We won—now stop being a fucking racist cunt

Look at all the fucking sea.

A number of people have been crowdsourcing links about racist incidents following the referendum vote to Leave.

Whilst I suspect that there is a certain amount of finding facts to fit the narrative going on here (these kinds of things are, alas, rather widespread across this country—we are not nearly as progressive as Londoners like to think), I would just like to issue the following message...

If you are one of the cunts who are now telling Polish folk—or anyone else—to "fuck off home", get in the fucking sea.

There's plenty of it, you know. Well, you probably don't because you are a thick-as-shit moron (although that's not entirely your fault given our shitty education system) who lacks—and this is what I really cannot stand—basic manners.

Either engage in a rational, civilised debate or fuck off and become a mercenary for hire in some fucking hell-hole like DR Congo.

Or, as I said, get in the fucking sea.

The EU is not "outward-looking"...

Many Remain campaigners have lashed out, describing the vote to Leave the EU as being somehow "unprogressive". As usual with these types of people, for all that they claim to be progressive, global, and non-racist, their views are hopelessly parochial.

The simple truth is, as anti-EU campaigners have been pointing out for years, that the European Union is itself "fortress Europe"—a inward-looking customs union, designed as a protectionist barrier to trade, in order to protect big businesses based within it.

Anna Racoon helpfully provides some examples of how the EU's tariff barriers do this.

Enjoy your morning coffee today? Kenyan was it? ‘Fairtrade’ even? The EU is quite happy to see Kenyans out in the boiling hot fields harvesting coffee beans, but they are not so happy seeing them do something mechanised and clever with the beans, like roasting and packaging them. Any upstart Kenyan with fancy ideas like that will quickly find that the EU has slapped a 7.5% tax on them – not to protect the EU’s coffee bean growers, we don’t have any, but to protect the mainly German coffee bean processors.
...

How do the cocoa farmers in Nigeria fare? The EU allows them to earn a subsistence living so long as they leave their cocoa beans well alone. We have no plans to set up cocoa farms in Northumbria, so are quite content to let the Nigerians do it for us – but anything easy and profitable, like using machinery to process the beans and turn them into luxury bars of Chocolate…well can’t let them do that. Then the EU fines them 8.30%, and throws in an agricultural tariff of 18.70 % not to mention their latest wonder, the ‘sugar tax’. Why? Well there’s the American owned Cadbury’s for a start.

The Kenyans turned their hands to growing roses, that other European luxury staple. Since it had never occurred to anybody that they would do that – there was no tariff on fresh cut flowers. The industry thrived. Every night plane loads of beautiful roses arrived in Amsterdam and were sent out to flower shops across Europe. The EU demanded the right to flood the Kenyan market with tariff free EU goods in return. Can’t have Kenya developing its own mobile phone manufacturers can we. When the Kenyans refused to agree to this – the EU promptly slapped an 8.5% tax on those cut flowers; they only removed it when the Kenyans agreed not to try to make anything complicated and let the Europeans do it for them.

Back in 2009, the Archbishop of Canterbury was on the fashionable ‘carbon footprint’ bandwagon and urged us all not to buy Kenyan green beans – the following year, the UK’s Department for International Development gave Waitrose, yes Waitrose, £200,000 to swallow their fear of angering the Archbishop – and put Kenyan green beans on their shelves!

The beans are sent to Europe in 5kg boxes; once in Europe, they are repackaged in 120gm cardboard slips, given the names of fictitious farms where they have been grown, and sold onto the supermarket customers. Tescos undertake to send any ‘substandard beans’ onto frozen food manufacturers for inclusion in ready meals – good of them really, ‘cos if the Kenyans had any uppity ideas about canning their beans, the EU is ready with a tax of 12.8% to discourage them.

This is the organisation that we have just voted to leave.

So, now that we are out of this shitty protectionist block, can we start helping the poorest people in the world now?

You know, by promising no tariff barriers against anybody, and thus enhancing the lives of millions of the world's poorest citizens...?

