Wayne Rooney Saves England With £30,000
WAYNE Rooney is now a hero. The Daily Star continues its campaign to turn Wayne Rooney into England’s anti-riot saviour. The Star’s front-page headline declares:
“THANK ROO FOR SAVING US”
While Daily Mail readers hear Max Hastings blame Rooney and his lifestyle for starting the riots, Star readers are told:
RIOT-hit traders yesterday hailed the Daily Star’s Reclaim Our Streets crusade as a “lifesaver”.
High-earning – and high tax paying – Wayne and Coleen Rooney have donated £50,000 to the “crusade”. Others are name-checked for their apparent generosity. The grandstanding might stick in the craw and turn one man’s devastation into another man’s marketing opportunity, but so long as people are helped, who cares?
We meet one trader:
A PHONE shop boss whose store was trashed by rioters days after his dad died, said the Daily Star’s crusade could put food on his table.
Could…
Maqsood Ahmed, 35, saw his livelihood wrecked when 100 thugs smashed their way into his mobile phone store in Birmingham. Looters stole £30,000 worth of goods. Maqsood, who shares the business with brother Matloob, has had the shop for two years but did not have insurance as it was too expensive to take out.
“I don’t know how I’m going to put food on my table. To discover I’ve been nominated for this fantastic campaign has given us all such a lift.”
Nominated? The system works like this:
…you can also apply for cash help from our fighting fund if you have been left financially crippled by the riots…
Show your support by texting the word STREETS to 87088. Your text donation will cost £3.00 plus your standard network message charge…
Depending upon your mobile network between £1.39 and £1.80 will go to the campaign.
Who gets the rest? If they are indicative of the admin costs then of the Rooneys £50k donation, £30k goes to the needy.
The campaign is run by the R D Crusaders Foundation:
This is a charitable appeal and the money received will be used only for charitable purposes, to assist those who have been physically or mentally injured, or who need extra support, as a result of damage to their homes or other assets, or who suffer the additional burden of needing to care for injured relatives. It is intended that the money will be distributed as far as possible to victims in the most urgent and serious need. Should there be any surplus funds the monies will be used for other charitable purposes among victims of crime in the UK.
How is the money spent? Well, the Charities Commission provides these figures:
Running a charity can be expensive.
And the coalition Government loves them:
Nick Hurd, minister for civil society, said today that people who were “relatively fortunate” should follow his example and donate 1% to good causes to put the level of personal giving in Britain closer to that in the US.
“We want to play our part to try to nudge this country towards a higher level of generosity,” Hurd told the annual convention of the Institute of Fundraising. “What I am interested in doing is to see what we can do to try to encourage more systematic, planned giving.
“I give away 1% of my income. I get my children to decide which charities I give to because I want to encourage them to start thinking about these things.”
Government should stay out of charities. The lure to donors is that charities are independent of the State. If the State wants to help it could create an umbrella investment group and bail out the nation of shopkeepers hit by the riots. Let’s call it UK Plc. Would you want stake in Maqsood’s phone shop? Hey, it could bank at Lloyds TSB – you own part of that , too…
Posted: 15th, August 2011 | In: Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
