I was invited to the Sheila McKechnie Foundation awards ceremony yesterday.
It was great to see David Hillman of Stamp Out Poverty receive the Sheila McKechnie Achievement Award - which was incredibly well deserved for his leadership of the campaign for a financial transaction tax.
I was also flattered to receive a special recognition award for my tax campaigning. I'm grateful to the Foundation for that - and to Titus Alexander for nominating me.
These things do matter to all involved - we are human, after all. But what matters much more is what all present agreed upon, which is the decisions being made in the House of Commons this week which will remove the right of many people in this country to campaign on issues of concern to them.
I never thought I'd say the basic right to free speech in this country removed. But it's happening. And that's a threat to democracy itself.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
I’m glad to hear you are getting a pat on the back now and again -as you say we all need that from time to time. It is clear in our society that corporate greed is giving itself hugely unwarranted pats on the back! people are cringing with fear at present with their zero hour contracts/fear of job loss/homelessness. This is always a ‘good’ time for oligarchs to rein in freedom of expression.
Kudos on the well-deserved award!
It would be interesting to see an ad hoc survey of those in attendance as it relates to their annual personal rake of cash and perks for heading up these organisations.
I’m bored by your crass comments
Please don’t call again
How is a call for transparency considered ‘crass’?
Because it’s actually a denial of free speech
@Stephen Bills
Oh dear I typical response from the corrupt heart of the cowardly state!
Not that I’m suggesting you’re personally corrupt, in the sense of acting dishonestly or in any underhand way – no, I’m sure your conduct is proper and correct, and even ethical and morally OK.
No, the corruption I’m talking about is the moral vacuum at the heart of the cowardly state that does not even recognize its own emptiness, but which so often reveals itself – as have you in your comment – by assuming that, just because that state expects there always to be a pay-off, usually financial, then the same must be true of everyone, and for someone to act on self-sacrificial principle is not just risible, but an impossibility; everybody’s always in it for themselves.
Maybe I’ve misread you, and if I have, I apologize. But if I haven’t misread you, then I have to say, sorry, you’re wrong – there are plenty of people who ARE ready to act self-sacrificially on principle. The tragedy is, very few of them seem to be at the top table in society.
I repeat my wish for such figures to come to the fore – a new Kier Hardie, George Lansbury, or Clement Atlee, or a new Jo Chamberlain, Winston Churchill or Rab Butler – all men of principled action not cowardly self-interest.
Where are they now?
Andrew you are being far too charitable to Stephen!
Andrew,
I agree whole-heartedly with most of what you wrote. Astonishingly, people continue pour their hopes into politicians and the state they run. Politicians who are short-sighted, venal, often corrupt (at least one category for all of them – hypocrisy) will not produce the type of state we all seek. Is it cowardly or delusional to expect this, I think you would agree, rancid class of people to produce anything of any true merit, outside of their own merit naturally?
The same infection lurks in the top echelons of the caring community of charities (rank and file, no; leadership, yes). Personal agenda driven, inflated sense of self-worth, inflated salaries, hypocritical, thin-skinned and equally venal. Being in the ‘caring’ business, I have seen it over and over and over, in institution after institution after institution. Just because we might agree with what someone is espousing, never think for a moment that individual is not a douche bag (pardon my French)…
I often think those who say such things and suffer such perceptions are offering us a look into their mirror
Indeed.
Chris Huhne comes to mind.
Well done Richard – well deserved!