It's Brexit—so what now?

It is very difficult to write about this subject objectively. I have been waiting, and agitating, for a referendum on the EU for more than twenty years now—and I never dared to believe, even once it was achieved, that the UK would actually vote to leave the EU.

But we have. So, please indulge this humble Devil whilst he expresses his considered and thought out opinion on the matter.

YEEEEEEEEEEEES! FUCKING GET IN! HOORAY! FUCKING ACES...

Ahem.

So.

What now? A very good question to raise, and one that will be consuming us for a good few years to come, I suspect. As EU Referendum has consistently stated, Brexit is a process and not an event.

Speaking of which, Pete and Richard North are at times utterly infuriating in terms of messaging—but they are also far better versed in the actual knowledge and understanding of this process than anyone else that I know. As such, their Flexcit document has to be the blueprint for the extraction of the UK from the European Union. I am glad to hear that this document has become required reading for some Civil Service members—they will need it.

Personally, your humble Devil has never been much good at the detail of things—I prefer to engage in strategy. This is what I do in business, and in the little that I have been involved in politics. So, what follows are a few random comments from that perspective.

• I would have said that Cameron had to go, but he has already fallen on his sword. Unfortunately, because his blade is as soft and shit at its job as he is, it has bent and is only very gently impaling its master over the course of months. Cameron has decided that he will only utter the fatal words when he is too dead to have to bear the shame of capitulation: to that end, he is willing to screw the British people in some desperate attempt to delay the inevitable. He is a cunt—teasing with his lips whilst attempting to prevent the painful penetration of his ego as long as possible—and should be pushed down to full penetration right to the hilt as soon as possible.
• Osborne seems to have disappeared: his promise to wreak revenge on the British people should they have the temerity to vote the wrong way has put him in something of a quandary—or "right in the shit", as we might say. Ludicrously, he is apparently ringing around to gather soundings as to his viability for Tory leadership. Due to the shortness of these conversations, I don't see his phone bill being particularly high this month.
• Michael Gove has always been a canny—and, dare I say it, honourable—politician. As such, he has ruled himself out of running for the leadership. I like to think that it is because he is well aware that, having told some outrageous lies, he cannot in all conscience lead the party to a victory. I sympathise: like Gove, I have accepted that, in this most important of votes, the end does justify the means. But just because we have won, that doesn't mean that we are not tainted.
• Boris. Well, what can one say...? Boris is entertaining, and seems to be able to laugh off any embarrassment. I wouldn't write him off (although I wouldn't endorse him either).
• A lot of people have opined that Farage's mission is now over, and he should fuck off into the middle distance—as should UKIP. Surely, they say, UKIP only existed to drive a referendum on the EU—having won it, that party has no reason to exist.
  
  That is not true: the reason for that is the group of libertarian bloggers—including myself and Tim Worstall (and many others)—who, back in the mid-2000s—persuaded Nigel that UKIP needed to have a truly national manifesto. This manifesto should be a blueprint for what Britain should look like if freed from the EU (and we thought that this event would take decades—not a decade). We then helped to build a libertarian manifesto, and to persuade people that it was a relevant addition to the national conversation. We failed.
  
  UKIP adopted the anti-immigration manifesto that so many of us found... er... problematic. But most of our effort remains at its core and, as a result, UKIP is not now neutered by a successful Leave vote.
  
  Importantly, UKIP has captured huge swathes of the traditionally Labour heartlands—and it won't give up these voters without a fight. And nor will those voters swiftly return to Labour (but more on that later).

There is a huge problem here. The problem is this: vast swathes of Britain are deeply moribund economically, and these people are poor (by a Western way of thinking). Right now, they might blame the EU—but once that excuse has been removed, we are still left with a severely divided country. We need to find a way to fix this.

The great thing about Brexit is that is gives us a strategic decision by, as it were, our shareholders. Now the managers of the company need to be able to work out how to enact that decision in the best interest of the shareholders. And I am far from certain that any of them know how to do it.

