Cameron launches "Big Society"

[slake]

Hang on the lady on the news just said 'unpaid'. How's that going to work then?

 

[butchersapron]

Hang on the lady on the news just said 'unpaid'. How's that going to work then?

It's going to be used to attack those in the paid public sector. That's how. It will work.

 

[slake]

If I'm not getting paid for running my Post Office how am I going to afford food and fags? I suppose I could rip off the OAPs for part of their pensions but it doesn't seem very ethical.

 

[weltweit]

Co-ops register themselves as charities and sign up with The Housing Corporation for funding. They are required to have a set of policies, accounts, audits, a committee, quorate meetings etc. I lived in housing co-ops most of my life. The last one had assets of £20m and housed about 200 people.

In practice, most people in a co-op are happy for others to do all the work which usually falls to a small number of dedicated souls. The successful ones are often a sort of benign dictatorship. Others get torn apart by in-fighting or get committeed to death.

aha. sounds like a good idea.
We could have done with a few of those where I grew up.
I assume they have "reasonable" rents?

 

[Edie]

Of course people on the dole should do volunteer work. Otherwise their just sat about doing fuck all.

 

[little_legs]

nice....

Mr Cameron was promoting his "big society" initiative alongside Grange Hill creator Phil Redmond.

The PM said he had been a fan of the show, adding: "Indeed Gripper Stebson was one of my role models in life."

According to the Grange Hill Online website Gripper bullied fellow pupils from 1981 until being expelled in 1983 after turning to hardcore racism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10681424

 

[butchersapron]

Of course people on the dole should do volunteer work. Otherwise their just sat about doing fuck all.

They could be out being used to attack the conditions of public sector workers eh Wendy?

 

[Steel Icarus]

Of course people on the dole should do volunteer work. Otherwise their just sat about doing fuck all.

 

[DotCommunist]

lazy trolling- people who do lazy trolling should have the tax credits whipped from under them imo.

 

[slake]

Of course people on the dole should do volunteer work. Otherwise their just sat about doing fuck all.

Yes I can see where you are coming from. Obviously these are jobs that need doing and there are people without work. But perhaps we could be even more radical and actually pay people a wage to perform these jobs? Now I haven't thought this through so I expect there is some reason why this isn't realistic.

 

[Edie]

They could be out being used to attack the conditions of public sector workers eh Wendy?

Are you just typing random words?

 

[butchersapron]

lazy trolling- people who do lazy trolling should have the tax credits whipped from under them imo.

tory wifes aren't trolling. They're tory wifes.

 

[butchersapron]

Are you just typing random words?

No, i'm not. I 'm connecting the use of unpaid labour to the worsening conditions of paid public sector work historically and comparatively. You, on the other hand, are just being a tory wife.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

nice....



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10681424

Oh, come off it. Cameron never watched Grange Hill in his life. He wasn't allowed to. A junior speechwriter put in the joke;it could easily have been Roland or Zammo. Really, there are better things to push Cameron on.

 

[little_legs]

Obviously these are jobs that need doing and there are people without work. But perhaps we could be even more radical and actually pay people a wage to perform these jobs?

oh come on, that would be too humane. the mastermind behind the idea of the big society voted against minimum wage. why pay people? he'll tell them go do some work for free, and later he'll arrange with the church of england to give you some cat food.

 

[sleaterkinney]

I guess the tories are trying to get as much pushed through while Labour are leaderless and there's no other opposition, I am surprised by the vigour that they're displaying in ripping things up though.

They have a clever strategy too - "We're giving control to parents and doctors, who could be against that?"

 

[DotCommunist]

anyone who gives mor than 30 secs thought to it can see the flaws that gape like goatse mans distended ringpiece. But I suppose they are relying on an electorste who are just so tired and defeated to roll over. We'll see.

 

[butchersapron]

To what aspect of the big society will i volunteer today?

 

[weltweit]

Personally I don't see "the big society" idea surviving long. Cameron is the only Tory that supports it, his minions don't understand it except perhaps Pickles, and they abandonned it on the doorstep. I don't see Cameron pushing much through against the views of his party and the lib dems.

