London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Jul 21, 2025

Britain is becoming a GoFundMe nation, with the public doing the government's job

Britain is becoming a GoFundMe nation, with the public doing the government's job

By all means step in to feed children or raise money for the NHS, but never forget that the Tories’ aim is to shrink the state
After the government rejected Marcus Rashford’s latest initiative to extend free school meals, pledges came in from people and businesses across England to do it themselves. In my own London neighbourhood, in Brent, almost every single pub and cafe along the high street posted promises on social media to feed any children in need, discreetly and for an unlimited time.

The whole spontaneous wave of kindness and generosity made the government’s meanness seem even more gratuitous. Here was a cause that galvanised people across the country, resonating with everyone except those whose responsibility it is to care for vulnerable citizens.

This has been the theme of the past year. Obviously unjust, easily fixable policies are brought to the government’s attention with a plea to solve them, only for the request to be turned down, making them into a popular national cause that then forces the government’s hand. Every stage of the pandemic so far has featured a national outrage that followed a rejected appeal: the NHS surcharge, paid parking in hospitals for health service staff, the algorithm’s A-level results, no free school meals throughout the summer.

Boris Johnson emphatically declares the government’s position is not for turning one day, and then grants the request that he had previously asserted was out of the question. The impression is that of a flaky monarch preoccupied with things other than governance. His default position is to refuse any requests; but, once he realises that there is less of a headache in actually granting them, he capitulates.

Over the past year, there has been an extraordinary level of civic activity – lobbying, organising petitions, applying regular pressure in the media and now humiliating the ruling party. And by reaching into its own pockets to feed hungry children, the British public has now become an informal branch of the state.

It would be reasonable to suppose the expansion of our role into funders of services that should be provided by the government is an embarrassment for the Conservative party. Successive government U-turns expose a party that is besieged, haemorrhaging good will and stuck in a loop of bad PR. Even if it gives in on the latest school meals campaign, all that will remain is a bad taste in the mouth. The government’s record will be marked not by its relenting, but by all the headlines around the world about how it was brought to its knees by a young footballer, and a timeline of shame on Rashford’s social media.

But there is another scenario, in which the Tories realise there is a way to outsource state spending to the public and suffer only short-term bad press. Already forced to commit to more public spending than it ever would have contemplated in normal times, the government’s refusal to extend the paltry sums needed to extend the free schools meals programme is not a matter of money but of precedent. If the Tories can establish that the role of government is not in fact to feed children, and the public can do a fine job of it instead, then they kill two birds with one stone. Problems either go away or diminish through the efforts of private individuals, as does the expectation on them to address those problems.

Slowly, a parallel infrastructure has been developing over a decade of austerity, where we are poised to scramble and fulfil the urgent needs of hungry, homeless and sick people through food banks, voluntary immigration support and private donations to the NHS . There is no time to petition the king, who has made it clear that there are bigger matters for the court to attend to, and who tells us that we are doing a fine job of it without wasting the time and resources of government.

It is a common feature of corrupt regimes – when the people resign themselves to the fact that they are on their own, they develop all sorts of coping mechanisms. In my birth country of Sudan, most neighbourhoods fashioned such an efficient system for collecting and disposing of waste that when the government eventually started a trial waste-disposal scheme there was no rubbish to collect.

This is the essence of David Cameron’s “big society”: not a politics that empowers local communities in a redistribution of decision-making and resources from central government, but abdicating on the responsibilities of central government so that local communities have no choice but to pick up the pieces themselves.

All the while, the Conservative party can continue to hammer home the theme of fiscal responsibility and to entrench the view that it is the reluctant but determined arbiter between the deserving and undeserving poor, between those who are living on benefits as a lifestyle and those who are in genuine need, between immigrants abusing the system and those who are a useful addition to the British economy.

A new danger is on the horizon – that we become a GoFundMe nation. The Conservatives will look on and hand out honours to those who have galvanised the public to do the government’s work, but maintain their electoral prospects by casting themselves as the bulwark against the hordes of exploiters.

The NHS has already fallen to this readjustment of expectations as it leans ever more heavily on the likes of the knighted “Capt Tom”, private donations and volunteers, cheered on by a government that urges us to leave politics aside and come together as a nation.

We can do both. We will help the NHS. We will feed our neighbours’ children. But we should never forget that it’s not our job to do so.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Defends Attorney General Pam Bondi Amid Epstein Memo Backlash
Renault Shares Drop as CEO Luca de Meo Announces Departure Amid Reports of Move to Kering
Senior Aides for King Charles and Prince Harry Hold Secret Peace Summit
Anti‑Semitism ‘Normalised’ in Middle‑Class Britain, Says Commission Co‑Chair
King Charles Meets David Beckham at Chelsea Flower Show
If the Department is Really About Justice: Ghislaine Maxwell Should Be Freed Now
NYC Candidate Zohran Mamdani’s ‘Antifada’ Remarks Spark National Debate on Political Language and Economic Policy
×