Labour pains

The Labour government seems bemused by its huge unpopularity. They seem to think we're all a bunch of ungrateful sods who can't appreciate their dazzling achievements.

What kind of cloud-cuckoo land are they living in? Most people could produce a list of disappointments as long as their arm, in stark contrast to the soaring hopes when Labour was first elected in 1997.

Out of the pile of rubble, I'll pick out two things that show the dreadful hypocrisy and incompetence of this motley crew.

On the one hand, there are still at least 11 million people (a sixth of the population) living in poverty*, including 3 million children and 2½ million pensioners. Labour's vow to halve child poverty by 2010 looks increasingly unbelievable.

On the other hand, MPs keep voting themselves pay rises well above inflation, as well as fiddling their expenses every which way. They claim for taxes they haven't paid, second homes they never use, inflated cleaning bills, personal TV packages, you name it.

Then they wonder why the voters have turned against them and want to kick them all out of office. They still spin every new disappointment as steady progress and wonder why they aren't getting a deafening round of applause.

Meanwhile they're obstinately spending billions to introduce ID cards, so they can be absolutely sure we're entitled to the public services they're busily running down. Passports and driving licences are apparently not convincing enough, so we're expected to shell out for further documents.

Even if we're debt-ridden parents or hard-up pensioners.

* Defined as households earning less than 60% of Britain's median income

Think before you give

One thing that shocked me while working for charity XYZ was how much of the innocently-donated cash didn't go where it was meant to go but was carelessly wasted and frittered away.

Hard-up pensioners would dip into their savings and send us ten-pound notes. Ordinary families would hold fundraising events and send us nice fat cheques. And where did all that money go?

It went on senior managers flying across Britain for inconsequential meetings. Or prestigious suites of office furniture. Or pointless job restructuring schemes. Or new computer databases that never worked properly.

The staff rarely asked if money was being spent wisely. I soon learnt that such awkward questions weren't appreciated and it was better to keep my mouth shut. The managers knew best and ours not to reason why.

Of course I'm not suggesting our entire income was squandered. Most of the money did indeed go on worthwhile projects and helped the people it was meant to help. But the amount that was flung at totally self-indulgent and unproductive activities was extraordinary.

Unfortunately, even if it's a charity helping those in desperate need, people are never as careful with other people's money as they are with their own. They chuck it around casually as if there's an endless supply and lots more where that came from.

Perhaps the public should be more critical of the organisations that solicit their cash and ask for more information about exactly what it's spent on.

We assume too easily that charities are full of principled, scrupulous individuals who would never knowingly waste a penny. But that belief is naive. Charity workers are much like any other workers - some are conscientious, some are just in it for what they can get.

So if you insist on donating to charity, do it sceptically and in the full knowledge that your money might be paying for an executive team-building exercise at a luxury spa in the Cotswolds.