"Charities should stick to knitting..."

The new minister for civil society, Brooks Newmark, has been anything but after The Guardian reported about his comments that "The important thing charities should be doing is sticking to their knitting and doing the best they can to promote their agenda, which should be about helping others."

Get a clue...

Newmark's comments were condemned as "patronising rubbish" by Lisa Nandy, the shadow minister for civil society. "It's his first speech as charities minister, and I think it's not just patronising but actually deeply offensive at a time when charities are picking up the pieces from this government's awful, unfair policies, that their ministers would talk about them in such a dismissive way," she said.

"This comes from a government that hasn't just introduced the Lobbying Act but has also restricted charities using judicial review, cut legal aid, ramped up employment tribunal fees and clamped down on immigration appeals. What you're looking at is a government that doesn't like challenge. That is quite a frightening place for a government to have got itself into."

Alexandra Runswick, director of Unlock Democracy, a campaign group, said charities "should be able to advocate, not just knit" and suggested that Newmark's tone was condescending. Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, also tweeted that it was "incredibly insulting for charities minister to tell civil society to 'stick to its knitting' and I think sexist too".

So...what do you think?  

First off lets pick the argument apart without loosing context; "sticking to their knitting and doing the best they can to promote their agenda, which should be about helping others." Its this use of "AND DOING" that gets me....is knitting for a charity not helping others?

I firmly believe charities should have a say in politics as they often pick up the pieces when politics go wrong such as food banks after the recession, but focusing solely on the knitting aspect of this his comments imply an old stereotype of knitters being boring and typically of an older generation. 

I'm 25. My best friend knits, she is a similar age. My cousins have just learnt, both mid-20's. My sister knit's, she's 21. But age is irrelevant....lets let the facts speak for themselves...

Last years Innocent Smoothie Big Knit campaign raised over £200,000 for the Age UK Spread The Warmth campaign.

Jolly, wonderful, enjoyed by so many & done so much good!

The NHS' Blood Doesn't Grow On Tree's campaign registered 8500 new donors (2000 over target) and use the tag line: "YARN-BOMBING IS THE ANSWER".

I was involved in this. It was fab! 

Knitters are involved in politics too - http://www.woolagainstweapons.co.uk/

These are just some examples off the top of my head.

In a nut-shell, as far as a first speech goes, this is pathetic, charities should be praised regardless of what they do. Government should be working with charities to do their duty of care.

Personally I loved Knit For Peace's statement which you can view here.