There's much soul-searching going on at the mo re the charity sector’s ability to influence UK govt.

So for a bit of context, let's look back to one of the most successful historical examples of charity lobbying: Gladstone's political beating over charity tax in 1863. 1/

In 1863, Gladstone proposed making charities pay income tax.

This was driven by his objection to fact that endowed orgs received tax benefit (as there was no estate tax), but org relying on donations from living donors suffered as those donations would be minus income tax. 2/

Of course, you could point out that one solution would be to introduce income tax relief on donations…. but Gladstone wasn’t really down with that (and it didn’t in fact come until 1922).

He preferred levelling up by making all charities pay income tax. 3/

Obviously this caused uproar in the sector, and the charities of London mobilised a deputation to Gladstone’s office that was so extraordinary in scale and nature that it prompted this amazing (and amazed) write-up in the Times: 4/

As you can see from this bit, there were so many in the deputation that they couldn’t fit in Gladstone’s office and spilled out into the corridor.

(I love the mental image of a load of Victorian big cheeses jostling outside a small door): 5/

This bit of detail on “Mr Cubitt, MP” & his emotive plea on behalf of St Bart’s hospital is interesting in how it's framed in terms of effect on the charity’s beneficiaries rather than effect on the org itself (presumably this was seen as more likely to play w/ Gladstone?) 6/

And if you can get through the circumlocutory language, this sounds like an awesome, cool-as-ice dig by Gladstone at the people who crammed into his office: 7/

However, Gladstone’s snark aside, the charities were remarkably successful in their aims: the very next day the times reported on the failure of his proposal in the House of Commons, citing the deputation as a key reason: 8/

So there you go. Isn't history fun?

Not 100% sure what the lesson, if any, is here.

Perhaps that you just need to get a sufficient quanitity of charity patrons from the echelons of the elite to pile into the Chancellor’s office and berate him in turn…? Fin

Bonus for the true nerds among you: worth reading Hansard of the Commons Bill Committee debate where Gladstone proposed income tax on charities, as it gets into some fundamental issues of principle about charity taxation (emphasis v much on the "FUN):

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1863/may/04/bill-91-committee#S3V0170P0_18630504_HOC_44

I particularly recommend Disraeli's response, as it's rare to see charity tax issues used as such a thinly-veiled cipher for deep personal dislike:

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1863/may/04/bill-91-committee#S3V0170P0_18630504_HOC_51

An exchange that even prompted me to make this slide a few years back...