Cameron launches "Big Society"

[DotCommunist]

Jesus you're a bunch of moaning wet bastards You really do just wanna sit back and let the government do fucking everything save spoon the food into your mouths. If the government wanna give people money for actually DOING something their way that all sounds good to me, and if it leads to less tax then even better. Having it all nationalised in massive, target led, over beurocratised bullshit fashion is.. bullshit. Saying that, if Cameron plans to just remove public services and expect volunteers to do it all with no pay then he can fuck off n all.

privitisation of services leads to worse service and increased costs. This is the ideology of rightist freedom. Freedom for them and theirs. Freedom for anyone with a few quid. And fuck everyone else. You'll be the one crying in 3 years time when the shit really starts to bite. And I'll tell you I told you so.

 

[Pickman's model]

privitisation of services leads to worse service and increased costs. This is the ideology of rightist freedom. Freedom for them and theirs. Freedom for anyone with a few quid. And fuck everyone else. You'll be the one crying in 3 years time when the shit really starts to bite. And I'll tell you I told you so.

don't think it'll be as long as three years

 

[weltweit]

Presumably the time people will have when they get made redundant due to the cuts...

But where will the people who are free to volunteer get the time to go to their jobseekers interviews?

 

[butchersapron]

Let's make life charity! let's let charity fund it too!


You crackhead tory wives are fucking with our future and lol etc. I a hope a muslim kills you.

 

[Edie]

Let's make life charity! let's let charity fund it too!


You crackhead tory wives are fucking with our future and lol etc. I a hope a muslim kills you.

Proper laugh out loud, what you on about? At least make your insults make sense.

I a hope a muslim kills you too

 

[weltweit]

There are a lot of people who are volunteering their time in very worthy causes, but that does not mean that most people are suitable or able to do this.

Some people have the spare energy and drive and desire to do such things, the majority do not.

I wonder if Cameron has a measure by which he can say if "big society" has been a success or failure? and how long he is giving it?

He seems to be the only Tory that is going on about it, though I heard Pickles mention it at lunchtime on the radio.

 

[Edie]

God that is so patronising. Yeah, thank god we've got a government to tell us exactly what to do and when or we'd all be fucked eh.

There are a lot of people who are volunteering their time in very worthy causes, but that does not mean that most people are suitable or able to do this.

Some people have the spare energy and drive and desire to do such things, the majority do not.

I wonder if Cameron has a measure by which he can say if "big society" has been a success or failure? and how long he is giving it?

He seems to be the only Tory that is going on about it, though I heard Pickles mention it at lunchtime on the radio.

 

[stethoscope]

What could possibly go wrong, rural bus services no longer funded and run by council and a bus company, but handed over to a volunteer group with an old minivan and part-time driver?!

 

[Edie]

What could possibly go wrong, rural bus services no longer funded and run by council and a bus company, but handed over to a volunteer group with an old minivan and part-time driver?!

Buses aint run by the council, they're run (mostly) by First. And they're shit and really expensive.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

So, offload all the work that the state should support in providing to volunteer and charitable groups instead. When the money/funding runs out, and the government turns around and shrugs it's shoulders, we risk losing key services such as drug rehab, rape counseling, even bus services! Brilliant.

Plus what is the betting that such service end up being taken over by people who believe sterlising drug addicts or 'curing' homosexuality is the way to go

Cameron and his Neighbourhood Army - if that ain't another word for curtain twitching snitches I don't know what is - can fuck off.

I am all for voluntering and for communities coming together to help each other etc..but not at the expense of existing services, which this just is going to be/

 

[stethoscope]

Buses aint run by the council, they're run (mostly) by First. And they're shit and really expensive.

Many bus services (especially those in towns and villages) are financially supported by councils, otherwise they'd be no service as private companies would consider them unprofitable (profits over people).

 

[Steel Icarus]

Jesus you're a bunch of moaning wet bastards You really do just wanna sit back and let the government do fucking everything save spoon the food into your mouths. If the government wanna give people money for actually DOING something their way that all sounds good to me, and if it leads to less tax then even better. Having it all nationalised in massive, target led, over beurocratised bullshit fashion is.. bullshit. Saying that, if Cameron plans to just remove public services and expect volunteers to do it all with no pay then he can fuck off n all.

Important section in bold.

 

[DotCommunist]

this 'big society' rhetoric is nothing but hot air. The cloak of social paternalism that masks the engine of private enterprise seeking to carve up the things you take for granted. It has the inevitability of a car crash and if you can't see where this is going than political naiveté is your name.

Bad politics 101: bleed all the cash away to banks and then squeeze the poor to plug a gap. This doesn't work. And before anyone wants to bleat 'but labour gave them banks the money' then STFU, there is a rizlas thickness between them in terms of economic ideology.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

"What is this big society? It is a big society with a price tag attached. It's a bit like inviting someone to a party in a pub and find that it's your card behind the bar paying for everyone's drinks. What is emerging is what has always been there, which is a well-oiled PR machine, but basically it's disguising fake change. It's hollow. There's nothing in it.

