Rules...

We went to watch the fireworks. We do this every year. And each time they brighten up the night for a fleeting moment of excitement and pleasure. The bangs, whizzes, colours and sparkles are more magical that most of us let on. Even when there's a top chemistry student explaining which chemicals make the different bangs, colours and assorted firework wonders.

And so it should be. There is a prosaic answer to the firework question. Human hands have designed and created the pyrotechnology but, when we hear the rocket swoosh into the sky and, breath held, await the explosion of sound, colour and magic, we don't think 'what a clever chap' but just simply "wow!"

All that talent and skill packed into a little cardboard tube or box just for our pleasure. Those carefully selected chemicals cleverly blended to provide us with a few seconds of wow! This my friends is what we mean by progress and civilisation. Not those dreary places of work, not those orders and controls, not the direction of our lives by others. These are the curse of progress, the black side of civilisation.

This isn't to say that there should be no rules - the game doesn't work without rules. But that, like all good games, the rules should be simple, straightforward, understood by all. The rules shouldn't be the reserve of an elite, reserved only to those who following great study have touched on a few of those rules. Who know enough to answer the question: "can we do that?"

But this is not so. The rules are not simple. They are complicated, voluminous, confusing and contradictory. One day we can celebrate when the bewigged cognoscenti interpret those rules in a way that matches our common senses only for the same great minds to do the opposite tomorrow.

We went to the fireworks. And there were rules. Each year there are new rules. Not replacing the old rules but adding to them. And every year those lighting the sparkling, fizzing wonders comply with those rules. But they mutter; 'this is daft' or "we can't do this next year". One day they will stop. The rules - when you can start, when you can stop, what you can light, how you must set up, whether you can charge, how to deal with the (inevitable) presence of children - an endless avalanche of rules will eventually weigh these men down and the fireworks will be gone.

We'll be sad. A little disgruntled maybe. We might sound off to the bloke alongside in the pub or rant about it to our in-laws. But the fireworks will be gone. Killed by the rules. Our pleasure will be a little diminished. Life will be a little duller.

And what applies to fireworks will apply to all our other little pleasures. To those things - Christmas lights, mulled wine, the smell of grandad's pipe, the logs on the fire - that bring a moment of light, a little fun into our lives. The rules will be applied and each of those things will be no more. And we'll miss them.

But not so much as to do anything. To face the rule makers and campaigners for rules and say; "no, that's enough, thankyou". And one day there will be only rules and no pleasure.

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Your chance to tell the government about fake charities like Alcohol Concern

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There has long been confusion as to whether a charity is defined by what it does or by the source of its income. Most of the public think of charity and charities in terms of income source – our understanding is that their income is freely given by people wanting to help the particular cause.

The problem is that this isn’t how the system defines a charity which is on the basis of deeds rather than income.

Charities must provide benefit to the public, not to a specific individual. Their aims, purposes or objectives have to be exclusively those which the law recognises as charitable. A registered charity will usually be given a special tax status and benefit from a number of tax exemptions and reliefs.

The law sets out a series of “charitable purposes” and, if your organisation is involved in one or more of these then you are entitled to register as a charity.

Prevention or relief of poverty

Advancement of education

Advancement of health or saving of lives

Advancement of citizenship or community development

Advancement of arts, culture, heritage or science

Advancement of amateur sport

Advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity

Advancement of environmental protection or improvement

Relief of those in need by reason of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage

Advancement of animal welfare

Promotion of efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown or the efficiency of the police, fire and rescue or ambulance services

Any other purposes recognised as charitable under the Act - this last item covers a charitable purpose that is within the spirit of the above purposes and is a mechanism for future development of the list of charitable purposes

The government is reviewing the 2006 Charities Act (the one rammed through by Labour as a stick to beat private schools) and has issued a series of questionnaires as part of a wider consultation on charities and charity laws. Clearly these matters of definition are significant and it seems to me that the process presents the opportunity to raise the matter of what get called “fake charities” – organisations that enjoy charitable status yet are wholly or predominantly funded through government contracts.

Most importantly it affords us the opportunity to raise the matter of “charities” being funded by government and then spending that funding on lobby the government:

Perhaps the most egregious example uncovered as yet is Alcohol Concern. Out of an income in one year of just shy of £1 million, 57% came from the Department of Health...and yes, Alcohol Concern has been and is quite vociferous in its lobbying of the Department of Health on how access to alcohol can and should be restricted. Private donations were a tad shy of £5,000 (yes, that's five thousand, not five hundred thousand nor even fifty thousand) so their income from real people actually supporting their efforts was less than 0.5% of their total income. It's extremely difficult to see that this is a charity and even more difficult to see why they should been given any credence whatsoever in the media.

The questionnaires are accessible on the Cabinet Office website and the consultation is open until 16^th April.

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Freedom Act - just a thought

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Amidst all the froth and bother about scrapping laws (and Nick just amend the smoking ban and allow all shops to open on a Sunday), I've been struck by a thought.

If 'crowdsourcing' laws is such a good idea (and I'm not really so sure that it is) then why do we elect politicians? Surely such participation eliminates the need for represtentation?

So maybe we should just scrap politicians?

Just a thought.

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On "doing something"...

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I have often been accused of inaction. My defence is that my inaction is positive – I am resisting the endless push for us to “do something”.

...about “climate change”
...about “poverty”
...about “third world debt”
...about wicked property developers

...about an endless stream of noble causes. And politicians have “done something” – precisely the only something we can do.

...pass laws and regulations
...raise taxes

And has this “solved” these problems? Nope.
And will it solve these problems? Nope.

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