Good blog post by David Skelton over at Platform 10. And interesting compared to what I posted this morning re Polly polemic and the concerted effort from the Left in it's attempted trashing of the "Big Society". "The response of the left towards the Big Society remains incoherent, disjointed and uncoordinated.".
"By failing to engage seriously in the Big Society agenda, the left is effectively disowning its own heritage. It is trying to suggest that the only relationship that matters is between the individual and the state."...By saying that the 'man in Whitehall knows best', the Labour Party continues to belittle the communities that gave birth to it."Hat-tip: "Must be Read" Twitter feed!
2 comments:
There's a big psychological problem with the Big Society and I think the phrase that the left are failing to engage with their heritage is a bloody cheek. The welfare state exists to replace what the Victorians regarded as the Big Society and I hate to say it but this does seem like a return to the dreaded Victorian values that those centre right in the U.K cling to.
There are plenty of studies which show that the idea of volunteering and numbers of volunteers increase where personal income is at its highest - in the USA the states with the highest levels of volunteers are those in the North East, the lowest level of volunteers is in the South. In Europe the leaders in the Big Society idea are Scandinavian countries, those with the highest taxation, highest levels of welfare state and highest levels of happiness.
Moving from state support to voluntary organisations taking up the slack needs to be explained better at the moment the Conservatives are great at soundbites but hopeless at getting the message across better than they should/could be.
Not sure about the Victorian values idea, it keeps getting mentioned but "those days" will never be seen again: Society (oops!) has changed beyond all recognition.
I have no doubt, as you say, that volunteering and numbers of volunteers increase with higher income/better personal situation but the idea of the BS (hahaha) is to make the role of the State less and I seriously beleive that less State involvement in people's lives will lead in the right direction; at last today they are trying to make that clearer, not sure what the problem has been but your last sentence is certainly true. And I've been bangoing on about it for months...the housing benefit hoohah, the NHS reforms, the free schools, the forests etc. Nearly all apallingly covered and 'communicated'. I think that will be their downfall. The Coalition has done loads already but nothing is seeping out to hoi polloi. The Guardian had a policy tracker last autumn and to their own embarrassment (I presume) proved the Caolition had delivered on 15% already after only 4 months
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