The Big Society? Or the Big Excuse?
The Prime Minister says it's 'a call to action'. But all the polling evidence suggests the overwhelming majority of the electorate remain sceptical, seeing the emphasis on voluntary, community-based initiatives as no more than a political 'fig leaf', a convenient pretext to justify the biggest peacetime cuts in public sector jobs and services in living memory.
That's why David Cameron went out of his way during his keynote party conference speech in Birmingham last month to de-couple his 'big idea' from the Government's deficit reduction programme.
He reminded his audience that one of his first regional visits on becoming party leader five years ago was to Balsall Heath, just down the road from the convention centre. Once a notorious 'red light' district, its residents succeeded where bureaucracy and officialdom had failed.
Lawful community action cleared the streets of prostitution and parents are now able to accompany their children to and from school without having to dodge the seedy detritus of the street sex industry.
In an effort to scotch suggestions of any ulterior motive behind his vision of the Big Society, Mr Cameron pointed out that his tour of Balsall Heath had come long before the scale of Britain's economic woes became apparent.
But his argument failed to allay suspicions. Off-the-record or leaked comments, even from some of the Prime Minister's cabinet colleagues, suggest some of them suspect the only person who truly believes in the Big Society is Mr Cameron himself!
Jesse Norman
But now we know of at least one other. 'The Big Society' is also the title of a book just published by the University of Buckingham Press. Its author, Jesse Norman, also happens to be the Conservative MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire.
Mr Norman, elected to Parliament last May, is the Chairman of the All Party Group on Employee Ownership, a principle which appears to chime in with the notion of all those 'bottom-up' solutions the Prime Minister keeps talking about, in preference to what he sees as the previous Labour government's Big State 'bottom-down' approach.
And you can see how Mr Norman's enthusiasm for employee ownership chimes in with the Big Society itself, bearing in mind the example perhaps of the John Lewis Partnership. It's a highly successful retail chain which is owned by its workforce.
But how can this work in communities where those who are fortunate enough to have jobs may simply not have the time or energy to set up their own free schools or volunteer to serve society in the myriad other ways envisaged in Mr Norman's treatise?
This week on the Politics Show, we're putting it to the test, with a particular focus on what the Big Society might mean for our rural communities.
Our Environment Correspondent David Gregory will be reporting from the village of Feckenham in Worcestershire. The nearest town is Redditch six miles away, and with just one bus a week many villagers without their own transport were in danger of becoming increasingly cut off.
That was the cue for a display 'Big Society' thinking in microcosm (if that's not a contradiction in terms) even before the term had become general currency. A group of local volunteers banded together to set up their own village shop, open seven days a week. This award-winning venture has since expanded to provide a cafe, also staffed by volunteers.
And that's not the only way in which it may be seen as a Big Society 'model village'. Feckenham's busy village hall has activities every night of the week, including a cinema club, the FeckenOdeon.
But let's not kid ourselves.
It's not every town or village that has such a concentration of articulate, motivated people with time on their hands. The people at the shop point out that the voluntary principle does not come cost-free: you don't need to be a particularly large organisation to start racking-up bills for phones, administration, postage and accommodation, especially in our more sparsely-populated areas.
Remploy, who offer work for people with a wide range of disabilities, are warning that the Government is demanding they deliver value for money and must expect payment by results. Remploy say there's a danger providers will "concentrate their efforts where they can maximise their outcomes with minimum expenditure". This suggests predominantly rural areas like Worcestershire could be at a disadvantage compared with the towns and cities.
But perhaps the Biggest Question about the Big Society is whether enough people, especially younger working people or those with families, can become sufficiently engaged with the principles of voluntary action to make a difference: to give up their precious leisure time in service of the greater good.
The Prime Minister never misses an opportunity to stress that "bottom-up, not top-down" approach.
So it's perhaps appropriate that here at least is one feature of the 'New Politics' which will either succeed or be tested to destruction not in Westminster's lobbies, but here at street-level in your town or village and in mine. A novel twist on the idea of 'voting with your feet' perhaps?
From Downing Street to your street, in fact. Sounds like one for the Politics Show.
Join us at our usual time of 12 noon on BBC One on Sunday 7 November 2010.
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Hello, I'm Patrick Burns, the BBC's Political Editor in the Midlands. It's a region of five and a half million people and in many ways a microcosm of Britain as a whole - with diverse, exciting politics to match.
