How do you know if a charity is changing lives? The government clearly has no idea.
How do we judge a charity? Very badly, it turns out. Until The Spectator revealed the full horror of Kids Company in July, not even the press had asked hard questions of the charity or its founder, Camila Batmanghelidjh. The subsequent political scrutiny showed our democratic process at its best.
When Paul Flynn, a veteran Labour MP, told Batmanghelidjh at an electrifying House of Commons hearing to stop talking ‘psychobabble’ he stripped away in an instant the glitz that had allowed one small charity whose sole qualification was the charisma of its leader to fritter away £48 million of taxpayers’ money. ‘We do not live on the moon,’ Flynn told her. ‘We represent areas that have great problems. We know about them. So do not treat us as though we are the Prime Minister and you are trying to get £30 million out of us.’
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The Spectator
Published 02 January 2016
Harriet Sergeant 