On the Big Society and a recommendation for a much better blog than this one!

In response to my challenge to local Tories to explain the Big Society, and to say whether they share their Great Leader’s enthusiasm for the idea, a couple of brave Conservative candidates have raised their heads above the parapet. 

One comment comes, of course, from Rachael Bates who comments in true Momma Grizzly fashion: “The Big Society is about encouraging a resurgence of the volunteer sector and rightly saying that the state is not, and should not, be the answer to everything. It is about cutting red tape, decentralisation and allowing people to take proper control of their own lives rather than being dictated to by central government. There are many fantastic examples throughout Brighton of the Big Society in action and David Cameron is completely right to allow this to grow and flourish. It is about time we said goodbye to Big Government and hello to the Big Society.”

Clive asks Rachael: “Could you explain how you are promoting ‘a resurgence of the volunteer sector’ by cutting their grants? The Standard yesterday ran a short piece about a London-based voluntary network which had been excluded from a Big Society promotional event because it supports the ‘living wage’ campaign. Perhaps Rachael and her friends can explain how this squares with not ‘being dictated to by central government’?”

When reading what Momma Grizzly says, I begin to lose the will to live.  Rachael, you’ve just turned 22, for goodness sake.  Go out, have some fun, get a life.  If I can find the strength to respond, if there are so many examples throughout Brighton (any in Hove?) of the Big Society in action, why do we need Big Government to tell us we need to do it? It is about time we said goodbye to Big clichés and hello to a bit of Original Thinking.

The other Tory to comment was Peter Booth, one of the ill-fated candidates in East Brighton, who says that it is “making little people big! It is that simple. Ideas should start from individuals, work up to groups and then influence government (local and national).”  So, if I get this right, the Big Society that little people have worked in groups and then influenced the government to launch the Big Society?  I thought that it was an idea conceived by David Cameron and forced on an unsuspecting Conservative Party and nation.  Silly me.  But Peter says that “the ‘left’ don’t get it because their only answer is to pour money into everything.  That has proved not to work.”  Pouring money into everything has proved not to work?  I thought the Tories supported subsidising the banks, bankers, etc.  Finally, Peter suggests that the government should “let people decide how their own lives work.”  I DO get it, the Big Society allows Boots, Vodaphone et al decide for themselves how their own tax lives work.

‘Clive’ rejects Peter Booth’s explanation: “Money is generally quite handy if you want to set up some local project or other, that’s the problem. Shame their aren’t some lefties in government to pour some out. What tickles me is that the right generally accuse the left of being utopian and silly and blah blah blah, yet here we have a notion – lots of people working voluntarily, for nothing – that knocks all that into a cocked hat for daftness. People pay their taxes and expect to get something back, not to be told to go away and do it themselves.”

Paul Perrin (UKIP activist par excellance) thinks I am ‘simple’ minded to ask what ‘big society’ is. He says that “the government should be looking at *PROBLEMS* and then thinking about solutions.  But yet again we have a government vanity project ‘Big Society’ looking for problems to solve. Only the state can afford such stupid indulgence, because they don’t need to justify it to anyone other then themselves. Cameron announced his passion for ‘Big Society’ a month after the EU announced 2011 as ‘The year of the volunteer’. The EU required each member to design and deliver a programme to support this idiocy, and Cameron obliged. What is ‘Big Society’? A label that costs us a fortune and gives us nothing.”

Clive congratulates Paul by observing that when he managed 4 sentences before mentioning the EU and asks if this is a record.

There is more of the Clive / Paul Perrin love in in the comments section of this blog.  If you don’t have a life, you might enjoy the exchanges

Dr Faust has a problem with the Big Society (surely not!).  He writes: “The problem with ‘Big Society’ for me is that I think its a great idea – if it means that we help and support each other simply because we share the same planet, and that we are stronger when we work together. The trouble for Cameron and the Tories is that it is fundamentally a socialist principle, and so they don’t believe in it, and will never convince us that they do.  The danger for Labour (in particular) and the Green Party is that they think the kind of services and strutures to bring this about need to be provided by the state – rather than focus on the outcomes that are being sought and harnessing local, voluntary activity. At least the Green Party have more of a recent tradition of community based initiatives. They must resist the move to statism that would undermine this.”

Christopher Hawtree’s view will resonate with many: “I suspect that the dreadful title of ‘Big Society’, which means nothing, was the result of a ‘brainstorming’ session. If people are doing something voluntarily, they do not want David Cameron to come along and hijack it for his own purposes.”  If you are right, Chris, I imagine it was a brainstorming session of one, DC himself. 

