Who keeps the poinsettia flying?

GEORGE ORWELL UNDERSTOOD that institutions often develop a life of their own. In Keep the Aspidistra Flying, the humble houseplant became a symbol of status, respectability and the quiet pressures of social conformity.

Today, Britain has its own institutional plant: the Poinsettia.

Red and green, carefully cultivated, prominently displayed and dependent on regular care, the Poinsettia has become a symbol of a particular ecosystem within modern civil society – an ecosystem of advocacy organisations, campaign groups, publicly funded NGOs, think tanks, consultants and professional lobbyists whose influence increasingly comes not from mass membership, but from their position within networks of grants, consultations and institutional relationships.

The Poinsettia is not defined by one policy position. It is defined by a style of institutional politics: organisations deriving authority through professional networks, grant structures and proximity to decision-makers rather than through broad membership or direct democratic consent.

To its critics, it is a triffid gone woke – a plant that has grown beyond its original boundaries and developed its own ecosystem of funding, influence and self-preservation.

This is not an argument against charities.

A healthy democracy needs charities. They provide essential services, support communities, care for vulnerable people and often achieve things that government cannot. They represent some of the best instincts of a free society: people voluntarily coming together to help others.

The issue is different.

The question concerns organisations whose primary purpose is not delivering a service, but influencing public policy and shaping political debate.

a simple democratic question must be asked: who should fund political advocacy?

These organisations have every right to exist. They have every right to campaign. They have every right to argue their case. But a simple democratic question must be asked: who should fund political advocacy?

A free society requires competing ideas. It does not require taxpayers to finance every side of every argument.

The Poinsettia represents a wider professional culture that some critics have identified in parts of the public sector as well: a world of consultations, frameworks, strategies, working groups and institutional language.

The issue is not the individuals involved. Many people working in charities, public bodies and campaign organisations are sincere, dedicated and motivated by a desire to improve society.

The issue is the structure. Over time, institutions develop incentives for self-preservation. Organisations require income, staff require employment, projects require renewal, campaigns require continuation. This is not a conspiracy but an incentive structure.

A report can create demand for another report. A campaign can create the need for a programme. A programme can create the organisation required to administer it. The organisation then has a natural interest in demonstrating why the issue remains urgent. Thus the cycle continues.

some advocacy organisations present themselves as arbiters of moral legitimacy

The result can be a self-reinforcing ecosystem where organisations increasingly speak to each other, cite each other’s work and influence policy through institutional networks rather than through direct public support.

This matters because some advocacy organisations have moved beyond representing a viewpoint and towards presenting themselves as arbiters of moral legitimacy. This is where the danger emerges.

Rights are essential. But rights have always existed alongside other rights. In any complex society, difficult questions arise about how competing interests should be balanced.

Freedom of speech can conflict with protection from harm. Privacy can conflict with public safety. Different groups can make competing claims about dignity, equality and security.

The purpose of democratic society is not to pretend these conflicts do not exist. It is to debate them honestly through Parliament, the courts and public discussion.

Campaign organisations have an important role in that process. They can highlight neglected issues and challenge governments. But they are participants in the debate, not its final judges.

This is particularly important when large organisations begin describing other groups as “anti-rights” simply because they disagree over how competing rights should be balanced.

Organisations such as Amnesty International have built significant public trust over many decades. Millions of pounds are donated every year in good faith by supporters who believe they are contributing to a historic mission: opposing oppression, defending prisoners of conscience and challenging abuses of state power.

But trust earned through decades of work in one field does not automatically grant unlimited authority over every contested social question. Many supporters donate because they believe in the organisation’s traditional mission. They may not necessarily see their donations as endorsing every future position taken by a current leadership team on every complex issue of public policy.

That raises a legitimate question of accountability.

No charity should assume that disagreement automatically represents hostility to justice

When a charity moves from defending human rights to declaring which organisations, campaigners or citizens are themselves “anti-rights”, it risks moving from advocacy into adjudication.

But charities are not courts. They are not legislatures. They are not elected representatives. They are organisations governed by trustees and directors – often a relatively small group of people who determine the institution’s public voice.

Those leaders have every right to campaign. They have every right to persuade. They have every right to advocate for their interpretation of society’s challenges. What they do not have is a monopoly on morality.

No organisation owns the language of human rights. No campaign group has exclusive authority to define compassion. No charity should assume that disagreement automatically represents hostility to justice. This is why the relationship between charities and public money matters.

When taxpayers fund advocacy organisations, they are not simply supporting charitable activity. They may also be indirectly supporting campaigns and political arguments with which they disagree.

The answer is not censorship; the answer is independence.

If an organisation exists primarily to influence public debate, it should be able to demonstrate genuine public support. Membership, voluntary donations and private philanthropy provide a powerful test of whether an organisation has roots beyond the institutions that sustain it.

Public money should fund services, not subsidise political persuasion. A charity with genuine public support should welcome that challenge.

Too often, critics respond by debating every report, every press release and every campaign statement. But that misses the mechanism. It is like arguing with a bouncy castle while ignoring the blower keeping it inflated.

If the concern is an advocacy ecosystem sustained by public funding and institutional support, the answer is not endless arguments with every organisation inside it. The answer is to examine the funding model itself.

The Poinsettia is not a call to remove colour from public life. Democracies need charities, campaigners and civil society organisations. They need people willing to challenge authority and raise difficult questions.

But civil society is strongest when it is genuinely rooted in society. Ideas should compete; organisations should persuade; citizens should decide.

And if an organisation truly represents the public interest, it should be able to stand without the taxpayer keeping the Poinsettia flying.