Cameron launches "Big Society"

[dennisr]

Oh, it's because they're lazy and stupid, isn't it?

I'd guess both? - along with (ironically...) probably not having to actually work for a living - its the only reason i can fathom for such for the daytime moron TV view of the world. it would be nice to be proven wrong

 

[Doctor Carrot]

No. No I don't. I have read it somewhere. I bet someone one here could back it up though. Perhaps start a separate thread?

Wasn't there a study (probably one of many) that proves self interest isn't what motivates people? I think it was quite a well known one but can't for the life of me remember the name of it.

 

[Santino]

The middle class already have their own schools, there called private schools. And they're much better than the fucking government run ones, where the two high schools are special measures and the only good one is c of e. The only middle class people who send there kids to the state schools think there making a political point by moving to fucking otley.

I want to come back to this specific point, because it is an excellent example of your weak grasp of reality. The vast majority of middle class people do not send their children to private school, in part perhaps they can't afford it. I went to an excellent comprehensive school that had a wide range of middle class and working class kids in it. I can't think of any of my middle class friends from that school whose parents could have afforded to privately educate them.

 

[stethoscope]

Yeah typical intellectual left wing arrogance. Think you know more than all the people who vote, who express views on the majority of websites or chat shows on the tele, who buy daily newspapers. Not just think you know better, but actually think you know what they would REALLY think if only they were as educated and knowledgeable as you

What?! You've so far put forward some opinions which you've hardly argued well or appeared to have thought out, and then when others have merely challenged that (citing informed opinion and examples where applicable) you've then not seen to be able to engage with those points but instead have then made what is a whole set of more slightly disconnect points, ended up in some slightly bizarre accusations!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I had to turn the tv off earlier in disgust. Does Cameron have hand movements to go with "big society" like Blair did for "big tent politics"?

Did you notice the body language of the people in the audience in Liverpool? After the first couple of rows of "true believers", most of them were sat there with their arms folded and "he's fucking waffling" looks on their faces.

 

[treelover]

It has been frequently demonstrated that when focus groups are given objective evidence and allowed to debate freely an issue they will generally recommend policies far more progressive and left-wing than any of the main parties would dare suggest. The 'debates' that you imagine take place in the public sphere are nothing more than the angriest and loudest voices being heard.

Channel 4 did a programme/series where they invited a selected panel to spend a very intensive two days with genuine experts discussing real evidence based policy on a range of issues, crime, the NHS, etc, they very much came up with progressive ideas/proposals at the end of it, the ideological 'right wingers' complained how 'isolated they felt'

can't imagine Ch4 doing it now, instead we get the 'fairy jobmother'

 

[ViolentPanda]

CTR? Do people still say that?

Well, obviously!!

 

[Proper Tidy]

can't imagine Ch4 doing it now, instead we get the 'fairy jobmother'

That show seriously caused me to question whether I would ever kill

 

[ViolentPanda]

Interesting that Tessa Jowell had this to say: "The content of today's speech is simply a brass-necked rebranding of programmes already put in place by a Labour government. Funding for a social investment bank and for community pubs was put in place in March, and residents have been involved in setting council budgets for a number of years."

I wouldn't say it's a "re-branding" as much as an appropriation of them to serve (slightly) different ends than nu-Labour had in mind.

 

[Badgers]

How is it going?

 

[ViolentPanda]

The middle class already have their own schools, there called private schools. And they're much better than the fucking government run ones, where the two high schools are special measures and the only good one is c of e. The only middle class people who send there kids to the state schools think there making a political point by moving to fucking otley.

But yeah of course working class people can't run a school or a library or a fucking bus service can they. Fucking twat.

You're missing the point. These "enterprises" are being set up to fail, or to at least stagnate, because the responsibility for financing won't lay with LAs or central government anymore.
How happy are you going to be when your kids start whining that the local library has as poor a selection of books as their school library? How pleased with yourself are you going to be when your family move to some nice suburban or rural idyll off the money your hubby has earned, and you find there's fuck-all transport, no post office, not even a pub or offie?
You'll be on Urban like a shot and whining enough to make even Upchuck jealous.

 

[Santino]

You'll be on Urban like a shot and whining enough to make even Upchuck jealous.

It's possible to go too far, you know.

 

[The39thStep]

Don't know about progressive and left wing , they are after all value judgements. Citzen focus groups will very often though come up with ideas that are free of the constraints that funding linked to targets very often imposes.

it must be said though that the experience of the IWCA was that when residents were consulted they very often raised issues and solutions that were outside the conservatism of the cobweb left.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yeah those volunteers eh, what the fuck do they know.

No, we all need to be told what to do, unable to make any decisions.

You miss the point that the decisions people are being empowered to make mostly have a Hobson's Choice element to them.

What a fucking load of shit. Fact is you lot don't want any fucking power cos you'd rather just moan and criticise and be victims of your situation.

You haven't got a clue.
I'm all for power being devolved down to the individual and the community level, but it needs to be real power, not a scheme to hive off the public sector disguised as social empowerment, but still with plenty of government-imposed checks to make sure you don't get any real power.

True democracy...

Care to show me anything that Cameron or any other Tory or Lib-Dem has said in the last 5 years that promises people "true democracy", or even a properly representative democracy?
You can't, because that isn't what the ConDems are offering, and if you believe otherwise, you're addled.

...where people make decisions and run their own affairs would scare the shit out of you, mostly cos it would swing hard to the fucking right.

Read some history, Edie. Most attempts at "true democracy" had nothing to do with the right. They're called "conservatives" for a reason.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The worrying idea is this will replace any state input, so in areas without any 'volunteers' what is going to happen?