The best comment, I feel comes from ‘Dani’.  (Great to have you on board Dani.  I have been a long term admirer of you and your politics).  She writes: “How exactly is David Cameron “allowing” voluntary activity to grow and flourish? It takes zero effort on the government’s part for ordinary people to get on with organising community activity as they always have. But the government can easily shut down a lot of the fantastic community work that is happening in Brighton and around the country, by slashing funding to local government with the inevitable knock-on effect on the grants that sustain community and voluntary organisations. Voluntary organisations can’t run on thin air, even those who rely heavily on volunteers.”  Spot on.  Rachael Bates should listen and learn from your experience in Brighton politics over the last 20 years or so.

And finally, Serenus Zeitblom writes eloquently on the subject.  “I immediately thought of the Cones Hotline, the Citizen’s Charter, John Major’s Back to Basics campaign – all of which seemed to me to have the same roots and all of which became objects of ridicule.”  Serenus has written a great blog of his own Notes from a Broken Society which I commend to you.  A great read, in fact a must read.  Much better than this blog!

Doorstep Brighton 9: A Round Up of Campaigning for May’s Local Elections

The Ghost of Nobby Clarke has an interesting take on Hollingdean and Stanmer which will bring joy to the heart of Momma Grizzly (Rachael Bates).  The Ghost believes that the Green’s Sven Rufus will do well enough in Hollingdean and Stanmer to take enough votes away from the Labour candidates (Jeane Lepper, Pat Hawkes and Christine Simpson) to allow one Tory through the middle.  If this was to be the case, then it would be Christine Simpson who would lose out (little known and disadvantaged by the order on the ballot paper) and Momma Grizzly would emerge victorious given that she would be the Tory at the top of the ballot paper (the other Tories being Robert Labs and Patrick Loewe).  However, I really don’t think that scenario will be played out.  If there is to be a split result, it will be Sven Rufus and Jeane Lepper elected, and choose one other from several.

Dan Wilson is convinced that the electorate won’t be fooled by the 1% cut in Council Tax.  They are, he says, smarter than Mary Mears or I give them credit for.  However, he thinks that the cost of parking permits may be more successful: “I think if you want to compare the Mearcon to a masterplan, looking at her move on resident parking is more persuasive. That’s clever, attractive to many and also brassy in its cynicism. Straw poll today and last evening is that a 1% decrease is of little interest. Plenty of people, however, are concerned about libraries, BrightStart and all manner of things.”  Christopher Hawtree agrees with Dan: “I have never heard anybody voice a particular objection to the Council tax.”  I think you are both probably right, but the 1% cut will have the effect of galvanizing Tory activists who seem excited by this measure.  I guess they need to be excited about something as the Big Society doesn’t quite seem to have motivated the troops.

Steampunk accuses me of attempting to “stir things ups amongst the opposition” which he says “are a distraction just now.”  Regarding the cuts he says “As you well know, the Conservative led council are implementing an ‘intelligent decomissioning’ process (conveniently timetabled to start after the election!) to decide which services to stop providing entirely and which ones to outsource to the lowest bidder. The budget proposal explains that these upcoming cuts won’t take full effect until the next financial year 2012/13 so the 250 jobs about to go are just the tip of the iceberg. The ‘intelligent’ part is the device by which every council service comes to be commissioned, either from the public sector, profit-motivated private sector or the voluntary sector (crippled by grant cuts despite warm words about the ‘big society’, and the empty invitation just a smoke screen for privatisation) – meaning that future job cuts will be dissembled.”  I agree with much of what Punky has said.  As for stirring things up in the opposition, that is not my intention, but I see little evidence of Labour being willing and able to work with the Greens.

Clive applauds Steampunks analysis, but has no kind work for your humble Blogger: “Remarkable that the BPB regards all this with chuckling indulgence, while still finding space to heap more abuse on Paul Elgood. If he isn’t Roy Pennington he might be Reg Prentice.”  Well, Clive, sometimes you have to laugh or else you’d cry.  I don’t mean to belittle what is happening to local government, the voluntary sector, the NHS, education, etc. etc.  Reg Prentice? Ouch!  As for Paul Elgood, can’t a boy/girl just have a little bit of fun.  What do others think?  Should I lay off Paul Elgood and the Lib Dems?  Your choice.  I could either ignore them completely for the relevance they are, or should I continue to make reference to their slow, well deserved demise?

On the Reg Prentice front, I have attracted support from an East Brighton Tory candidate, Peter Booth, who is determined to ruin my street credibility!  He writes that he fully agrees with my view that it will be great when it is no longer necessary to mention the sexual orientation of candidates. He writes: “The combined ‘left’ just do not see that this is not an issue anymore (well not in our party). Try NOT to live in the past. After all there are more openly gay Conservative MP’s than all other parties put together. For the record and before the criticisms start – 100% of the Conservative candidates standing in East Brighton are openly gay.”

