In the news

I do basically agree with 1 and 3 -6, FWIW.

I agree with everything apart from your first point. Her background has nothing to do with her intentions really. The world would in fact be better if those who were well off wanted to be "down".

It's all too coincidental that these stories are coming out when the ones with the purse strings no longer want to pay out. I can't see it as anything else but a ruse to silence one of the biggest critics of this country's treatment of the most vulnerable.

The inside sources from the Spectator article worked there over 7 years ago, why didn't they speak up then? Out of the 650 that have just lost their jobs, how many of those are critical of they way things were run (you can't count the ones who had a camera shoved in their face they day they were shit canned)?

They never kept the fact that they needed the money to pay salaries a secret. They have emails explicitly saying "we need this money now or we can't pay our staff" with responses to say "wait, no, you can't do that".

I've still to see any evidence of " financial irregularities". There have been independent audits over the last 19 years. The government grants were paid quarterly which each payment not released until they were happy with how the previous amount had been used.

I'm glad you agree on the other points and we're clearly not going to see eye to eye on the fucking horrendous way this has been handled.

That's a fair point. I didn't mean to sound classist, I meant more that she is pretending to be battling with government and the elite when actually she is one of them, it's how she got all the funding.

Not all rich and privileged people = media and government?
Obviously there is overlap in places, but they are not one and the same ("is one of them"). And working your rich and privileged connections is not quite the same either.

(edit for slow posting)
I guess the simple version is she has both friends and enemies in government and media...

wait.. batman?

It does seem a bit convenient. And the one thing this definitely proves is that the country's treatment of the most vulnerable is abysmal: it must be if government is (well, was) handing out millions of pounds of funding in cash to charities to pick up the pieces.

I can't say why the sources didn't speak out before. It can happen for a number of reasons though. It could be as simple as that nobody really bothered to ask them before because nobody was investigating Kid's Company. Investigative journalism is hard work, it requires persistence, research, gaining the trust of sources, persuading them to talk to you. It's harder if the culture of the organisation or other factors discourage speaking out.

On the salaries thing, if you're a charity and you're given a lump of cash and you're given it with conditions it's restricted income and you have to follow those conditions, if you don't your trustees are in breach of trust. I wouldn't be surprised if that alone could have got them in trouble with the Charities Commission if it hadn't been wound up (but my knowledge of such things is superficial).

But to be fair some of the blame for this does come back to government, because they were effectively treating a charity like a quango, asking it to spend millions of pounds of government money, but without the level of accountability that would normally come with that...

No, indeed. Some of them run charities! Is that what you meant?

She was also close to Prince Charles. ILLUMINATI.

But seriously, yes, I think that's a fairly accurate summary of the situation, which is why it's not as simple as hatchet job.

Jsut on the point about people not speaking up before....

....From listening to the R4 journalists it sounds as if various civil servants have spoken up for a long time (at least 6yrs and albeit internally), but have been overridden successively by politicians. Plus I think Fox has a good point about being asked. There must be a host of specific small fiscal items that people have and raise concerns about all the time. Also as a general rule I think civil servants tend to be pretty discrete (until shit hits the fan).

On the hatchet job, I'm curious to know what the reason is?

Also does anyone know off hand what % of their funding was government based vs donations?

Being discrete until the shit hits the fan... Some strange mental images there.

(Discreet)

X-FILES THEME

Thanks x

Without double checking. I think one source said £37m in government grants. Camila has personally raised £150m over the years. Not sure what the other donations amount to.

This is beautiful. Thank you.

Yes I don't know the figures either but she raised huge amounts of money personally.

To me that was part of the problem too, when stevo and I 'discussed' this before I said how wary I am of charities driven/funded by one charismatic person. I don't think it's a good thing. And I used to work for a charity like that.

This charity was hugely reliant on Camila Batmanghelidjh and being reliant on one person is rarely sustainable. It seems she was good at fundraising, not so good at running a charity. Personally I'd have more respect for her if she'd held up her hands and said I did my best but I didn't run the charity very well (although I care for the kids and raised lots of money).

Few people are good at everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nokGk8h5YDU

Y u post pictures of the great sporendo?

Hehehe

1 Attachment

Is that man ever funny?

Not in my experience...

Watch Spaced, shut yr yap.

That has some moments... Because Nick Frost and Michael Smiley...

Using iTunes is now illegal under UK copyright law

Presumably Play Music too (every time I put a CD into my computer, it rips it and adds it to both).

Better get my affairs in order and hand myself in at the nearest police station then.

This