Politicians so often have remarkably thin skins to go with their privileged backgrounds and lack of empathy. The new “minister for civil society”, Brooks Newmark looks like another non-entity who we’ll only hear of again if he keeps on coming out with stupid comments about like this.

“The important thing charities should be doing is sticking to their knitting and doing the best they can to promote their agenda, which should be about helping others.”

This sounds like a man whose sole interaction with charity is occasionally tossing a few pounds into a bucket and then telling himself he’s solved whatever problem the collection was for. He doesn’t understand that the money must then be used in the most effective way possible. Medicines have to be bought, research funded, or, no matter how little he wants to hear about the problems his party is causing, politicians have to be lobbied and statements drafted then released to the press. It’s typical that he wouldn’t understand that causing a fuss and getting a bad decision reversed would be more effective, and cheaper in the long run, than shutting up and picking up the broken people it leaves behind.

via Charities should stick to knitting and keep out of politics, says MP | Society | The Guardian.