Your humble Devil will write more on this—alas, I have to satisfy my own shareholders, and have no more time at this stage. But I shall be back...

Lord Butler is not a very nice man

According to PoliticsHome [is that still going?—Ed], Lord Butler has advised that, in the event of a Brexit vote, Parliament could use its Remain majority to force another referendum.

Former Cabinet Secretary Lord Butler has suggested the House of Commons could use its pro-EU majority to trigger a second referendum if there is a vote for Brexit next week.

Ah, the famous EU-style tactics of "ask them again till they give the right answer" from Lord Butler here.

The crossbench peer warned that any push for a re-run or attempt to stop withdrawal would trigger a “major political crisis”, but said it was “paradoxical” to prevent Parliament acting as it sees fit.

"The referendum is merely advisory, and Parliament and the Government do maintain their sovereignty in law,” he told The House magazine.

Yes, Lord Butler—we know that the referendum is advisory. But Parliament has taken the decision to ask the people what their opinion is on this issue.

If the people vote for Brexit, and Parliament ignores the result, it would be acting explicitly and purposely against the will of the people on a subject that it expressly asked them to decide on.

It would be the final confirmation that this is not a democracy that we live in: it would be a very dangerous and explicit admission of what, currently, we only suspect to be true.

“One argument of the Brexiteers is that they want to restore powers and sovereignty to our Parliament – but all three main UK parties officially favour Remain. So it seems paradoxical to give powers back to Parliament to do something it does not want to. There might be pressure on parties to hold a second referendum.”

My dear Lord Butler, Brexiteers want to restore powers and sovereignty to our Parliament, so that we, the people—not Brussels technocrats—call the shots. We want to repatriate powers so that Parliament has no choice but to listen to us—because it is our power, not yours.

So what if all three parties officially favour Remain? If the people that the parties' MPs represent do not want to remain in the EU, it is not Parliament's place to dictate to the people who elect it. That is the main fucking point about democracy.

I know that you—having smoothly made the transition from civil servant to Lord—have not had to answer to the electorate for anything at all, and that's just fine and dandy for you. However, in this country, we do like our leaders to at least retain the fig leaf of accountability—to, at the very least, pretend that this is a democracy.

I know that you probably don't like the electors very much. In which case, I suggest that you go and work for the EU—that would be right up your street.

The height of naivety

The Very British Dude has, in recent months, written some of the best Remain arguments I have seen—they were not convincing enough to make me change my mind, but they have been eloquent enough to make me, at least, consider my premises.

However, his open letter to Junker is—whilst the sentiment is spot-on—I'm afraid to say, incredibly naive and, worse, just plain silly.

If, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland votes as expected to remain in the European Union, you should not take it as an endorsement.

Britain is a great nation, once the hub of the greatest Empire the world has ever seen, a victor at the centre of alliances, in three centuries of conflict, and the mother of Parliaments.
...

We expect the European Union to realise that we on these islands will not ever be part of some 'United States of Europe', and we don't think France, Poland, Italy or Germany, or any other great nation of Europe should be expected to either.

Why am I irresistibly reminded of this chap...?

Oh yes—it's because the Black Knight shouted out a challenge, lost the fight catastrophically, and then remained shouting impotently from the sidelines.

It's fucking pathetic.

We, if forced to choose, will never choose Europe.

Don't be ridiculous, Dude. We are being forced to choose—you do recall that we're having a referendum, right? And if, as you fucking recommend, we choose to Remain then we will, indeed, be choosing Europe.

We expect the European Union to realise that we on these islands will not ever be part of some 'United States of Europe', and we don't think France, Poland, Italy or Germany, or any other great nation of Europe should be expected to either.

The European Union exists to facilitate trade between free peoples, and to solve problems best dealt with at an international level.

Yes. And you know how you can best solve Europe's current problems?—with a sodding United States of Europe!

As I have recently highlighted, you cannot solve the Euro problem without a unified political policy and a central European Treasury.

