Oxfam’s austerity tweet: stirring up a storm in Whitehall

Howard Lake | 12 June 2014 | Blogs

• Tagged with:
• austerity
• Law / policy
• Oxfam

There is a widely held opinion in the sector that the government’s soon-to-be-implemented Lobbying Act is, to all intents and purposes, a gagging law; a somewhat surreptitious attempt to prevent NGOs influencing broader political opinion at a time when a general election is on the horizon.
The feeling is that, quietly, it seeks to draw a line – a line that should not be there – between the work a charity does and the ‘real life business’ of domestic politics. And that, in the words of BOND, the UK membership body for INGOs, it will in all likelihood have a distinctly ‘chilling effect on democratic engagement.’
Yet, until now, this rather hidden agenda has been just that: hidden.
Then, Oxfam tweeted an image stating that austerity was ‘forcing more and more people into poverty’ on Monday – and all hell broke loose.
 

Lifting the lid on austerity Britain reveals a perfect storm – and it’s forcing more and more people into poverty. pic.twitter.com/2MzzyMXcsU
— Oxfam (@oxfamgb) June 6, 2014

 
In the process, the veil dropped completely. As Conservative MPs rounded on Oxfam in various shades of ‘moral’ fury, they made it clear in no uncertain terms that a charity (in this case Oxfam) ought not, in their opinion, be meddling in the way the country is run, citing Charity Commission guidelines that outlaw partisan politics.
Regular critic of the charity sector, Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke said on Radio 4’s Today programme: “My concern is charities should walk the walk – help make a difference to people at the frontline, not talk the talk – engage in advertising or political campaigning.”
Which is a circuitous (and patronising) way of saying charities should be seen and not heard – especially if those charities are broadcasting messages that threaten the ongoing re-election campaign here in the UK.

Oxfam’s response

But there is a difference in campaigning for critical change during the tenure of a given government, and being actively party-political, as Ben Phillips, Oxfam’s Campaigns and Policy Director, noted in his unequivocal defence of the organisation.
Said Phillips: ‘Oxfam is a resolutely non-party political organisation – we have a duty to draw attention to the hardship suffered by poor people we work with in the UK.
‘Fighting poverty should not be a party political issue (and) successive governments have presided over (this) tide of rising inequality.’
Good on him.

An opportunity for the Charity Commission?

What follows next is a big moment for the Charity Commission, which is after all chaired by William Shawcross, a Tory appointment and former press man who has so far done next to nothing to protect charities from recent media attacks.
It’s my hope that the Charity Commission will take a balanced view of things, rather than bow to what might be considerable political pressure, and not seek to condemn Oxfam in any way. Going a step further, is it too much to hope that Shawcross might even seize this moment to defend Oxfam and the wider sector, and to demonstrate an absence, finally, of any political bias of his own?
For now the Commission has sat firmly on the proverbial fence, simultaneously announcing that ‘charities are often the most appropriate organisations to speak out and campaign on behalf of their users,’ and that ‘charities can engage in a range of activities in support of their aims, but must never be politically biased.’ A response specifically addressing the issues at hand will surely follow soon.

Oxfam dared to be specific

For now, let’s be thankful that Oxfam has highlighted something critical in a headline-grabbing manner: a rising tide of poverty, and an uneven distribution of riches that has somehow seen the country’s wealthiest stratum put even more distance between itself and the rest of the nation.
By pinpointing zero hours contracts, high prices, benefit cuts, unemployment and childcare costs, Oxfam has also dared to get specific about what it believes must change to fix the problem.
And that, sadly, is more than can often be said of political parties.
 

Tony Charalambides, MD Listen

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.