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Cameron’s “Big Society:” Thatcherism’s new guise July 19, 2010
http://www.socialequality.org.uk/~sepuk/content/cameron%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cbig-society%E2%80%9D-thatcherism%E2%80%99s-new-guise
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s “Big Society” programme offers an ideological justification for the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition’s efforts to impose between £85 billion and £100 billion in cuts over the next four years.
His speech in Liverpool was a restatement of Thatcherite market fundamentalism, dedicated to the destruction of welfare provisions on which millions rely and the wholesale privatization of the public sector.
Back in 1987, Margaret Thatcher famously declared, “I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it… They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.”
Cameron is Thatcher’s heir, but he cannot display similar candour or malice, given the bitter experience of millions of people with the results of Thatcher’s slash-and-burn strategy. Instead, he cynically portrays cuts as opening “opportunities” for charities and local communities and privatization as a means of facilitating “greater local democracy.”
The paucity of the actual programme Cameron announced was in inverse proportion to the scale of the rhetoric employed. Describing the “Big Society” as a “huge cultural change,” and employing words such as “freedom” and “empowerment,” he offered up four “vanguard” schemes—in Liverpool; Eden Valley, Cumbria; Windsor and Maidenhead; and the London Borough of Sutton. These involve such initiatives as reopening a closed local pub and a volunteer programme in local museums, involving unemployed youth.
These and other projects are supposed to be funded by using the unclaimed monies in inactive bank accounts, which Cameron said would provide hundreds of millions of pounds, but which the Financial Times estimated would bring in just £60 million. Others have pointed out that funding the “Big Society Bank” in this way could be illegal.
Far more important than the modest proposals themselves is the painful message for which they were merely a sweetener.
What is planned is not merely a return to the 1980s. The Tories have in mind austerity measures that dwarf anything that was undertaken by Thatcher. Cameron’s speech was a diatribe against government provision of services and welfare, which was blamed for Britain having the “biggest budget deficit in the G20.”
From now on, the government would not “pour money down the throat of wasteful, top-down government schemes,” which Cameron claimed had turned public sector workers into “disillusioned, weary puppets” and capable individuals into “passive recipients of state help.” The government would instead “foster and support a new culture of voluntarism, philanthropy, social action.” It would “get rid of the centralized bureaucracy that wastes money,” and instead “open up public services to new providers like charities, social enterprises and private companies.” All of this would “create communities with oomph.”
The inclusion of charities is a transparent fraud. Charities rely for a third of their funds on the government, and this will inevitably be subject to cuts. The main recipient of government largesse—taken from the taxes of working people—will be private companies and “social enterprises” (which are only thinly disguised corporate entities). Those made to pay will be the millions who rely on basic social services for both their livelihoods and essential amenities.
Behind the token projects Cameron announced, the government’s cuts agenda will drive unemployment to between three and four million, destroy state education through the introduction of academies and privately run “free schools,” and slash spending everywhere, including the National Health Service (NHS).
The objective of voluntary work is to force down wages, a central component of a vast privatization campaign. Last week, the Guardian reported that under the guise of an efficiency drive, ostensibly aimed at boosting productivity in the health service and elsewhere, billions of pounds are being made available for private companies.
“Outsourcing firms are preparing for a bonanza of local authority contracts to provide everything from binmen to back office bureaucrats and have reported a doubling in the number of deals on offer this year,” the newspaper reported. “Private health companies are also expected to earn billions of pounds from the planned overhaul of the NHS in which GPs would take over responsibility for spending £70 billion.”
The Liberal Democrats fully support the initiative. At a joint meeting with voluntary and charitable institutions in Downing Street, party leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg declared that building the “Big Society” required “radical change” and “bringing down vested interests.”
“Vested interests” has become the standard euphemism employed in ruling circles for workers in the public sector.
That Britain has the biggest budget deficit in the G20 is because close to £1 trillion has already been handed over to the country’s banks, alongside fiscal stimulus packages that almost wholly benefited the major financial institutions and corporations.
Citing the “sovereign debt crisis” resulting from this plunder of the social assets built up by millions of working people, the government now declares that more sacrifice is necessary to avoid default and a run on the pound. It does not mention that these further sacrifices will be used to prop up the very same bailed-out institutions whose speculative practices precipitated the economic crisis.
The “Big Society” is a recipe for social disaster, the responsibility for which rests squarely with the Labour Party and the trade unions. As with every announcement of cuts by the government since it came to office, Cameron’s “Big Society” speech evoked only mealy-mouthed platitudes from Britain’s trade union leaders.
As for Labour’s official response, Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Tessa Jowell tried to claim ownership of the Tories’ initiatives—calling Cameron’s speech a “brassnecked rebranding of programmes already put in place by a Labour government.”
