I'm Sick of You Already, Conservative Majority.

As anyone who caught even a passing glimpse of my various social media feeds will know, I'm not happy with the result of the recent UK election. I truly believe that having a Conservative government in power for another term will do irreparable damage to things that make the UK great. Things like the NHS.

I did everything I could to keep them out at the time - that is, I voted for another party. I shared a few stories expressing my desire for change and encouraged people to vote. And I accept that the voting system our country currently has in place ruled the Conservatives the winning party. I also think that our current voting system is hugely flawed, but whinging about that now won't make much of a difference.

Now is the time to be proactive about the things that can be changed. The next five years are going to be a struggle for every poor person, every disabled person, every LGBT person, everyone from a social minority. And instead of sitting back and taking it, I think that the time now is to make sure that the voice of every one of those people is heard. No matter what. I think that now is the time that as many people as possible need to start getting involved in politics, pestering their local MPs to do everything in their power to stop our government exploiting people.

While it means a lot of hassle that we could probably do without in lives that are stressful enough as it is, I think it's necessary.

The election was less than a week ago and already I'm distraught at some of the legislation the Tories are trying to pass, not to mention the horrific way they've arranged their cabinet. The new minister for equality, Caroline Dinenage, voted against gay marriage. The new justice minister, Dominic Raab, also has a funny idea of equal rights, having previously shown opposition to laws that protect both gender and racial equality.

One of the first things the Conservatives did following their recent freedom from their coalition with the Liberal Democrats (who, we are learning, did a lot more over the past five years than most of us gave them credit for) has been to scrap the Human Rights Act. It's all very well them saying they have another idea for how to go about it, but the idea as a whole utterly undermines the importance of human rights in the first place. The fact that they can just do that is horrifying. The one ray of sunshine this situation has is Nicola Sturgeon. Her, and e-petitions.

As well as this, they've pushed to restore the legality of fox hunting, shown support for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and pushed forward the "snoopers' charters" bill that will require online organisations to retain and share individuals' private information.

All of this horrifies me. And it's all happened in less than a week. If I'm this distraught at what they can do to this country in such a short space of time, I can't imagine what they'll do to it in five whole years.

I will be doing everything in my power to stop them ruining the UK for everyone who lives here. For everyone who depends on it having a government that actually serves it people. This means I'll be writing about a million letters to my MP.

Who I do not expect to listen much to my concerns.

My MP is Iain Duncan Smith, who is quite well known now for figure-heading a lot of the legislation that caused a lot of people a lot of pain and suffering. His bigotry and total of lack of compassion is clear in his voting record, which shows him consistently cutting benefits, voting against gay and other minority rights and supporting war and nuclear weapon development funding.

I'm ashamed to live in his constituency. Which is a shame because I really like my house. And my area. And if I lived a few streets down, I'd have someone else. And literally anyone would have been an improvement on Iain Duncan Smith, as far as I'm concerned.

But I am still going to try. I will do whatever I can to make his toxic decisions difficult to make. I don't care how much it takes out of me or how impossible it might seem.

I suppose I shall start by writing to my MP about the things I am already taking issue with following his party's success. I will write as many letters as it takes to get his attention, to remind him that he is supposed to represent the opinions of his constituents and that I will make my opinion known at every opportunity.

After that, I'll do whatever else I have to. I hope I'm not alone.

I will not let any government tear apart my country without putting up a fight.

Your Pocket Is Not A Good Cause

At the end of last month, the world was talking about the impact of Indiana's recently passed 'religious freedom' law. Memories Pizza was among the first businesses to take advantage of it to refuse to serve LGBT customers. After receiving a huge backlash of people refusing to support such discriminatory behaviour, the pizzeria quickly closed.

And was then suddenly thrown an enormous amount of conservative report. Fuelled by famed American bigot Rush Limbaugh, the pizzeria owners were gifted nearly $850,000 by homophobes across the US.

