Activism
Collins was appointed a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order in 1994 in recognition of his work on behalf of the Prince's Trust. He is also a member of the Fraternal Order of Freemasonry and initiated at SOHO Lodge No. 3 in London. Collins has stated he is a supporter of animal rights and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). In 2005, he donated an autographed drumstick in support of PETA's campaign against Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Collins also has a long-standing interest in the Alamo. He has collected hundreds of artefacts related to the famous 1836 battle in San Antonio, Texas, narrated a light and sound show about the Alamo, and spoken at related events. He has completed a book entitled "The Alamo and Beyond: A Collector's Journey" published by Statehouse Press, based in Buffalo Gap, Texas.
Collins has often been mentioned erroneously in the British media as being a supporter of the Conservative Party and an opponent of the Labour Party. This derives from the famous article in the Sun, printed on the day of the 1992 UK general election, titled "If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights", which claimed that Collins was among several celebrities who were planning to leave Britain in the event of a Labour victory. Shortly before the 2005 election (when Collins was living in Switzerland), Noel Gallagher is reported as saying: "Vote Labour. If you don't and the Tories get in, Phil is threatening to come back." However, Collins has since stated that although he did once claim many years earlier that he might leave Britain if most of his income was taken in tax, which was Labour Party policy at that time for top earners, he has never been a Conservative Party supporter and he left Britain for Switzerland in 1994 purely because he met a woman who lived there. He said of Gallagher: “I don’t care if he likes my music or not. I do care if he starts telling people I’m a wanker because of my politics. It’s an opinion based on an old misunderstood quote.” Despite his claim that he did not leave Britain for tax purposes, he was one of several super-rich figures living in tax havens who were singled out for criticism in a report by the charity Christian Aid in 2008. Questioned about his politics by Mark Lawson in an interview broadcast in 2009, Collins said: "My father was Conservative but it wasn't quite the same, I don't think, when he was alive. Politics never loomed large in our family anyway. I think the politics of the country were very different then."
Collins founded the Little Dreams Foundation in February 2000, which aims to "realise the dreams of children in the fields of sports and art" by providing future prodigies aged 4 to 16 years with financial, material, and mentoring support with the help of experts in various fields.
Collins supports the South African charity the Topsy Foundation, which provides relief services to some of South Africa's most under-resourced rural communities through a multi-faceted approach to the consequences of HIV and AIDS and extreme poverty. He donates all royalties earned in South Africa to the organisation.
Collins is a patron of the charity Children in Hunger, a small UK based charity working to combat child poverty in Brazil.
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