OPINION: I don't want to give to charity

In the last couple of years it's become almost impossible to walk through any town centre without being approached by chuggers.

No sooner do you log into any form of social media without reading someone asking for a donation for a walk or swim or skydive or Himalyan trek or something else to raise cash for some worthy cause.

The Royal Mail must make a fortune from the amount of junk mail from charities asking for regular payments to a variety of causes and daytime television viewers are bombarded at most ad breaks with requests for "Just £2 per month".

And if you dare check your emails you'll always find someone doing something exciting for charity.

It's soon going to be the season of the charity shopping catalogues... ' Tis the season to be generous.

I teach part-time. Along with many other schools the youngsters are encouraged to take part in charitable events, there's a 6th form organised charity Christmas Fair, each school house has its own charity. Pupils are told it's good to care for others and raise money for charity and, yes, I have taken part and done my bit. I've written songs used for Comic Relief and Children in Need events, I've swum stupid numbers of lengths or municipal pools and I've donated to friends and family who have (or currently are) saving the world/caring for the sick/etc.

But why?

Isn't charity fundamentally wrong?

When I think of the causes I have donated to over the years I am shocked that the vast majority of these causes isn't fully funded by central government.

Think about it.... Cancer Research, the Royal National Lifeboat Institute, the Stroke Association, Marie Curie Cancer Care.... The list could go on and on and on.

There are some charities that I don't support too - as a pacifist I don't ever donate to the Royal British Legion and its younger doppelgänger Help for Heroes - both of which I think go beyond caring for injured personnel and end up glorifying war. Something I find abhorrent. But, if we as a nation do send young men and women overseas to fight, the state should provide the cost of care.

So why don't we? Surely, in a modern, civilised society all the charities I've just named, and many more that I haven't named, should have no need to exist because everything they do should be funded by the state.

Is it a sleight of hand by governments dating back decades?

As far as I can see it's simply a way of keeping taxation lower than it ought to be.

Instead those who care more or are directly affected by a particular "issue" choose to pay a tax by donating to charity.

Governments keep taxes lower and wash their hands of responsibility of a huge swathe of things.

Personally, I'd rather pay more in taxes and see lots of these "good cause" charities go out of business.

Charity should be for extras.

Charity should not be for basics.

Whoever stands to be PM in 2015 (or sooner should the coalition fall apart before that), they'll have more chance of getting my vote if they said they'd increase taxation and take responsibility for many of the basic and fundamental things which are currently done by the charitable sector.

In the likely absence of political will is there another solution?

Yes.

We should make 2012 the Year of Charity - and the best thing we should all do, to support the most essential charities, is spend 366 days not donating to any of them and forcing the government to take its responsibilities seriously.

So, next time, before you put your hand in your pocket to give to a flag day or sponsor your work colleague stop and think - is this seething the government should be doing? If it is maybe you'd do the cause more good by NOT donating.