HOW would you feel if the next time you went to withdraw some money at the cash point, it prompted you to donate some of your hard-earned funds to charity?

Or when your credit card bill came in, you were invited to sign away a sum to a good cause?

These are just two of the measures being put forward by the Government in a bid to make us give more to charity.

Although Britons rank highly in terms of charitable giving, David Cameron and colleagues want us to give more.

It’s all part of the Tory leader’s “Big Society” agenda, which envisions citizens doing more for themselves – and each other.

Under the proposals – which are out for consultation until March – we could also be prompted to give money while filling in tax returns, applying for passports and driving licences.

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude is championing the idea. He said: “If there were to be an understanding that people might give on average one per cent of their income, that would generate another £4 billion of giving.”

One per cent of income might not sound a lot to the likes of David Cameron and the other millionaires in his cabinet – but to many ordinary working people facing unemployment and pay freezes in 2011, it would be a stretch too far.

With inflation going up and salaries falling behind, not to mention rising fuel costs and general economic uncertainty, you could say the Tories haven’t exactly picked the right time to come up with this bright idea.

British folk are hugely generous – just look at the millions that pour into Comic Relief and Children In Need and the like. But there is a limit to what people can give.

And there should be a limit to the pressure they are put under to give more.

I objected to a York store which, over Christmas, was asking customers at the till point “if they would like to” donate a pound to charity. It felt like press-ganging, and made you feel a right Ebenezer if you said ‘no’ in front of a queue of other customers.

Much better is Waitrose’s approach. Once you have bought your shopping, you receive a plastic token, worth one pound, which you can deposit in a glass bank by the exit, which is earmarked for local charities. Each month, Waitrose donates £1,000 to three good causes.

Big business, with its big profits, should lead the way in bolstering charity coffers. Why not let the credit card companies and the banks make a charitable donation each time we use their services? After all, they are making a mint from us.

Better still, let Cameron and his rich cronies put their hands in their own pockets – and keep well out of ours.


New dads Elton John and David Furnish need to reflect

SO Elton John is now a father, at the age of 63.

Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John was born in California on Christmas Day, to a surrogate mother.

The baby boy, who weighed 7lbs and 15oz, is the star’s first child with partner David Furnish, whom he married in a civil partnership in 2005.

Speculation will be rife as to which – if any – of the two men’s sperm was used to conceive the child.

Short of being able to fuse two male sperms together to make a baby, it must be quite a tough call for gay partners to decide which one of them will be the biological father of their child.

In many respects, it’s similar to straight couples with fertility problems opting to use donated sperm and/or eggs to create a family.

But it’s not so much the mechanisms of making baby Zachary that should demand contemplation – it’s his future.

We wish for him a happy and healthy life within a loving family – from the makers of Tantrums And Tiaras.

Perhaps there will be a sequel – Diapers And Diamonds.