Some new fake charities

Renegade Parent notes that the government campaign against home educators is being implemented through fake charities. We already know about the NSPCC, but it appears that BECTA and the Inclusion Trust are also just extensions of government.

Meanwhile the Englishman has a story about the Blood Pressure Association who look to be a prime example of a nanny state quango and a fake charity to boot.

I hope you guys are going to submit these to the database...

Update on May 19, 2009 by Bishop Hill

And another one: Tony at Harmless Sky has the story of Aber Artro Beech Woods. The Countryside Comission for Wales decided that the woods, which were owned by the Woodland Trust, were actually oak woods, despite the vast majority of the land being covered in beech. The Trust has now started to chop the woods down. Very obedient.

Now this is interesting, because the Woodland Trust has been fingered as a Fake Charity, although they have gone to the trouble of denying this, pointing out that only 13% of their funding comes from the state. Given the evidence from Tony N though, 13% seems to be quite enough to get them to do as they are told.

So despite their protestations, it does look very much as if they are indeed a fake.

(As an aside, the Woodland Trust also cleared a wood near me a year or so back. Living as I do in an area of few woods, this was a pity. The trees had all grown up on a raised peat bog, so I think they probably had a reasonable case that they were restoring what was there before, but all the same, it's odd to find a body ostensibly dedicated to looking after trees spending their time chopping them down.)

Comments

[Andrew Duffin]

This business of "putting back what was there before" needs to be squashed. It is absurd. It means nothing can ever change. So trees grew on a peat bog; so what? There used to be a peat bog, now there's a wood. So what? Why does it matter? Who are these arseholes?

We already have the situation where if you're restoring a listed building then you are not allowed to remove trashy 1960's steel window frames because they are "what was there before", so you must replace them like-for-like regardless of expense, appearance, insulation properties, or anything else. Ditto for totally unsuitable Victorian brickwork tagged onto a medieval building. Bonkers.

It's crazy and it's time is was stopped.

Apologies for rant.