I am not really one for omens, but sometimes you know it is going to be a good day. The sun is shining, the first coffee is perfect, and you complete Wordle in three guesses. You are optimistic about the hours ahead. You may even be looking forward to a work task you have to complete, and set about it with oodles of vigour. And possibly a dash of vim.
Today, I got up and while the sun had fulfilled its part of the bargain, the cafetiere plunger fell to bits at the crucial point meaning there was coffee everywhere. Then I failed Wordle for the first time in ages. It was hard to ignore the signs at this point – fate was reminding me that I now had two hours to write this and no clear idea what to focus on.
As all too predictably predicted, Orlando Fraser’s Charity Commission chair nomination was rejected by the parliamentary scrutiny committee, but the government went ahead and appointed him anyway (we definitely need a scrutiny committee to scrutinise the point of the scrutiny committees.) It is important to clarify that this rejection was over the botched process rather than any concerns over the man himself. I do have my own niggles about him but I will keep my powder dry on those until a later column, should the need arise. For now, I wish him the best of luck and hope he can build on some impressive words at his public interview.
The saga of appointing a regulatory chair is now ingrained within the ecosystem of the charity sector. Three problematic ones in a row mean we have come to expect complications, so nobody was at all stunned by the latest set.
Desensitised
It merely demonstrated, yet again, that even when the news cycle turns quickly, it retraces its journey to the point that any shock factor diminishes. And this happens with far more important issues than a watchdog’s figurehead. Statistics around Covid, for example. Alarming figures are released daily yet, like the England cricket team, our eyebrows have long lost their capacity to bat.
And we have also become inured to the fact that our prime minister is a demonstrable liar. Like many previous career scandals, as each detail or development in Partygate emerges, Boris blusters, hoping that people will forget. Almost by normalising controversy and wrongdoing he rides it out. His party (mostly) defend the indefensible and we bumble on.
Even the horrors of Ukraine don’t leap out of the headlines with the same force as when the conflict started – it has become part of our daily routine. It already seems an age since that stage of the conflict when for a few days, it was seriously suggested, Chelsea Football Club, champions of Europe, were going to be run by the six trustees of the club’s charitable foundation. We were in a world where vastly experienced sector lawyers, and the Charity Commission, were actually having to grapple with serious questions about the charity law and governance implications of this. Apart from anything else, it would have led to an interesting new face near the top of the Charity Finance 100 Index.
Still, there is always Wordle, a simple daily pleasure and test. But even it isn’t immune to controversy as players are known to get angry when the day’s word is one they haven’t heard of. Like any great idea, it has provoked a number of copycat games seeking to cash in on the original. Which is why I am developing Sorple™, aimed at that key demographic of charity accounting fans. Admittedly, it is a bit niche and limited. But then, so is this column, which I have got away with writing for 12 years, even if, as people have got used to it, retaining the capacity to surprise is an increasing challenge.
Ian Allsop is a freelance editor and journalist, and contributing editor to Charity Finance
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