would not be doing this
I am not suggesting that the name of the trustee or their personal contact details should be disclosed.
But the name of their trust and their accounts should be a matter of public record.
If you criticize the Taxpayers Alliance and Adam Smith Institute for not disclosing their sources of funding then you should be willing to make a full disclosure of yours.
That would have exposed a person who felt vulnerable to risk
You wanted me to do that?
I am sorry – but I would not and think that entirely right
No.
We wanted you, an opponent of secrecy, to politely declined the money.
That’s what we wanted you to do.
I am quite sure you would be happy if I had no funding
But I on balance decided on what I thought appropriate
And I gave you the chance to know about it
I think that as fair as anyone could be
Why do you allow these obvious and boring trolls onto your website? We know who they are and what they want. They want everyone who is not like them to be silenced. Libertarians who don’t like freedom of speech. Funny people.
It’s a question I am asking myself James
Hi James, Richard,
Agree with James’s comment. One of the things that I like about this blog is that it is (mostly) as place for reasoned debate. It would be very unfortunate if it came to resemble the comments sections of newspapers (of all political colours) which just become a place for angry people to exchange infantile insults!
I try to strike a balance
But sometimes I should remember that on of the great freedoms is editorial freedom
Otherwise called the delete button
For those criticising Richard in the comments on this thread: a reasonable way to judge the nature of this case that seems to have you so upset is to look and see if there is a pattern of this kind of behaviour – in other words, is it exceptional? If it is, then surely the rational conclusion to reach is that the exceptional circumstances which Richard claims pertained are in all likelihood real and urgent. If you are going to hang your attacks on one instance which is clearly not consistent with the great majority of cases, you are going to look less than reasonable, and motivated by something other than genuine concerns on a matter of ethics.
If however, there is such a pattern, you would be quite entitled to holler ‘foul’ – which is, as far as I can see, exactly what Richard does.
And it is the only such occasion
And the disclosure is wholly voluntary
When it comes to honesty and moral principles that seems to be in inverse proportion to how high up in the power structure the great and the good aspire
Jim Craig says:
“When it comes to honesty and moral principles that seems to be in inverse proportion to how high up in the power structure the great and the good aspire…”
I suppose that supports Karl Marx’s assertion that ‘Power corrupts….”
I for one have never had much power, but I sometimes wonder how I would exercise it if I did have a lot.
Shouldn’t there be THREE weird sisters. Where’s the third one ?
Its simple why there has been a reaction on here – it is in the title
From what I’ve read of Mark Littlewood, the IEA does not disclose funders as a point of principle.
He accepts that people may read their output with a pinch of salt, as it is also their right. Another point of principle.
We should consume all output from anyone with an appropriate level of scepticism anyway. Makes no practical difference whether or not they disclose their funding. Even if they disclose their funding, what else haven’t they disclosed which might affect their output?
I don’t know if there’s a Gold Standard for transparency, but George Monbiot discloses all his income, other receipts, assets and savings and states what his taxable income is. He updates it regularly. Looks like best practice to me. (or is it OTT?) A few countries publish income tax returns. I would be happy with that.
Commentators on blogs disclose nothing of that kind, and sometimes not even their real names (although there can be good reasons for that), nor do we disclose our affiliations, political or otherwise. Yet some of us feel free gratuitously to attack others for apparent lack of openness while remaining closed ourselves. “Holy Willies” spring to mind (worth a read).
Transparify ranks a number of Think Tanks for transparency. In 2017 ten achieved the top ranking (including Tax Justice Network), while 6 were deemed “Highly Opaque” – take a bow ASI, I don’t think the great man would consider that to be “praiseworthy” – and one “deceptive”. (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52e1f399e4b06a94c0cdaa41/t/58996330b8a79b6ede1c9891/1486447414103/Transparify+-++Think+Tank+Transparency+in+the+UK+2017.pdf)
In context, seems to me Richard’s “About” is pretty open.
For an individual I am just behind George
I have found your website inspirational and it has developed my understanding of both politics and economics: however on this issue I am less than clear. You seem to be balancing the principle of transparency (which you quite rightly support) against the benefit (to you …. and possibly to others, if you need the money in order to continue the work with which you are engaged) and the possible damage to the trust (trustee) who want secrecy, in order to prevent their harassment. I am not aware of the trustees of small trusts being harassed (I’m not saying it doesn’t happen but it would be useful to have some assessment of the frequency. risk etc). So the considerations for the trust (trustee) is to balance their desire to allow you to continue your work (how crucial is this money to allowing this?) against their desire to do so without incurring any harassment for revealing what they are doing, whilst at the same time requiring you to abandon your principle of transparency (on this occasion.)
So, is the money essential for you to continue your work?
Is the risk of harassment more important than upholding the principle of transparency?
If the answer to either question is no, either your trustee should release you from your pledge of secrecy or you should return the money. Or have I missed something?
I have no trustees
This is my personal income
And if you are not aware of this issue read this https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/20/poppy-seller-who-killed-herself-got-up-to-3000-charity-mailings-a-year
I took an appropriate course of action to protect a person from harassment
You would rather I did otherwise?