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This is just a lot of tosh from a toff. Only a toff wouldn't realise that society already exists in most communities and that the people carrying out are already pushed to the limit with volunteering. The Big Society is an excuse to cut the state - no more no less, at any cost with impunity. It is articulated by a load of multi-millionaires whose next best skill, after telling us that we, the ordinary working families in this wonderful land, should be doing the 'right' thing, is tax avoidance. Of course in this government's realm, if you belong to the bureaucratic classes, public servants (administrators, managers, ward clerks, secretaries, porters, etc) sick, or vulnerable, you don't count as society anyway, so it's OK to call you names and dig up contempt and disgust of those fearing for their jobs to justify consigning them to the scrapheap with all those scroungers (the undeserving poor) with impunity. They're nasty those Tories (including in this undeserving rich lots mini-me Lib Dems, after all Nick Clegg was a member of the Young Conservatives at Uni so he's a comfortable bedfellow).
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Replacing the State with volunteers, makes them sound like the 'Tory Tea Party' movement in the US, get rid of public services, bring on private enterprise for everything. Reduce the burden of debt on the children of tomorrow by hitting the lives of the children of today.
My question is: Whose children will benefit from this austerity? The answer is DC's and GO's children along with the children of the undeserving rich. Nothing will change for them.
Why should today's children pay the price of Osborne's quick fix to the deficit so the children of the rich can have it all tomorrow.
I'm cynical because I lived under the last Tory Government and I don't believe a word they say. I've heard it all before, the name calling, the slagging, the Big Society (charities and volunteering replacing the State), the broken promises, the nastiness and so much more of the same.
Thatcher and her crew did so much harm to this country and the children of yesterday and now they're using the children of tomorrow as an excuse for whipping the children of today.
What a nasty lot.
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When 0.5m - 1.6m people are sacked by this government they'll have plenty of time to build new schools and police our streets. The jobseekers allowance could be pooled to pay for bricks and uniforms.
Where's the problem in that?
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Has anyone given any thought as to where these "Big Society" volunteers are going to come from? I have noticed that most of the volunteers in my local charity shops and other volunteer-based organisations seem to be in their early 60's and are predominantly, although not exclusively, female. But the government has other plans for this age group. i.e. full-time paid employment until the age of 66. Are other age groups going to be specifically targeted for volunteering duties, or does the coalition perhaps believe that people in their sixties will work full-time, look after their own elderly relatives, help their children look after the grandchildren and then, just for a spot of relaxation, use any "free" time they may have left over to run the "Big Society"?
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This Government has brought out a new "Localism Bill" designed to bring Governance right down to the very doorstep of the people. The people are going to be able to have their say-but who will be listening to them? Are they listening NOW?
Now, of course under the Coalitions name of David Cameron’s, “Big Society”, this is yet another extra layer of EU Governance which our own Government estimates will require costs starting around £21 million. Is that a joke-does that even cover a referendum for 12 elected Mayors or the extra Pay Packets forever? Or is it £2bn on to £7bn or a great deal more? Is this why we are having vast vicious CUTS after CUTS taking money from us, to pay for THIS? Paying more for almost everything we buy? Supposedly to get this Country out of the mess it is in, yet the people did not have any hand in creating the mess we are allegedly in.
I should mention that registered in the year 2000 in the ‘Statute of the Council of Europe’ on page 29 is this little Gem, “Statutory Resolution (2000)1 relating to the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe. (CLRAE) Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 15 March 2000 at the 702nd meeting of the Ministers' Deputies) All in keeping with what I am writing about today. All planned then. The UK’s Localism Bill that is going through our Parliament now, in 2011. The carving up forever of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. What on earth would we want to keep a British Government for if it can only obey the orders of foreigners
From the Council of Europe. Article 3 1. The CLRAE shall be composed of representatives holding a local or regional authority electoral mandate or a mandate as a person directly responsible to an elected local or regional body. Delegates shall be appointed according to the criteria and procedure established in the Charter, which will be adopted by the Committee of Ministers, each State ensuring in particular an equitable representation of its various types of local and regional authorities. End of quote.
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Mr Cameron's Big Society is about dividing ENGLAND up permanently into EU Regions with elected Mayors with Full CABINETS and all the entourage that goes with that Office. CAN WE REALLY AFFORD IT AT THIS TIME? How much for all the individual referendum? Millions? Billions? Whatever the cost even if it was in ONE British "penny" alone. IT IS TOO HIGH A PRICE TO PAY FOR THE LOSS OF OUR COUNTRY-FOREVER. The people will never forgive any of you when they find out the present MP's have chosen to do the EU's bidding rather than put their own Country and its people they are supposed to be governing according to our own Common Law Constitution and their faithful and true allegiance to the British Crown before all else.
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