Charity begins at home…but not at Captain Tom Moore’s daughter’s mansion
SOME time ago the BBC was accused of being a “Jacuzzi of cash”.
The dig, from the boss of rival Channel 4, was meant to shame the corporation as having become something luxurious with too much money.
Too much of OUR money.
The barb stuck, and for years the licence fee-funded Beeb was on the back foot, rightly forced to justify every penny it spent.
Fast forward two decades and the Jacuzzi is once again the symbol of that particular brand of unseemliness.
This time it is the image of a giant whirlpool at the home of Captain Tom’s daughter’s £1.2million mansion, supposedly built for the Captain Tom Foundation charity.
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Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband Colin had claimed the £200,000 spa, housed within a supposed Captain Tom memorial building, would offer rehabilitation for local OAPs.
Their council struggled to see how this would work, refused planning permission and have now demanded it be demolished.
I’m not surprised by their bafflement, nor the fury about what neighbours called an “eyesore” and a “deceitful” plan.
Indeed, it is hard not to see this addition to the home Captain Tom so doggedly walked around to raise £39million as anything other than a luxury facility benefitting those living closest — the Ingram-Moores.
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Because now it might appear that we should take what the Ingram-Moores say with a pinch of the proverbial.
Piers Morgan recently extracted the revelation that the family had siphoned off a staggering £800,000 from her dad’s books.
They claimed it was his wish. Yet in the prologue of one of those books Captain Tom stated the tome was a “chance to raise even more money for the charitable foundation”.
It was at the very least an affront to those who bought the titles, but at worse a betrayal of Captain Tom’s legacy.
Yet while the foundation will be shut at the end of the Charity Commission’s current probe into it, the harm does not end there.
This shameful episode does not just anger donors and trash the reputation of Mrs Ingram-Moore — who paid herself £85,000 as head of her father’s charity — the collateral damage to the charity industry is also significant.
If something as pure as an old soldier walking around his home to raise a few quid for our NHS nurses can end with controversy, why should we have any faith in any charitable endeavour?
Worryingly, more and more charities are being investigated.
In its latest annual report, the Charity Commission revealed it opened 72 inquiries between 2022 and 2023, up from 49 the previous year.
The sector has not done itself any favours.
Pushy chuggers seem to be on the rise and high streets are home to an increasing number of charity shops charging exorbitant sums for smelly jumble.
Outright fraud
Further up the chain, bad behaviour by “blue chip” charities still casts a shadow.
Who can forget the Oxfam scandal, where staff were accused of hiring sex workers in Haiti for ORGIES.
Even outside the ginormous official charity sector — there were a staggering 168,893 charities in 22/23 — there is deceit and outright fraud.
Hardly a month goes by without news of another crowdfunding scam.
It all adds up to a lack of confidence that will hit society’s worst-off the hardest.
In what feels like a never-ending cost of living crisis, good causes are lucky to get any donations at all.
It is only thanks to the enduring generosity of the public that they do.
But we can only be pushed so far.
If the likes of Mrs Ingram-Moore continue to flourish, the industry will soon find that charity won’t just begin at home.
It will stay there.
WHEN TO END BINGE?
HURRAH for Britain taking bronze in the Binge-Drinking Cup!
New figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which aim to show how bad this boozing is for us, revealed 35 per cent of us had more than six drinks in one sitting in the past month – the third highest percentage in the world.
Quite an impressive feat to be ahead of the stein-swilling Germans, who languished in fifth, just behind that famous cradle of hedonism . . . Luxembourg.
It also got me thinking. In a good session I can probably motor through six or seven pints before I start offering to take the condom machine in the bogs outside for a fight and realise it’s time to call a cab.
But what of the teetotallers who are guzzling their no-fun Becks Blues and Lucky Saints?
When do they know when to end the binge?
PRATS’ PRANK FAILS
I’VE been stocking up on oil this week.
Been buying GALLONS of it, mainly the crude kind sucked out of Mother Earth in some medieval Middle Eastern country that stones women to death with the severed heads of homosexuals.
I don’t actually want any of it but I’ve been compelled to buy it by the latest antics of those irritating Just Stop Oil cretins.
This week they attacked a charming old painting of a bare lady just as a suffragette also did in 1914. History, innit?
One of the twerps was even wearing a cap by rap group NWA. You might remember them from such nursery rhymes as F**k Tha Police.
So every time JSO carry out one of their pathetic pranks I just increase my carbon footprint as best I can. And I bet I’m not alone.
I don’t think I know anyone who claps eyes on their capers and thinks: “These guys are talking my language.”
Now, I might be joking here, but if they really do care about the planet, why take the risk?
Em’s club simply the breast
I WOULDN’T say I was unclubbable, I’m just not a member of any.
But when friends trot along to their cricket/football/knitting associations I feel a pang of FOMO.
Where is the club for me? I wonder.
Luckily, Emily Ratajkowski has come to the rescue with what I’m told is a bona fide group – the No Bra Club.
The model, er, nipped out to a birthday party in New York this week sans sling, becoming the latest member of this select group.
A club which now has my full, ahem, support.
NICE to see Trivial Pursuit still going strong after 45 years.
It’s amazing how much the Christmas Day Family Argument Suppressor has changed.
I recently found a dusty old set in an Airbnb that looked like it was a first edition.
The questions certainly seemed a little less sensitive than everything is these days.
See what you think of these two genuine Genus edition geography teasers:
*On which continent could a bikinied fatso sunbathe in Burkina Faso? (Answer: Africa).
*Which Scandinavian country, renowned for its blonde chicks, has the blackbird as a national symbol? (Answer: Sweden).
I KNOW JANE’S TREAT
POOR old Jane McDonald who has revealed her worst ever Christmas gift was a nose trimmer from her ex-husband.
Can only imagine what her “present face” was like when that was opened – or should I say her “I wanna divorce face”.
But in fairness, perhaps her former flame had simply run out of ideas of what to get her.
I’ll wager Jane – apparently worth £5million and a self-confessed shopaholic – is tricky to buy for.
Her ex could have done with a female version of a gift I once saw – a small white box with the words, “For the Man Who Has Everything” emblazoned on it.
Inside was a badge bearing the words: “I Have Everything.”
PRIME TIME TO STRIKE
ANOTHER week, another round of strikes – this time it’s the workers at Amazon.
Fed-up staff staged a series of walkouts this week in a row over pay.
Now, unlike the grasping train drivers, it’s hard to denounce them.
I’m sure working for the ruthlessly competitive shopping firm owned by The World’s Third Richest Man can be such an exhausting and thankless task.
And with record profits of $10billion in the past THREE MONTHS it might just have some spare cash lying around to give them a boost.
I also think their next planned strike on Black Friday, November 24, is an inspiring idea.
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Indeed, the people who should really be going on strike during that carnival of consumerism are shoppers like you and me.
If we all downed wallets and picketed Black Friday then we wouldn’t end up with the usual load of discounted crap we quickly realise we neither want nor need.