If you vote Remain, you are voting to become part of a United States of Europe (USE). Yes, Liar Cameron's fabled "renegotiation" might have slowed the pace of the UK's integration into this entity, but that's all it is—a delay.

In general, the polls show that younger people are far more likely to embrace the Remain side. So all that the political Establishment—both our own, and the EU's—have to do is wait another decade or so, and resistance to the UK being part of this USE will be weakened. If they decide to play the long game—something that the EU political Establishment is very good at—and wait for 20 years, then there will be no criticism whatsoever.

This is the last plausible chance, that I can see, to stick two fingers up at this project. If we don't, then we are shackled to this project for as long as it lasts—and the EU elites have shown us that they will do anything (currently politically possible) to realise this USE vision.

In twenty years, if we vote Remain, Britain's youth will be urging them on.

This is a lie

We learn from the BBC that David Cameron is a filthy liar.

David Cameron has said migration can be managed if the UK remains inside the EU...

No, it can't.

A fundamental part of the Single Market is the free movement of people. You do understand what "free movement" means, you dish-faced bastard?

What it means is that any citizen of the EU can settle in any other country within the EU. One can argue the rights or wrongs of this policy, but it is a central tenet of the EU Single Market.

Equally, it means that you cannot control the influx of people into this country. Therefore, the statement above is a lie.

You fucking lying bastard.

Again, voting Remain is not voting for the status quo

In your humble Devil's last post, I pointed out that a vote to Remain in the EU is, in fact, not a vote for the current situation.

As a swift adjunct to that, I find this July 2015 article, from Andrew Lilico, which neatly reinforces the economic problems within the Euro area.

So when British politicians propose that EU political integration should slow or that the EU should prioritize some other objective (e.g. the Single Market), that is not merely seen as unattractive—it is impossible.

The reasons why are economic. As was widely discussed in the UK debate about the euro in the 1990s and early 2000s, to make a single currency such as the euro work, one needs an adequate combination of trade integration, similarity of economic cycles (so that one size fits all interest rate and exchange rate policies do indeed fit all), capital and labour mobility (to offset any “asymmetries” in economic shocks – that is, economic shocks hitting some parts of the Eurozone harder than others) and fiscal transfers (to compensate for any large or long-term differential performance that is not offset by capital and labour mobility).

The Eurozone has fairly good trade integration, some material differences in economic cycles (though not especially larger than the differences between regions within the UK or US), and fairly high capital mobility. But even when they occur at around the same time (so cycles are not out), economic shocks affect some parts of the Eurozone much worse than others (as we have seen in the Eurozone crisis). And, Ireland excepted, labour mobility is not particularly high (despite all the complaints about immigration in some Member States).
That means—as has been argued all along—that for the Eurozone to work over the longer term there will need to be much more significant fiscal transfers between regions.

Which is precisely what I articulated a few days ago. And, of course, in order for the economic scenario to work, there must be more political union.

If adequate economic mechanisms and political union are not introduced, it is believed that the Eurozone crisis will return and anti-European sentiment will (rightly) increase, ultimately destroying the Eurozone and the EU project as a whole. Banking union and constraints upon Member State budgets have been introduced. Even more political integration is on the way.

So in the Eurozone, the answer to increased Euroscepticism is not seen as any form of rowing back on integration. Quite the opposite — Euroscepticism has arisen because political integration had not proceeded rapidly enough.

For the Eurozone and EU to survive at all, deeper political integration, including Eurozone-level tax and spending decisions and democratic mechanisms to oversee them plus reduced control over tax and spending decisions for Member State, are an existential necessity.

Quite so. Lilico's conclusion implies that the current referendum may be very far from being the last turning point for the UK in its relationship with the EU.

This all means current debates about whether the UK will have a referendum and how folk will vote is of only passing significance. What counts fundamentally to whether the UK stays in the EU after about 2020 is whether there are any non-euro members of the EU at all, given the existential economic necessity of the Eurozone forming into a deeper political union. At present that seems highly unlikely.

