Has Oxfam stumbled into a moral no man’s land? I

HOULD the suffragettes be pardoned for criminal offences committed in their campaign to win votes for women? Home Secretary Amber Rudd is thinking about it.

So am I and I conclude that a posthumous amnesty for events of more than 100 years ago would diminish their sacrifice rather than enhance it.

A thousand women paid the price for crimes ranging from spitting at a policeman to arson. Any pardon is bound to be selective and who is to judge the deserving cases?

Besides, these fighting lasses had their own awards for courage. They knew what they were doing and took the consequences with a brave heart.

Let’s remember them for that, not as the beneficiaries of a gimmicky retrial. THE government promises a workers’ charter for millions in the so-called gig economy.

Day one rights for holiday and sick pay entitlements and a new right to a pay slip. Higher industrial tribunal fines for errant bosses.

A breakdown of who pays them what for agency workers and the cost of any deductions plus the right to request a more stable contract.

Theresa May says: ”We are proud to have record levels of employment but we must ensure that workers’ rights are always upheld.”

Fine words. Buttered parsnips, anyone?

This isn’t a parliamentary Bill, or even a White Paper promising legislation. It’s merely a consultation paper, put out for discussion – and likely dilution. More talk from a talk-talk-noaction Prime Minister.

Her programme won’t end the growth of zero hours contracts – with no holiday or sick pay to enforce – or the imposition of bogus self-employment on workers desperate for wages. DON’T give money to Oxfam but over the years I’ve donated hundreds of books to their High Street shops.

They should have brought in a pretty penny. I’ve bought lots too, including from their excellent Huddersfield store.

That was doing my bit. I think I shall still go on doing it because I don’t want to punish the world’s poor who need our charity.

But the sex buying scandal involving Oxfam staffers in earthquaketorn Haiti and elsewhere is enough to make anybody think twice.

These agencies ask for our cash to give humanitarian aid and succour to the neediest people on earth.

We assume that, by and large, they do precisely that. We have to assume it because there is no proper collective audit of what they do.

That trust is critical. Without it, they go out of business.

And they really are ‘in business.’ Oxfam gets £32m a year from the British government, another £30m from the European Commission, more than £100m in donations from the public and over £90m from its trading arm, including shops.

All told, total income could be as high as £415m annually.

The charity employs 5,000 people and gets free labour from 23,000 volunteers.

This is big business and its chief executive officer (inevitably, it has one), Mark Goldring, earns just short of £125,000 a year.

Oxfam insists that the public’s money goes largely where the public wants it to go: out of every pound, 41p goes to emergency response work and 38p goes to development work.

A further 10p goes on ‘support and running costs.’ That’s a cool £4m on salaries, travel, accommodation and expenses.

Nice work, if you can get it. And if, The people on the front line and in the charity shops have to rebuild public trust shattered by these sordid revelations. like me, you’ve seen something of Third World countries, you’ll be familiar with the lifestyle, hotels and white Land Rovers of charity chiefs.

Not as flashy and wasteful as the United Nations and other NGO’s (non-governmental organisations), but enough to make you wonder whether the aid industry has not over-reached itself and stumbled into a moral no man’s land.

Once they cross that line – and it seems they have – there’s no going back.

Resignations at the top of Oxfam and a Charity Commission investigation are not enough.

The people on the frontline and in the charity shops have to rebuild public trust shattered by these sordid revelations.

It will take more that heartwrenching TV adverts and glamorous celebrity endorsements to do that.