The "have-nots" will be fucked, and people who hold Edie's views will blame the victims rather than bothering to trace the causes of the problems.

 

[killer b]

Yeah those volunteers eh, what the fuck do they know.

where did i say that? volunteers are in some cases incredibly knowledgable. you may indeed be able to cobble together enough people with the right skills and experiences to run a library or whatnot... but from my experience as a volunteer across a few different projects, i'd say it's going to be incredibly difficult to manage it effectively for any length of time.

 

[ViolentPanda]

From public sector to third sector to private sector. The Big Idea for the Big Society.

Or, more accurately, "From public sector to third sector to private sector for those parts of the public sector that prove profitable, and fuck the rest".

 

[_angel_]

The "have-nots" will be fucked, and people who hold Edie's views will blame the victims rather than bothering to trace the causes of the problems.

They already do.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yeah typical intellectual left wing arrogance. Think you know more than all the people who vote, who express views on the majority of websites or chat shows on the tele, who buy daily newspapers. Not just think you know better, but actually think you know what they would REALLY think if only they were as educated and knowledgeable as you

You're saying that as if people on websites, newspaper readerships and people on chat shows express some kind of majority view(s). They don't, they express the views of a voluble minority, whether they're right or left.
Just because those examples express views that you agree with doesn't make them correct or a "majority".

 

[ViolentPanda]

you're making yourself look like an idiot

Don't worry. If Edie is on her usual form, she'll claim that she was trolling.

 

[ViolentPanda]

No, arrogant left-wing people are doing that.

The bastards!!!

 

[ViolentPanda]

They already do.

True enough.

 

[Edie]

No. No I don't. I have read it somewhere. I bet someone one here could back it up though. Perhaps start a separate thread?

yes Santino, so frequent are them focus groups that you can't even find a single link. Whereas I can just point to the fact that 60% of the population voted for the cons and libs and of the remaining apathetic 40% I very much doubt you can consider them all to be far left.

I mean there isn't even a left wing political party there is so little support. Fuck knows about the SWP, any normal person knows that's for students only who will grow out of it by the time they get a mortgage. Jesus Christ they seem to spend most of the time arguing with other unknown groups on the left or organising rallys against EDL (who are so fucking irrelevant even googling the letters doesn't bring up who they are or what they believe).

What would the SWP do in power then

 

[ericjarvis]

So far as I can see what he is proposing is this.

If a community needs something it should be provided by the community itself with no financial input from elsewhere. These things should be run by volunteers and controlled and monitored by the community. In other words. No public funding for anything. Now wages for anyone working on any form of social or community project. No democratic control of any such project.

Basically it's removing any funding for deprived areas, and turning a whole load of important social projects into a way of soaking up the time of the millions of physically and mentally ill, and otherwise unemployable people, who will need to be found places on workfare schemes. These will be run by whoever has the loudest voice.

So instead of a democratically controlled project, funded and monitored by government, staffed by professionals, and with policies set by management boards elected from the relevant service users, we will have unfunded schemes run by incapable amateurs under the control of a small number of enthusiasts.

It's the Tory dream. It means that middle class and upper class areas might have effective social projects they don't really need, and that poorer areas will have inefficient and failing carp... and it will be ALL THEIR OWN FAULT.

 

[Blagsta]

yes Santino, so frequent are them focus groups that you can't even find a single link. Whereas I can just point to the fact that 60% of the population voted for the cons and libs and of the remaining apathetic 40% I very much doubt you can consider them all to be far left.

I mean there isn't even a left wing political party there is so little support. Fuck knows about the SWP, any normal person knows that's for students only who will grow out of it by the time they get a mortgage. Jesus Christ they seem to spend most of the time arguing with other unknown groups on the left or organising rallys against EDL (who are so fucking irrelevant even googling the letters doesn't bring up who they are or what they believe).

What would the SWP do in power then

you are an idiot

 

[DotCommunist]

google EDL and the english defence league is the first result:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=EDL&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

 

[Proper Tidy]

Whereas I can just point to the fact that 60% of the population voted for the cons and libs and of the remaining apathetic 40% I very much doubt you can consider them all to be far left.

No you can't. Your arithmetic is shit.

 

[glenquagmire]

yes Santino, so frequent are them focus groups that you can't even find a single link. Whereas I can just point to the fact that 60% of the population voted for the cons and libs and of the remaining apathetic 40% I very much doubt you can consider them all to be far left.

I mean there isn't even a left wing political party there is so little support. Fuck knows about the SWP, any normal person knows that's for students only who will grow out of it by the time they get a mortgage. Jesus Christ they seem to spend most of the time arguing with other unknown groups on the left or organising rallys against EDL (who are so fucking irrelevant even googling the letters doesn't bring up who they are or what they believe).

What would the SWP do in power then

And...breathe...

 

[_angel_]

yes Santino, so frequent are them focus groups that you can't even find a single link. Whereas I can just point to the fact that 60% of the population voted for the cons and libs and of the remaining apathetic 40% I very much doubt you can consider them all to be far left.

They did not.

So, people who don't vote are lazy tories???

I mean there isn't even a left wing political party there is so little support. Fuck knows about the SWP, any normal person knows that's for students only who will grow out of it by the time they get a mortgage. Jesus Christ they seem to spend most of the time arguing with other unknown groups on the left or organising rallys against EDL (who are so fucking irrelevant even googling the letters doesn't bring up who they are or what they believe).

What would the SWP do in power then

Who cares? What has that got to do with anything? Oh I see, in your head anyone who doesn't vote rightwing must be in the SWP??

 

[Proper Tidy]

We are all swappies now