Been thinking about Chancellor Rishi Sunak's remarks about the "gentleness of charity" this week, (which have raised quite a bit of ire) & wondering if they point to terminological confusion or more fundamental ideological point (or a bit of both).

So excuse an ickle thread. 1/
I think the crux of this is a conflation (either accidental or deliberate) of the notion of "charity-as-virtue" with the notion of "charity-as-institution".

The former may well be gentle- the latter are often anything but (and for good reason!) 2/
Obviously support for charities-as-institutions may well be driven by charity-as-a-virtue, but that's far from the only possible motivation.

Others could include civic pride, enlightened self-interest, desire for 'warm glow' or anger at injustice (to name only a few of many). 3/
The conflation of these 2 understandings of charity is problematic if it leads to policy affecting a large, complex & vital sector of our society/economy being made based on subjective or quasi-religious moral judgments about the value of inferred motivations.

IMHO, anyway. 4/
We've already seen a bit of this kind of narrative about "charity-as-act" applied to charities-as-institutions in the pronouncements of the Charity Commission over the last few years. (Which has also rubbed many people up the wrong way!) 5/
Perhaps this just illustrates why "charity" is a somewhat problematic term, given the various interpretations it can give rise to.

(And tbh why, when doing work in an international context, I never use it - preferring terminology like "civil society org" or "nonprofit"). 6/
The challenge (as anyone who's ever ended up in this particular terminological debate will know) is that all the alternatives have their own issues.

"Voluntary Sector? Does that mean you all work for free?" etc

(Though actually Beveridge had a good answer on that one) 👇 7/
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