Charity Muggers

'Cancer won't care if you throw this in the bin'.  So said the back of the envelope from the charity Cancer Research which had appeared, unsolicited, on my door mat the other morning.  Good, I thought, that means I'll have no qualms about putting it in the bin.   Which I did.  Don't misunderstand me - I have no wish to denigrate the work of Cancer Research.  It's a great cause and they do great work.  But the reality is that most charities represent great causes and do good work.  But I can't support them all.  I have neither the money, the time nor the inclination.  But that doesn't stop them bombarding me with unsolicited mail.  Which would be fair enough, except that now - as witnessed by the aforementioned envelope - they are trying to guilt-trip me into contributing.  I really do object to this sort of approach.  Fine, tell me about all the good work you do, but don't try and make me feel like an evil bastard if I choose not to make a contribution.  There is no doubt that charities are becoming ever more aggressive in their collection tactics.  I've lost count of the number of times I've been accosted by various of those 'chuggers' in my town centre at lunch time.  Some weeks I dread going to the newsagent to buy a newspaper, the bastards are so persistent.  They just won't take 'no' for an answer, forcing me to be openly rude to them in order to get the message through.  No matter how good their cause, that really doesn't give them the right to invade my privacy as I walk down the street and try and intimidate me into contributing to their cause.

But nowadays you aren't safe in your own home.  They come around knocking on your door - usually when you've just got in from work and have finally sat down to catch your breath.  It used to be those bloody energy company representatives trying to get you to change suppliers making pests of themselves this way, (and, like the 'chuggers', failing to get the message that you aren't interested - I've been forced to shut the door on several of the most persistent offenders).  Only last Friday, around six o'clock, I was just settling down to watch an old episode of Kojak on ITV4, (a rare treat, as they usually show Kojak in the daytime schedules, when I'm out at work),  after a tough week at work, when there's a bloody knock on the front door.  I seriously considered ignoring it.  But it was too obvious that I was in and I was afraid that they'd just keep bloody knocking.  So I answered the door, to be confronted by someone from the Red Cross.  Somehow, I managed to remain polite in the face of his attempts to engage with me through small talk and his spiel about the organisation, until he finally got the message that I'm simply not interested and I was able to go back to trying to unwind in front of the telly.  (I have to say here that their attempts to engage you by asking what the red cross symbol means to you  comes over a simply patronising, which doesn't help). 

The proliferation of these increasingly aggressive charity collectors raises a wider issue - that of the whole role of charity.  Personally, I object in principle to the whole notion of charity.  Issues as important as cancer research, child protection,  famine relief and so on, are, frankly, far too important to have to rely upon the whim of individual donors for their finance.  The only way that progress can be made in these areas is with the full power of the state behind them.  That's what I pay taxes for.  Sadly, this government thinks differently, wanting to shift the burden of providing such services from the public sector to charitable organisations.  Hence the growth in these charity collectors harassing us every hour of the day.  Of course, some people might think that the easiest way to get rid of these charity collectors is to give them some money.  However, that could prove to be a mistake.  My mother, who is in her eighties, supported a couple of charities back in the day.  Now, when she is living on a pension, she finds herself bombarded with phone calls from these same charities, trying to get her to give yet more money she can't afford.  Something I find pretty disgraceful.  Like I said, don't misunderstand me, I've nothing against the charities themselves or the causes they represent.  But I do object to their collectors and their tactics.