It may be that, regardless of the result of the referendum on July 23, the UK will have another chance to choose its destiny within the European Union. That is the optimistic view.

The less optimistic view—at least, for those of us who have no interest in being swallowed up by a European super-state based on Napoleonic Law (rather than the Common Law)—is this: that our leaders will view any vote against leaving the current arrangement as an affirmative decision to enter into this superstate.

That must not be allowed to happen. For all that the Leave campaign have been incompetent in being able to articulate this unpleasant future, the Remain campaign have expressly avoided telling the British people the inevitable future of political and economic integration.

If the British do not vote to Leave the status quo, only the extremely dishonest would take that to mean that they have signed up to a federalist future.

Mr Hollande can fuck right off, frankly

France's wildly successful President^*, Mr Hollande has issued a stark warning that Britain must back and integrated EU or quit.

To quote Mr Hollande:

“There is no other way. It's a horrible path, but it's a logical path. Leave Europe, leave Schengen and leave democracy. Do you really want to participate in a common state? That's the question."

That's a really good point, you know? I hadn't realised that you could only be a democracy if you were in the EU. I'd thought that there were democracies outside of—and, indeed, before the formation of—the EU. Apparently this is not the case.

Of course, this neatly highlights one of the arguments that Remain have kept rather quiet about: the fact that remaining within the EU is not to maintain the status quo. The Eurozone, in particular, must have a central government, or it will fall apart—particularly economically and fiscally.

But to maintain, practically, the social and Welfare aspects of the EU, there requires further integration too, e.g. the proposed EU Tax Identification Numbers.

That nice Mr Cameron maintains that he has negotiated an opt out from all^** of this malarkey but, frankly, I don't believe him—partly because he is a proven liar (especially on the topic of the EU). So the UK will have to look forward to more integration too.

Now, you may think that all of this is a good thing—and that's your prerogative. I, of course, think that you are completely fucking wrong^***—and I will vote Leave, regardless of the scare stories—but at least we can have a proper debate the issue in an adult fashion.

^*I may have deployed some sarcasm here.
^**Or is it only some? I'm not clear. Because there's no documentation.
^***The scary clown sums up my feelings on the matter rather well.

Democracy is a bummer, eh?

Richard Murphy has woken up to idea that party politics might not be all that great. [Emphasis mine—DK]

But that means we need a political system that reflects the reality of division within the country. The politics we have can longer support the uniformity of opinion that first part the post demands.

Why, oh why, can’t we now liberate debate with a proportional representation system?

Because we held a referendum on a version of PR in 2011, and the British people overwhelmingly rejected it.

Isn't democracy a bastard, eh, Richard?

George Osborne is not a cunt...

... because, being a straight man, I think that cunts are rather pretty and certainly desirable.

George Osborne, however, is a total fucking fucktard with all of the economic talent of a field mouse. Honestly, the man can't keep his own promises, and he has barely got a grip on anything else. In fact, George Osborne makes Gordon Brown look like a fucking giant of economic competence.

I could talk about why he is such an unmitigated shit-stick, but Simon Heffer has done it for me.

Fucking hellski: Osborne is (and forgive me—I can't think of a better word) such a cunt.

My message to Matthew Hancock

I have sent the following message to Matthew Hancock, who piloted the fake charities clause.

Matthew,

As the originator of the phrase “fake charities” (and the website that, once, accompanied it), I would like to thank you for championing the clause that forbids charities to campaign with state money.

Do not give in to the inevitable screams of outrage that will emanate from the Left and the Third Sector (tautology, perhaps?): please believe that there are many working taxpayers out here, in the land that you represent, who are grateful that their money is no longer going to be squandered on “charitable” political campaigns with which we do not agree, never voted for, and would never support.

Regards,

DK

I hope that it encourages him to do more.

This fight is far from over...

No, I am not a corporation—and the charities should shut up

The thoroughly sound blogger, Dick Puddlecote has been rather kind about your humble Devil, re: the whole Fake Charities thing.