Good for a few loony headlines in the meantime but I don't see it lasting.

 

[stethoscope]

Personally I don't see "the big society" idea surviving long. Cameron is the only Tory that supports it, his minions don't understand it except perhaps Pickles, and they abandonned it on the doorstep. I don't see Cameron pushing much through against the views of his party and the lib dems.

Really? I've stumbled upon a few Lib Dem blogs recently where they seem to be growing in support of the whole 'big society' idea.

 

[butchersapron]

...against the lib-dems? What? This is their extreme right agenda writ large, writ real. They don't oppose it - it is their shared agenda.

 

[Edie]

No, i'm not. I 'm connecting the use of unpaid labour to the worsening conditions of paid public sector work historically and comparatively. You, on the other hand, are just being a tory wife.

What's that got to do with Wendy? That's my MiL

btw I can just be a tory without being a tory wife you know It's amazing nowadays, us women can actually have opinions and everything.

 

[weltweit]

Really? I've stumbled upon a few Lib Dem blogs recently where they seem to be growing in support of the whole 'big society' idea.

Oh, interesting.

 

[butchersapron]

Really? I've stumbled upon a few Lib Dem blogs recently where they seem to be growing in support of the whole 'big society' idea.

Damn right, it's the key tactical thing that bonds cameron with the lib-dems. It's where he goes over the party and where Clegg goes see, he does like us. I saw him smile

 

[The39thStep]

The Big Society Website and Blog reads like a meeting hosted by people who would like to be in Friends to discuss doing something radical like 'helping out'.

One piece is called What We Can Learn From Apple – Back the Awesome Stuff and the rest some very confused tentative stabs at trying nudge anyone who attended their meeting into actually saying anything of any substance without wanting to step on anyones toes.

 

[Santino]

So when the museums are being kept open later by volunteers (because that's definitely the kind of service that we've been crying out for), the extra energy to light and heat the place, and the out-of-hours professional security will come free. I like it.

And for God's sake, it's time the government got out of the keeping-local-pubs-open business. We don't need the big government top-down approach to keeping local pubs open.

 

[DotCommunist]

Big society equals 'I swear the private sector can sort it, and you know what one of the fellows I schooled with has a very similar model to the one being run....'

When you are paying to get books out from the library don't you dar fucking whine if you think this shit is a good idea. You were warned.

 

[killer b]

utter fucking madness.

i've done fair bits in the voluntary sector over the years, and it doesn't really strike me as a good way of 'delivering' anything - much more about the development of the volunteer than the efficiency or quality of the end product...

and that's with people who want to be involved - once you force benefit claimants in to make up numbers it's going to be a fucking nightmare - what few paid staff there are will spend all their time herding a demoralised, stubborn 'workforce', while anyone who had any passion or interest will fuck off sharpish.

it's a fucking shit idea, and cameron is a massive cunt.

 

[tar1984]

This is bad news. As I understand it they are basically withdrawing funding from vital public services and dressing it up as some power to the people bullshit? I won't be any more enfranchised if my local library is being run as a charity, it just means there is more chance of it closing down or being privatised if and when they run out of funding. Not to mention the people currently doing those jobs will be on the dole. Maybe they'll get the chance to go back and do the work for free though?

not sure if you are being serious here, but we should have some things provided at cost and propped up by progressive taxation simply because they are necessary to a polity. That includes school bus runs and point of care health. Literacy and numeracy also. Fuckit, nationalise everything. Profit has no place in society unless it is plowed back in.

^^^I agree with this. Some services should be run at cost, or even at a loss, if they are beneficial to society and local communities. I'd include electricity and water supply too. And telephone lines, etc. No-one should be profiting off essential services.

It's not dependence on the state - it's our state, our taxes. At least the government has a semblance of democracy, and once the private firms own everything we are at their mercy. And I don't trust them.

 

[Edie]

I'm still not sure why butchers wants a Muslim to come and kill me Or who Wendy is.

I still think that if people want to do shit themselves, without it being organised/ regulated/ controlled by Government and Unionised then they should get the money.