Guido has expressed his dislike for taxpayer-funded “charities” that lobby the government before, but if there’s one thing worse than a Sock Puppet then it’s a Sock Puppet with suspiciously close links to the Labour Party.
Shelter, the homelessness charity, has been loudly lobbying the Coalition to scrap its Housing Bill over the last few months. Their chief executive is Campbell Robb, a former Labour employee, and they receive some £10 million from the taxpayer each year despite taking a patently partisan position. Not only a Sock Puppet, but one with a conflict of interest.
The worrying ties don’t stop there, with the Gingerbread campaign against Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare proposals being funded largely using taxpayers’ money awarded to them by Labour councils in Manchester, Haringey and Camden. They also receive significant amounts of cash from the Labour-controlled Welsh Assembly.
These so-called “charities” only survive thanks to our money yet seem to be pushing the agenda of their Labour cronies. It’s a revolving door…