In reaction to that overwhelming hate, Pizza 4 Equality was founded.

It seems wonderful.

In response to people funding hate and bigotry, Scott Wooledge created the Pizza 4 Equality GoFundMe page to prove that there are more people who would support love and acceptance for non-heteronormative people then would continue to throw money at the late Memories Pizza. The aim was to raised more than $850,000 to put towards Cyndi Lauper's True Colours Fund, a charity which promotes equality for LGBT people. In particular, the money is said to be going towards tackling LGBT youth homelessness, as it is estimated that 40% of homeless youth in America are LGBT teenagers who have been shunned or disowned by their families because of their sexuality.

This is a wonderful idea. The way that this campaign has tried to bring people together is a beautiful example of how humanity can combat hate. I got really excited about it. I even started writing about it in a feel good, 'look at all the nice people doing nice things' style article for the website I regularly contribute to.

And to do that I did some research to make sure I had all the facts right.

And came across this PDF of Cyndi Lauper's True Colours Fund's tax exemption form from 2013, which is marked 'Open to Public Inspection'.

And I was disgusted.

On the front page of it, there is a breakdown of all the money raised for the charity and how that money is then spent.

In the 'Prior Year' section, the money is broken down quite responsibly. Out of a total of $732,141 raised, a reasonable amount was spent on staff salaries and other expenses, leaving a grand total of $418,678 that actually go towards LGBT support.

That's fantastic. That's a lot of money that goes towards providing help for people who are regularly and cruelly prejudiced against in American culture.

But it didn't last.

Look back at that same section of the page to the 'Current Year' section. In 2013, the True Colours Fund raised a hell of a lot more money than the year before - when combining grants and contributions, investment income and 'other revenue' reaching a total of $874,467. That's nearly $150,000 more than in 2012.

That's incredible.

So how did they only have $40,509 going towards LGBT support in the end?

It even says in that one small box, before you look into anything deeper, salaries and employee benefit costs rose in that year from $127,653 to $391,500. That's more than double the amount. There is also a mysterious $391,437 in 'other expenses' - again more than twice the amount spent in 2012.

How is it possible that a charity can raise more money than ever before, and still put less of it towards actually doing good? What is the point in actually being a charity if it puts so little of its proceeds towards making a difference in the world?

Page 10 of the PDF offers a breakdown of functional expenses, noting the $337,951 spent on salaries and wages, on top of the $142,000 salary, plus nearly $8,000 in benefits of Executive Directer Gregory Lewis (found on page 7). Along with spending over $36,000 on 'office expenses', nearly $29,000 on 'information technology' and almost $53,000 on 'travel', their largest expense of $181,243 is categorised under 'Fees for services: Other'.

This is unbearably vague and an insult to the people who have donated money in good faith to this charity. It's disgusting behaviour and it exploits the people that the charity is supposed to support and the people who want to help do that. A lot of money is getting thrown away on unidentified, miscellaneous nothing.

There is no way that this is an acceptable way to use money that people have given specifically to further what is supposed to be a good cause.

And while the True Colours Fund is far from the only charity doing it, it is one that is currently claiming to be making a conscious effort to stand up to exactly that kind of exploitation. At least Memories Pizza was honest about its seediness.

Often, when people want to do something nice within the world, they put money towards a charity that they believe stand for something worth believing in. If the charity then keeps that money, no good is done. People who are entrusted with doing good in the world are doing nothing more than abusing the kindnesses of others. It's morally despicable.

People who want only to do a good deed should not have to do tons of background research into charities to make sure that the money will actually go to a good cause. The money simply should. It shouldn't be an option that it goes into someone's pockets.

It's fair to pay charity CEOs and Directors and whatever other big administrative roles pull in such huge cheques a comfortable amount of money, because their job is important in making a difference in the world. But when it leaves so little left to the actual charity, they may as well not bother running a charity at all. For all the good it really does.