Mr Puddlecote, quite rightly, points out that I did not do it because I was in the pay of some shadowy corporation, conglomerate or think-tank—I funded the whole thing out of my own pocket and my own time (as did the volunteers who helped).

You will hear a lot of bluster from the charities who have been caught with their hands in the nation's till over this; they will try to blame corporations, or perhaps those nasty think tanks and their shadowy funders. But it is incontestable that this egregious abuse of taxes was first discovered by a guy who just enjoyed recreational political writing; was never paid for his work; did it in his spare time; and just knows a wrong 'un when he sees it.

It was a victory for the blogosphere and was a grass roots campaign which has gone from a corner of the internet to the upper echelons of the state, resulting in a rule which is - as we speak - prompting 'charity' meetings up and down the country to formulate plans as to how to keep their noses in the trough.

Quite so.

The charities and their various hangers-on are accusing the government of "silencing free speech".

This is a total fucking lie.

Charities can still say precisely what they want: they just cannot use money—extracted by force from you and me—to do so.

Good.

A fake charities victory!

2009-01-19T03:47:08Z

That was the date and time that your humble Devil first registered the fakecharities.org domain—19th January 2009. I built the first fakecharities.org site that night, using a simple Open Source CMS called WebsiteBaker.

I then populated this simple site with a few organisations that I, and Kitchen contributor the Filthy Smoker, had identified as being particularly egregious specimens of the type we called "fake charities".

A few days ago, and a mere seven years later (!), the work of that night—and the efforts of many grassroots and blogosphere contributors—became a significant victory.

As regards the genesis of Fake Charities, I wrote a retrospective of the whys and wherefores some years ago, in June 2012.

Some years ago, your humble Devil and his Kitchen colleague, the Filthy Smoker, noticed that more and more charities were being cited by news media—and, most especially, the BBC—in connection with government initiatives.

These charities almost always reinforced these policies: and these policies were almost always ones that aimed to reduce freedom and liberty in this country.

Out of curiosity, we started to investigate these charities in a very simplistic way: when a charity was quoted as being in favour of yet more grossly invasive legislation, we went to the Charity Commission website and looked up the public accounts.

In the majority of cases, we found that these quoted "charities" were, in fact, largely funded by the government whose policies they were enthusiastically endorsing.

I would like to say that what we unearthed shocked us, but that would be a lie. What did surprise us was just how many of these organisations there were.

People tend to think of charities as being... well... voluntary organisations, doing actual, physical good deeds in the community—whether that be running soup kitchens, cancer hospices or homeless shelters.

But most of these organisations were indulging in little more than flat-out lobbying. And they were using our money to do it. In our view, these charities were being deliberately disingenuous.

And we came up with a name for these organisations—"fake charities".

In that post, I reiterated what we defined as a fake charity.

We define a Fake Charity as any organisation registered as a UK charity that derives more than 10% of its income—and/or more than £1 million—from the government, whilst also lobbying the government. That lobbying can take the form of calling for new policies, changes to the law or increases in (their own) funding.

When we were (inevitably) attacked in various articles by the BBC and the Third Sector, they tended to ignore the "lobbying" clause—we were horrible, sweary, libertarian bloggers who wanted to do down the valuable work that charities were doing. Nevertheless, all these protests did was to bring the concept of fake charities to a wider audience—with the phrase becoming regularly used amongst the politically-aware.

The libertarian blogosphere, of course, had already latched onto the term with aplomb, and it gradually began to gain wider recognition. Contributors to the site increased, and repeated submissions made: the Filthy Smoker and I conscientiously reviewed every suggested charity, manually reviewing their accounts on the Charity Commission website. It was hard work, and took up much of our free time, and we were only ever able to cover a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of organisations that qualified. Finally, various technical server issues, and a further reduction of available time, meant that the website went offline (although I still own the domain).

