Skipper

I was amused to discover that Conservative Chairperson, Caroline Spelman, has formulated a new word to describe her party's philosophy:

"In recent years we have moved forward to Conservative Socialism, ie helping people to help themselves through support and education."

I'd be quite interested to discover if her senior colleagues agreed with such an oxymoron and the term ewver became official. But, more interesting today was the article by Polly Toynbee. Those rightwing morons who excoriate her should check out her demolition of the Tory idea that boosting charities offers any realistic hope of replacing welfare services. Cameron has recently stated that the voluntary sector:

"will provide many of the solutions to tomorrow's problems". The document on cities by the Tory MP Chris Grayling stresses that the "potential of our voluntary sector to tackle the difficult social problems in our most deprived areas is huge". Iain Duncan Smith concludes that small, local voluntary organisations are the best answer to his "broken Britain", lavishing praise on amateur community voluntarism.

Toynbee adduces the following arguments against such am embrae of the voluntary sector as a substitute for state welfare:

1. Charitable donations are predicted to slump by 52% in the recession, according to a Price Waterhouse's study. Back in the 1991 recession they fell by 64% so this time threatensd to be worse.

2. The success of the voluntary sector has been largely as a result of the massive state funding it has received.

3. What charity provides is 'minute' compared with the state- and what would happen to the poor when donors peg back as in a recession?

4. Research has shown that the richest 10% give less to charity proportionate to their salary than the poorest 10%. So where is the money to help the poor to come from when the rich do not seem disposed to put their hands in their pockets anyway?

Charity, says Toynbee, has a role to play but it is a complementary one:

Charity is mostly a social good in itself, but it is no substitute for the state. It's an add-on: free-wheeling, often innovative, sometimes a beacon showing how to do things better, with ideas to lead the state sector.