Taking Liberties reports that ASH Scotland have just received a quite obscene amount of money even for a collection of tax-scroungers who spend most of their time begging for handouts.
You see, this is how ASH Scotland currently derives its £1m income.
If you look very carefully, you'll just be able to make out the sliver of pie which is freely and knowingly sent to this 'charity' by the public. If Jaffa Cakes contained an orangey bit as meagre as that, Trading Standards would be on the phone to McVities pretty damn sharpish. But it's set to get even smaller with the award of half a fucking million quid from the Big Lottery Fund. Yes, seriously, half a fucking million.
Hey, I know what you're thinking. What on earth could warrant a government body increasing ASH funding by 50% in the midst of a recession? Well, here you go.
The BIG Lottery Fund has awarded just under £500,000 to ASH Scotland over the next four years to manage a research partnership with the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. The aim of the project is to develop knowledge which will lead to better interventions within homes of smoking parents/carers and better health.
Now, I hate to say I told you so but ... err ... I told you so in October.
John Tilley from the Department of Health, said:
“Action on smoking in the home will be a necessary part of future strategy on tobacco control."
And don't think that because you don't have kids that you are getting away with this. ASH Scotland already have a stated aim of banning smoking in all private vehicles [pdf page 14] by 2010, and half a mill leaves a lot of scope for diversifying the message they can give to their knob end chums in the scottish parliament.
What on earth were the Big Lottery fund thinking in awarding such a hideous amount of money to this appalling collection of righteous bansturbators and dangerously dictatorial finger-waggers, with the express intent of intruding on personal privacy? Especially when their work is so poorly valued by the public (lottery players included) that ASH would barely be able to afford a few desks and a cup of tea via public donations?
The Chief Executive of the Big Lottery Fund is Peter Wanless. He is on Twitter, so perhaps you'd like to ask him that very question.
