The NSPCC has criticised retailer Tesco for selling padded plunge bras for seven to eight year old girls.

Tesco has defended its right to make a profit from the market and told the media: “It is a product designed for girls at that self-conscious age when they are just developing and is designed to cover up, not flatter”. Continue reading →

US internet search engine Google has been accused of having “warped value system” and stifling freedom of speech after it refused to carry an advertisement for abortion news and views from a British Christian charity. (Daily Mail)

The Christian Institute and the Daily Mail point out that Google are happy to carry ads for pornography, group sex, extra-marital affairs, weapons, witchcraft, and loans with APR’s of 1000 percent.

The Institute is suing Google under the Equality Act 2006 on the grounds that it is illegally discriminating against Christian groups.

www.christian.org.uk

The RSPCA has attacked the culling of grey squirrels to encourage the breeding of the endangered red as “ethically dubious” and unlikely to be effective.

A DEFRA funded group calling itself the Red Squirrel Protection Partnership says it has already trapped and shot 15,000 grey squirrels in Northumberland, or .3% out of a national total of up to five million, and aims to have the county free of all greys by next year. Continue reading →

Further criticism is being heaped on the BBC for receiving money for sponsorship for such events as Children in Need.

Figures obtained by the Daily Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act show that the BBC has taken nearly £6 million in sponsorship for live events from such firms as Asda, Coca Cola and Proctor & Gamble. Continue reading →

A charity shop assistant in California found £15,000 in cash in some clothing that had been donated, and returned it to the donors. (Daily Telegraph).

The clothes, and money had belonged to a woman who had died.

The assistant received back, for her honesty, a reward that will pay for her mother’s eye operation.

More questions arise about the grubby ethics of Northern Rock, the failed bank bailed out by our government with billions of our pounds.

According to the Daily Telegraph it has emerged that the now state-owned bank has been claiming that a tiny charity, Downs Syndrome North East (DSNE) is the beneficiary of a £45 billion offshore fund set up by Northern Rock’s 50% shareholder Granite, and registered as a charity to get the tax benefits. Continue reading →

Charities will be studying the powerful new anti-discrimination bill before parliament.

This seeks to replace the 100 + acts, codes and directives currently in force on the six main areas of discrimination – for race or nationality, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age and faith.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is planning to require large companies and public bodies to carry out an “equality audit” of staff in the six “disadvantaged” sectors of their workforces. On this would be based a published EHRC ranking of the organisation, which those considering working for them, or doing business with them could consider.

The BBC has been criticised over the commercial packages it offers firms for sponsorship of such programmes as Children in Need.

Critics, which include presenter Melvyn Bragg say that the arrangement represents the “creeping commercialism of the BBC” and that this is in breach of the BBC’s charter, on which it charges licence fees, going against the spirit of the “no advertising” rule.

Details of the BBC’s earner were originally posted on a website for potential advertisers but it is understood this has now been shut down.

Fee paying schools registered as charities simply to get the tax benefits will lose their profitable charitable status if they don’t make a contribution to the poor in their local community.

According to the Charity Commission this could be done with free or cut-price bursaries or by lending equipment or letting local children attend some lessons. Such actions will show that the school meets the public benefit test and deserves the rewards of tax benefits, said to be worth £100 million p/a.

Some schools are now threatening legal action.