Could you live on 98 per cent of your pay?

Nobody could accuse Lord Joffe of lacking tenacity. The man who defended Nelson Mandela at his trial in South Africa in 1964 was subsequently banned for almost 30 years from the country of his birth. Still though he campaigned for human rights and Mr Mandela’s eventual release.

As a peer in the House of Lords since 2000, Lord Joffe, an ardent supporter of euthanasia, introduced a private member’s Bill on the “right to die” in 2002. The latest amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill, to clarify the law on taking relatives abroad to die, is due to be tabled this month.

He is also self-deprecating. “I am tenacious, yes. I suppose that I’ve always felt hard work makes up for a lack of natural talent,” he said.

The controversy that euthanasia arouses has put Lord Joffe’s work in the spotlight. Yet he is less well known as a crusader on another issue: how to persuade more people to give money to charity. The former chairman of Oxfam, he also led the Government’s Giving Campaign to find new ways to spark generosity. “We were quite successful but there is an awful lot more to be done before we have a real culture of giving in this country.”

The latest initiative to benefit from Lord Joffe’s persistence is Geared for Giving, a campaign launched last year to encourage more employers to offer payroll giving schemes, whereby workers sign up to donate a percentage of their salary to charity each month.  Read more at Times Online.