The Big Society

Two days ago David Cameron announced the beginning of 'The Big Society,' the flagship policy of his election campaign. Throughout the campaign I felt that this was all rhetoric and no policy and since the public had reacted so negatively to it I presumed they would simply forget the idea and carry on with real politics. However I was wrong and the Big Society has begun. The question on everyone's lips, including many Conservative party members is 'What is the Big Society?' So far every explanation from David Cameron has failed to properly elucidate the real, tangible policies behind this idea. For the moment I'm going to suppress my natural cynicism and try to unpack the Big Society and find the real plans and policy.

The keystone of this idea is for the state to step back from communities and volunteer projects throughout the country; by allowing the volunteers themselves to take control of their actions they can bypass the bureaucracy which apparently serves only to blockade their efforts. Power over public services will be opened up to local communities and individuals so people can control their own lives; parents opening their own schools, communities deciding how council money is spent and the election of headteacher's and head police officers are a few examples of this. Cameron's plan is to give the British people the opportunity to replace an overbearing and inefficient government and thus strengthening communities throughout the country.

That seems to be heart of the Big Society; the first question I want to ask is 'Do these collected policies equate to this social rejuvenation which David Cameron keeps predicting?' My answer is a clear NO. No incentives have been given for people to start giving up their free time to volunteer, Cameron is gambling the efficiency of public services on the hope that there will be double as many volunteers simply by reducing government involvement and there is simply no reason to believe this is so. This is why the Big Society is made up of so much rhetoric, the plans, the policy and the expectations simply don't match up in any logical way. Given that this is such nonsensical policy we should examine the reason for this obfuscation.

The first reason that comes to mind is that this is a attempt by the government to appear to be connected and in touch with the public; a common criticism of Labour was their disconnection from the peoples needs and thus the Tories may want to work hard to prevent being viewed similarly. Several other policies have shown this desire for the public's opinion, for example before the emergency budget George Osbourne asked for the people to send their ideas about possible cuts to their local councils. However this is far too big a campaign to just be a publicity stunt and there is another much more convincing possibility.

We know that David Cameron is fiercely neo-liberal, though since becoming the Conservative leader he has been quiet about it, the key aim of which is to reduce the state as much as possible and thus cut taxes. Margaret Thatcher believed that once the state was reduced charities and private interests would fill in the role of public services; the 80s proved this theory wrong, greed multiplied not charitable contributions. It follows that David Cameron has returned to this philosophy of reducing the state but instead of expecting the gaps to fill themselves he is trying to induce the voluntary sector to step up before cutting back these vital public services. Furthermore it allows David Cameron and his party to rename drastic public service cuts as the reorganising of British society and make the transition much smoother.

In conclusion this is Thatcherism for a new generation, instead of the Iron Lady brow beating us we have a slick PR campaign; whereas Thatcher used the battle against socialism to justify her actions Cameron is using the idea of 'giving power back to the people' to enforce his neo-liberal agenda. I can understand how anyone in government would want to find anyway to cut public services without causing to much pain in order to cut the budget deficit but this is not a measure to cut the deficit, this is an attempt to permanently shift the burden of paying for public services from taxation to the sweat and toil of local communities. This is not 'everyone pulling together' it is the disowning of the state's responsibility and a step back in the development of British state.