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Comic Relief: Is it time to be consigned to the nearest bin
jojoeno
Posts: 1,842 Forum Member
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I see the cringeworthy Comic Red/Golden nose is back again. I find this one of the worst ever fund raising events on TV. Its time to dump it and its tired format into the nearest bin and cremate the entire contents.
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I only give to charities when I can see their detailed Profit and Loss accounts online . especially to calculate the amount that goes to the objective of the charity and how much is swallowed up in salaries and wages.
Which is a very blinkered and simplistic way of choosing as higher salaries generally encourage the better skilled and experienced.
Anyway, back to your original point, no it's not time to bin something off that helps countless thousands of people just because some folk like you don't like it.
I think Comic Relief and Children in Need have quite efficient structures, it is the big name charities that have a lot of highly paid people running them - often now failed Labour politicians so much of the money is spent on political campaigning.
Ha, that made me lol! Not too keen on Comic relief as Emma Freud annoys me. if you read her twitter, she blags every freebie going.
It raises lots of money for people in poverty who have no choice and no luxury, you have the luxury of a remote control.
Boko Haram needs your money to slaughter more people and claim more land, so please give generously after watching Lenny Henry stands next to starving people begging you to give more as the most recent Premier Inn royalty cheque clears in his account.
Bono snaps his fingers while doing his utmost to avoid paying any tax whatsoever to remind you how every second he makes another 20 quid for confusing being a pop singer with being a political paragon of virtue rather than a jumped up Iiberal who talks nonsense about charity and saving the world while being a skinflint hypocrite.
Please, give generously, here's Katherine Tate and Ellie Goulding doing something and then we've got the BBC Newsreaders acting like idiots too.
If 11 billion in foreign aid is not enough already, perhaps the problem is not money as much as throwing money into an abyss for the sake of "doing our part". Frankly given the state of our own country and finances, we could do with shoring up our own resources rather than donating millions more to countries that have had decades and billions of investment but haven't improved due to institutional corruption.
Personally, I'd rather money helped those in the UK, but like I say... it's a choice, and I choose not to donate.
It's David Walliams!
I could be wrong but I thought 1/3 of money raised by CR goes to British causes and 2/3 to foreign ones
To be honest, I'm not sure about that, but I would never donate to a foreign charity (or a charity that sends money abroad) when we have so many in need here... not when so much money already gets paid without our consent. I don't begrudge others their own choices though, if people want to help African kids, who am I to tell them they're wrong. I have done before, but I was wrong, it's not for me to decide how another spends their money.
Absolutely spot on.
We should feel proud of it if anything.
I wasn't personally consulted the last time they added more than 2.6 billion extra onto the foreign aid bill while cutting NHS, council and other public services so they run into deficit to justify privatisation so then deals are brokered at a loss to the national debt/interest as per the sale of Royal Mail. I also don't recall getting my personal kickback dividend payment from that sale either. So exactly how much say do I have in the foreign aid budget as a layperson? In reality, none. Hell, the current guy in charge of finances wasn't even elected by majority to do the job, so his authority is dubious at best anyway. But please, feel free to patronise me, your donated but mismanaged funds might help put bullets in the guns of Nigerian children to slaughter even more villages full of people that favour women getting an education.
Your 5 pounds will go a long way in terms of distance but the chances it goes to an actual needy child rather than the local territorial institutions is deluded. Throwing money at a problem doesn't solve it, putting a band aid on an axe wound doesn't stop the flow... but please patronise me while lining to pockets of foreign dictators because Joanna Lumley asked you to politely on the BBC. At least my pithy contribution on this forum is unlikely to help fund more problems after I've been misled they'd go towards permanent solutions. I'd rather keep cancer wards in the UK open before I worry about what's happening to strangers in other countries I've never met, never done anything to and so don't feel I owe at all. I've not got a sense of historical burden or implicit guilt. Also, it's not as if they're not aware the UK offers better prospects, immigration numbers show that. So, are we to cut our own throats further so Mboko's tribal master can buy more bullets to arm his child shoulders with to enslave villages of women to be sold into sex slavery all because Lee Mack put some jelly down his pants? I don't really feel like it's fair. I get a temporary laugh, I also potential fund terrorism, tribal warfare and sex trafficking.
Hm... yeah, I think I'll just donate to the Red Cross instead, if I want to be charitable I'll do so because it's the right thing to do, not because of imperialist guilt once a year when they put some vinyl and rubber crap out in Sainsbury's for a month.
Those of us who are old enough remember the starving children back in the 70s and after helping them all they did was to continue dropping out babies that they couldn't feed. They have been doing this for decades and we are stupid enough to keep supplying them with money. ENOUGH!
Any form of guilt trip like these show is just begging and should be stopped. As an adult I can chose which charities I give to and when, I don't require anyone else's view on the matter.
Do we?
Really?
Just like other equally capable adults can choose to give to Comic Relief because they believe in helping the Third World, as well as others who are less fortunate closer to home.
What exactly is your point?