- Nick Clegg, in The 'Independent', 2 May

 

[weltweit]

God that is so patronising. Yeah, thank god we've got a government to tell us exactly what to do and when or we'd all be fucked eh.

Oh if people want something, they should go out and get it. I am all in favour of that, you want something in your community then get on with it, no complaints from me, but that always was the way where I grew up, my dad did his bit to keep the local village hall running, others ran the local village show etc etc ....

But I have a feeling Cameron does not mean just things like this.

 

[stethoscope]

Important section in bold.

Important bit is actually before.

 

[little_legs]

big society? this will be fun, man. i can't wait for the british version of the ACORN style pimps. bring it on!

did someone say croxteth will be the launchpad for this shit?

 

[weltweit]

... But I have a feeling Cameron does not mean just things like this.

Does anyone know what sorts of things Cameron actually means?

 

[stethoscope]

Plus what is the betting that such service end up being taken over by people who believe sterlising drug addicts or 'curing' homosexuality is the way to go

It isn't unknown... I recall a story a while ago where a local CMHT used a volunteer group to assist in some aspect of its mental health service, and that it turned out to be covertly run by a religious right org.

I am all for voluntering and for communities coming together to help each other etc..but not at the expense of existing services, which this just is going to be/

Absolutely, but not at the cost of state/local government pulling the rug under vulnerable people and groups because of having no funds or 'it not being profitable'.

 

[flash]

Is this a case essentially for those in Sutton (and in my case anyway) vote for Paul Burstow but get Phillipa Stroud (or at the very least her's and IDS's policies). Oh and the fact that by losing to Burstow she's ended up with more cash than him anyhow as she's one of IDS's and DC's "special advisors" - I can't say I'm particularly thrilled.

 

[JimW]

When working class people through their collective political action achieved sufficient momentum to compel sections of the state to serve wider interests through the provision of public services that was apparently not, as it might have appeared, a genuine big society but anti-democratic and its gains had to be dismantled and replaced by Lady Bountiful and the charidee crew. The bits of the state aimed at cracking heads and shooting people obviously should be kept out of any such considerations.

 

[stethoscope]

Buses aint run by the council, they're run (mostly) by First. And they're shit and really expensive.

Many bus services (especially those in towns and villages) are financially supported by councils, otherwise they'd be no service as private companies would consider them unprofitable (profits over people).

Oh, and quite a lot of bus services would be even more expensive if it wasn't for council subsidy.

Also, why do you think First are shit? First are a private company than ultimately place profits/costs over providing a comprehensive bus service for the public. The whole private sector ethos in the 80s and 90s was 'let's put out these bus services to private tender and companies to make them run cheaper and more effectively' You got it!

In some cases, companies like First bought out what were excellent locally owned firms such as Mainline in Sheffield and in the pursuit to maximise returns, cut services for more rural areas and less profitable routes (even though they are still needed) and ultimately reduced the quality of that public service.

 

[weltweit]

Ok, so now I know what kind of projects are involved

David Cameron has launched his "big society":

<edited>

post offices,
libraries,
transport services
housing projects.


expert organiser
dedicated civil servants
"people power" initiatives


a local buy-out of a rural pub,
volunteers to keep museums open,
speed up broadband supply,
residents more power over council spending.

greater volunteering and philanthropy,
funds stuck in dormant bank and building society accounts to enable
dynamic" charities,
social enterprises
voluntary groups
the running of public services.

 

[DotCommunist]

despite the claim to competition in the wider shires you have your subsidised First in supposed competition with the Stagecoach runs. In practise they carve up the profitable runs between them and the unprofitable ones either increase drastically in cost or dissapear. The trans-county X4 has gone from three pounds fifty return kettering-northampton to 5 pound fucking thirty in the space of two years. You can't tell me that shit is right.

 

[stethoscope]

Basically, rural post offices are fucked.

 

[DotCommunist]

They already were, Cameron and his fag are just ramping it up. We can look forward to about five-10 years of this OCP bullshit and I pray for some issue or event to rend the coalition in half and force a snap re-election.

 

[weltweit]

Isn't this what the lottery funds are for?

I am pretty sure a lot of local volunteer groups appplied for and got lottery funding.

 

[stethoscope]

Isn't this what the lottery funds are for?

I am pretty sure a lot of local volunteer groups appplied for and got lottery funding.

Lottery funding on its own won't support stuff.

 

[Callie]

I'd like to know how much information people will be given about this. I work in Sutton on of the pilot areas so know plenty of people that live there. I imagine they'll be told bugger all while all their local public services services turn to rot.

I can kind of see where edie is coming from - it sounds great - power to the people, take things into your own hands, have a real say in how things are run and how they work. I can't help but see disaster though, if the majority of services involved in this are currently run my paid, trained staff how will you get volunteers to work at that level? Thats not to say that it's beyond the realm of possibility that volunteers could do it but it seems unlikely that all staff will be replaceable with volunteers.

Are the volunteers really going to be volunteers? Who are these people with skills and loads of free time to put into these schemes and services?

The whole bus services thing is interesting - presumably the first things to suffer will be dial-a-ride and school bus services?

 

[butchersapron]

Yeah, mugs always have a point. The mugs point.