Boycott the British Heart Foundation

Some time back, I might have considered the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to be a respectable, honest, worthwhile charity.  Like a lot of charities here in the UK, the BHF have high street charity retail shops staffed with numerous unpaid volunteers.  These people willingly give up their free time to support the BHF.  Perhaps they are, all of them, being deceived by an organisation that is utterly intolerant of personal choice. 

The BHF has moved away from purely charitable activities and is now aggressively attacking those it claims it wants to help - smokers.  I suppose the BHF has never been keen on smoking, but they've never really joined the loudmouth temperance movement until the last couple of years.  The BHF probably hates you, and it seems to suggest that you are incapable of being a good parent -- it implies that you and your children are complete fucking morons.  It tells you this by disseminating unproven claims in its literature (PDF), and by supporting and funding hate pressure groups like ASH.

Take for example, ASH Wales's latest job posting for a Research and Policy Officer.  In the job description (Word), it states:

This is a Britsh (sic) Heart Foundation funded post and the contract term is tied to the funding.

Emphasis mine. Apart from the fact that ASH Wales is incapable of proofreading and spell checking their documents to correct minor typos (you're not really surprised by that are you?), we see that the BHF is funding a year-long contract position. Why would the BHF give ASH Wales up to £26,000 to fund ASH's lies and hate campaign? If you donated to the BHF, or purchased something in their shops, or bought their Christmas cards in another retail outlet, did you think that your money would then be used to support ASH Wales? I bet you fucking didn't think that at all. I bet you thought, as I would have, that your money would go to research treatments and cures for heart disease.

But instead, the BHF gives a year's worth of salary to ASH. I'm a bit lazy, so I haven't looked to see if the BHF receives any money directly from government. If they do, then the government is still funding ASH by proxy via the BHF, which we have long suspected is the case.

So I am calling for a boycott of the BHF. The BHF is no longer a charity -- not in the truest sense of the word. It is an activist hate group that is trying to control your lives, either directly or by proxy organisations. Do not give them your money. Do not buy their goods in their shops. Do not support their hate of your lifestyle. Sure, you could write a letter to them, if you feel like completely wasting your time. No, the only thing we can do is not give them our money. The thing is, the BHF is an organisation that could do very good things for people, but instead it's taken the political activist route of controlling our lives. It says as much, right on their website.

I haven't checked any other job postings for ASH yet. Do I really want to know?

Do you?

Meanwhile, in other news, the beloved Dick Puddlecote is learning first-hand that government agencies can do whatever the fuck they like, because standards only apply to everyone else.