Another week has come and gone and well, repeat readers of this column know the drill by now. It’s Friday, the only day when Society Diary sallies out from behind the protocols and barriers put up around it both by the Society Diarist themselves but also by the conventions of basic human decency and editorial integrity.
This week in charity sector satire: Rob Wilson, basically. There’s just a lot of Rob Wilson stuff to unpack. It’s the Rob Wilson edition.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Robby
First off this week, Diary must unfortunately begin with the parlous state of Western democracy in general. Yes, fairly heavy stuff to be reading on a Friday morning, but it’s necessary because, and Diary thinks you’ll agree dear reader, everything that is happening at the moment is weird.
MPs spent most of yesterday, IN PARLIAMENT, calling on Donald J. Trump, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, to delete his Twitter account after he deliberately retweeted three videos from the account of a prominent member of the UK’s least favourite ‘political entity’ Britain First. Now today the UK has awoken to find that Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition and twinkly-eyed, cardigan wearing, allotment tending socialist (and probably the next Prime Minister of the UK) is on the cover of British GQ magazine.
What is going on? Life at the minute is like some horrible fever dream. Nothing makes sense and we, the people, just kind of have to roll with the punches and hope that someone intercepts the tangerine leader of the free world on his way to the nuclear football; tiny forefinger outstretched before his swelling, presidential girth.
Now, technically, none of this has anything to do with the former minister for civil society Rob Wilson and yet, at the same time, it has everything to do with him. The whims of electorates have become harder to pick than a broken nose since Brexit and Trump and, at the last election, Mr Wilson was spat out of his ministerial position and into the seedy netherworld of the ex-MP.
He went dark for a month or so, before being picked up by The Telegraph as a semi-regular contributor and returned to his Twitter feed. Summer passed to autumn, which then moved to winter and no-one thought too hard upon what the former MP for Reading East was planning.
Until, that is, earlier this week. The Sunday Times published the scoop last weekend, saying (without any great evidence, to be fair) that your boy Rob Wilson was looking to get back in the civil society saddle. Yes, Rob Wilson has thrown his hat into the ring to replace William Shawcross as the next chair of the Charity Commission.
In other words, blame Brexit and Trump for the fact that Rob Wilson might soon be the next Charity Commission chair.
The charity sector collectively recoiled from the news like one would from a venomous snake, yet permit this column to offer a contrary position, if only for the sake of playing devil’s advocate. This is absolutely great news. Better the devil you know, and all that. Besides, it’ll be quite nice to have a chair of the charity regulator who is openly and vocally not a fan of the vast majority of the sector other than social enterprises. At least you know where you stand.
Anyway, it would seem that in an effort to tidy up his CV and bury his past, Wilson this week has gone on a social media purge deleting literally every tweet he ever sent out before, well, Monday. Fair play to the fella! A mere 253 pages of Twitter.
We all of us must remember that in this era of social media errant drunk tweeting and or flagrantly sweary posts about Love Island can come back to haunt one professionally.
Perhaps strangest of all in Rob Wilson’s social media rebirth is the fact that it seems he’s gone from being an arch-Remainer – indeed he wrote a rather well written piece for Civil Society Media before the referendum about how the charity sector should back the Remain campaign – to a full-bore Brexiteer.
Barnier’s comments about the British are extraordinary. It shows how the EU elite has a very strange mindset. We really are #betteroffout https://t.co/22KHGlKvVD
— Rob Wilson (@RobWilson_RDG) November 29, 2017
He also seems to have gotten himself involved in a give-and-take debate with a former constituent of his in Reading about this very topic. It’s good at least to know that he’s in favour of freedom of speech, unless of course it's charities trying to speak up about political issues. That’s not cool at all.
Less a concession, more an affirmation of the fact I’m always in favour of freedom of speech. Refighting the referendum is a road to nowhere. Focus on getting the best deal.
— Rob Wilson (@RobWilson_RDG) December 1, 2017
Society Diary for one can’t wait to welcome the sector’s new Tory overlord with good grace and humour.
The sheen has gone off of Will’s golden thread
Speaking of our overlords, we turn to William Shawcross now. Yes, he’s on the way out of the Charity Commission after five years at the helm.
Anyway, as the curtain begins to come down on big Will, he took his chance once more to tread the boards before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee to say that regulator needs more funding and greater powers. He also announced that the Commission would begin a process of consultation on charging charities next year. Which people might like.
Along with the topic of funding, of which Shawcross has spoken about a lot of late, he also returned to perhaps his favourite topic: The golden thread. Anyone who has ever attended a Shawcross speech has heard Shawcross' favourite quote about the sector - that it is a golden thread that runs through society. Some have even ventured to suggest that it would be nice if he could maybe mix it up and use a different quote occasionally.
Shawcross - in what was probably one of his last opportunities to wax lyrically about golden threads - stretched the metaphor to its limits and said he hoped the and said he hoped he had managed to “get rid of any threads that are black rather than golden” in the sector.
You've almost got to admire Mr Shawcross' tireless commitment to the phrase 'golden thread'. Five years at the Commission and he's still all over it... https://t.co/lwSyKgpuC0
— Aidan Warner (@ncvoaidan) November 29, 2017
However, as Aidan Warner from NCVO pointed out on Twitter, you’ve almost got to respect someone for sticking so feverishly to one metaphor for so long. A Google search reveals 473 occasions in which Shawcross and the phrase have been mentioned together.
It's clear that the golden thread remains very much William's Beveridge of choice.
Related Articles