Simon Williams, a very fine former Green councillor in Brighton and Hove, and someone for whom I have great respect, offers a very sensible response to my comment regarding the announcement by the Greens of their LGBT candidates: You need to remember they are talking to people in those groups probably more than to the wider ‘world’. Were we to enter some kind of prejudice free paradise where minority groups could feel safe and valued (we haven’t quite yet in the case of LGBT people despite many legal advances), it would still be important for progressive political parties to engage with and showcase their commitment to them. Announcing candidates who identify from these communities is a big part of that. Rather than see it as a defensive reaction against prejudice, progressive commentators should take pride in the fact that all the local main parties are courting these groups – it’s what makes local democratic politics tick. You suggest that LGBT population is more than 16% in Brighton & Hove. There’s no verifiable demographic measurement, obviously, but if you challenged me to a wager, I think 16%, as a finger in the air take, is about right.”  As expected, a thoughtful, insightful comment from Simon.  I would not wish to take issue with what he has said.

And finally, the innocent Christopher Hawtree is in a state of shock after being received by a naked lady.  I’m not sure who was the most excited by this encounter.  Certainly not excited by their encounter with this blog are those who are Googling ‘sex photo’ or ‘explicit sex photo’ and are being directed to the rather revealing picture of me posing in the shadows of Big Ben, wearing just a sheet and a rather alluring smile ….  Reg Prentice would certainly not approve!

A Big Challenge to Brighton & Hove Tories: Do you believe in the Big Society?

David Cameron has failed one of the first tests of politics. If you have a Big Idea and nobody gets it, try to drop it quietly.  Cameron’s Big Idea is the Big Society and not even his mother likes it.  The problem is, nobody understands what the brand is.

Cuts in funding to national and local government, to schools, the NHS and to charities has resulted that the idea has been rejected at birth.

Cameron has said that the Big Society is “my absolute passion”.  Norman Smith, the BBC’s chief political correspondent, said “The Big Society is crucial to David Cameron’s political prospects precisely because it is his Big Idea, his “mission”.  The danger therefore if it flops is that he will be personally identified with that failure and Tory MPs will point accusing fingers towards him for not focusing on a more clear cut, traditional Conservative message.”

But before that, I have a Big Challenge to local Big Conservatives (Rachael Bates, Rob Buckwell et al): What the heck is the Big Society.  Please can one of you explain what your Great Leader is on about, is the Big Society going to feature in May’s local election campaign, and do you want to pledge your unqualified support to Cameron and to his Big Idea?

The policies of Milton Friedman are being implemented by the ConDem Coalition, and Labour isn’t even paying attention

I’m finding it hard to blog these days.  What is happening nationally is too depressing and Britain and the Left are sleep walking into the restructuring of British society.  No, I don’t mean the Big Society.  I don’t even mean severe cuts to public services.  No, something more fundamental is happening. 

Labour and media pundits agonise over aspects of government cuts, and Labour leadership candidates are obsessed about positioning themselves against each other.  Meanwhile the economic extremists in both the Tories and Lib Dems (David Laws having been in the vanguard and he will no doubt remain influential before returning to the Cabinet) are embarking on a programme of privatisation, dismantling the welfare state, and (in due course) tax cuts.

If anyone has read Naomi Klein’s brilliant ‘The Shock Doctrine’ will recognise that what is happening in Britain today comes directly from the philosophy of Milton Friedman.  Klein explains the concept of ‘Disaster Capitalism’ where there are “orchestrated raids on the public sphere” in the wake of a disaster or crisis, the crisis at this time being the near collapse of the banks and the ensuing economic crisis which is being used to justify just about anything.  And the Labour Leadership contenders fiddle while Britain is burnt.

Friedman wrote: “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change.  When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around”.  Klein say that “some people stockpile canned goods and water in preparation for major disasters; Friedmanites stockpile free-market ideas”.  Friedman believed that once a crisis happens, it is crucial to act swiftly to impose rapid and irreversible change before society slips back into what he describes as the “tyranny of the status quo”.

Friedman wrote that “a new administration has some six and nine months in which to achieve major changes; if it does not act decisively during that period, it will not have another such opportunity”.

The ideas of Milton Friedman are alive and well and thriving in the Conservative Party and on the right of the Lib Dems.  Both Cameron and Clegg worked for Moneterist ministers in Thatcher’s government, and their economic philosophies have evolved since then.  The only difference is that their presentational skills have also developed to ensure that they are seen as ‘compassionate’.  But the political and economic intentions are just the same.  David Laws gave the game away when he said that he wanted the cuts he proposed to send shock waves throughout Whitehall. 

The Welfare State is being dismantled before our very eyes.  Education (as in the USA where Charter schools are taking over) is being privatised through the acceleration of Labour’s Academies programme.  In due course the NHS will be privatised.  And Cameron and Clegg’s friends (and also those of Blair) are ready for some very rich pickings. 

And the Labour leadership contenders continue to fiddle.