Luckily, we had gained a powerful ally. Chris Snowdon, now of the IEA, had the resources to compile much more comprehensive research into the sock-puppet eco-system. A few of these reports are listed below:

• Sock Puppets: How the government lobbies itself and why;
• Euro Puppets: The European Commission’s remaking of civil society;
• The Sock Doctrine—What can be done about state-funded political activism?

Importantly, the IEA was a respected think-tank, and thus able to bring much more clout to bear on the new Coalition government.

Gradually, awareness was raised, and we began to chip away at the fake charities. I heard rumours that the part of the Cabinet Office responsible for charities had had to redraft its rules—awarding contracts rather than grants. A pamphlet, released by Eric Pickles' DCLG, advised local governments to save money by ceasing funding to "fake charities and sock puppets".

Finally, a few days ago, we saw a massive victory, as reported by The Telegraph: Charities to be banned from using public funds to lobby ministers.

Charities in receipt of Government grants will be banned from using these taxpayer funds to engage in political lobbying, The Telegraph can disclose.

A new clause to be inserted into all new and renewed grant agreements will make sure that taxpayer funds are spent on improving people's lives and good causes, rather than covering lobbying for new regulation or using taxpayers’ money to lobby for more government funding.

It will not prevent organisations from using their own privately-raised funds to campaign as they see fit.

The Institute of Economic Affairs, a right of centre think-tank, has undertaken extensive research on so-called “sock puppets”, exposing how taxpayers’ money given to pressure groups is paid to fund lobbying campaigns on policies such as a sugar tax and the environment.

Officials are hoping that the clause will ensure that freedom of speech is protected, while stopping taxpayers’ money being diverted away from good causes.

Matt Hancock, the Cabinet Office minister, told The Telegraph: “Taxpayers’ money must be spent on improving people’s lives and spreading opportunities, not wasted on the farce of government lobbying government.

“The public sector never lobbies for lower taxes and less state spending, and it’s a zero sum game if Peter is robbed to pay Paul.

“These common sense rules will protect freedom of speech–but people won’t be made to foot the bill for political campaigning and political lobbying.

It seems only appropriate for the article to include a quote from our best supporter (even if they do spell his name wrong)...

Chris Snowden, head of Lifestyle Economics at the IEA, said: “This is very good news for taxpayers who will no longer be forced to pay for the government to lobby itself.

“At every level—local, national and European—people have been subsidising political campaigns that they may not know about and might disagree with.

“Campaigning is an important part of a thriving democracy but charities and pressure groups should not be doing it with taxpayers’ money.”

And the precise phrasing to be inserted?

The exact phrase that will be inserted into all new and renewed grant agreements reads: “The following costs are not Eligible Expenditure:- Payments that support activity intended to influence or attempt to influence Parliament, Government or political parties, or attempting to influence the awarding or renewal of contracts and grants, or attempting to influence legislative or regulatory action”.

This rule was successfully been piloted by the Department for Communities and Local Government over the last year.

Whilst the fight is very far from over—the Left and the charity sector are, of course, kicking up a stink—this is a very welcome development.

It shows that a small campaign, lightly-funded web resources, and a pithy name can change the course of our society. We must fight to ensure that this clause goes through, unamended, and we must keep up the pressure on these fake charities.

In the meantime, let us claim a small victory—and a significant scalp—for the blogosphere. As Chris Snowdon says:

It might seem obvious that the government shouldn't be paying for pressure groups to lobby itself, but the practice has become endemic in recent years. Hats off to Matt Hancock for doing something about it.

Ministers don't get enough credit when they do good things in politics. Hancock will doubtless receive a flurry of complaints from those who see it as their right to use taxpayers' money for their political campaigns, so if you are pleased about him chipping away at the sock-puppet state, do send him an e-mail at matthew.hancock.mp@parliament.uk. I will be doing likewise.

Your humble Devil will also be sending a note.

I urge all of the great bloggers and other volunteers who have supported the Fake Charities campaign over the years to do likewise. Thank you—all of you.

DK