The front-runner in Labour’s ongoing leadership contest, David Miliband, has been at pains to stress that criticisms of Cameron’s proposals should be focused on how these plans will be implemented, rather than their substance and intent. He clearly calculates that these measures are very popular with big business, as well as providing a potential bonanza for many Labour hangers-on who are involved in contracting companies and the social enterprises.
Relying on the trade unions to paralyse and head off opposition in the working class, the bourgeoisie is using the crisis of its system order to carry out a massive programme of social de-engineering. Their aim is to obliterate the welfare state mechanisms set up in the immediate aftermath of World War Two and carry through an historically unprecedented redistribution of wealth from working people to the super-rich.
That is why Cameron’s language, with its emphasis on charity, philanthropy and altruism, reeks of the Victorian era. This is the only point of reference from which the impact of these measures can properly be judged.
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s “Big Society” programme offers an ideological justification for the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition’s efforts to impose between £85 billion and £100 billion in cuts over the next four years.
His speech in Liverpool was a restatement of Thatcherite market fundamentalism, dedicated to the destruction of welfare provisions on which millions rely and the wholesale privatization of the public sector.
Back in 1987, Margaret Thatcher famously declared, “I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it… They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.”
Cameron is Thatcher’s heir, but he cannot display similar candour or malice, given the bitter experience of millions of people with the results of Thatcher’s slash-and-burn strategy. Instead, he cynically portrays cuts as opening “opportunities” for charities and local communities and privatization as a means of facilitating “greater local democracy.”
The paucity of the actual programme Cameron announced was in inverse proportion to the scale of the rhetoric employed. Describing the “Big Society” as a “huge cultural change,” and employing words such as “freedom” and “empowerment,” he offered up four “vanguard” schemes—in Liverpool; Eden Valley, Cumbria; Windsor and Maidenhead; and the London Borough of Sutton. These involve such initiatives as reopening a closed local pub and a volunteer programme in local museums, involving unemployed youth.
These and other projects are supposed to be funded by using the unclaimed monies in inactive bank accounts, which Cameron said would provide hundreds of millions of pounds, but which the Financial Times estimated would bring in just £60 million. Others have pointed out that funding the “Big Society Bank” in this way could be illegal.
Far more important than the modest proposals themselves is the painful message for which they were merely a sweetener.
What is planned is not merely a return to the 1980s. The Tories have in mind austerity measures that dwarf anything that was undertaken by Thatcher. Cameron’s speech was a diatribe against government provision of services and welfare, which was blamed for Britain having the “biggest budget deficit in the G20.”
From now on, the government would not “pour money down the throat of wasteful, top-down government schemes,” which Cameron claimed had turned public sector workers into “disillusioned, weary puppets” and capable individuals into “passive recipients of state help.” The government would instead “foster and support a new culture of voluntarism, philanthropy, social action.” It would “get rid of the centralized bureaucracy that wastes money,” and instead “open up public services to new providers like charities, social enterprises and private companies.” All of this would “create communities with oomph.”
The inclusion of charities is a transparent fraud. Charities rely for a third of their funds on the government, and this will inevitably be subject to cuts. The main recipient of government largesse—taken from the taxes of working people—will be private companies and “social enterprises” (which are only thinly disguised corporate entities). Those made to pay will be the millions who rely on basic social services for both their livelihoods and essential amenities.
Behind the token projects Cameron announced, the government’s cuts agenda will drive unemployment to between three and four million, destroy state education through the introduction of academies and privately run “free schools,” and slash spending everywhere, including the National Health Service (NHS).
The objective of voluntary work is to force down wages, a central component of a vast privatization campaign. Last week, the Guardian reported that under the guise of an efficiency drive, ostensibly aimed at boosting productivity in the health service and elsewhere, billions of pounds are being made available for private companies.
“Outsourcing firms are preparing for a bonanza of local authority contracts to provide everything from binmen to back office bureaucrats and have reported a doubling in the number of deals on offer this year,” the newspaper reported. “Private health companies are also expected to earn billions of pounds from the planned overhaul of the NHS in which GPs would take over responsibility for spending £70 billion.”
The Liberal Democrats fully support the initiative. At a joint meeting with voluntary and charitable institutions in Downing Street, party leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg declared that building the “Big Society” required “radical change” and “bringing down vested interests.”
“Vested interests” has become the standard euphemism employed in ruling circles for workers in the public sector.
That Britain has the biggest budget deficit in the G20 is because close to £1 trillion has already been handed over to the country’s banks, alongside fiscal stimulus packages that almost wholly benefited the major financial institutions and corporations.
Citing the “sovereign debt crisis” resulting from this plunder of the social assets built up by millions of working people, the government now declares that more sacrifice is necessary to avoid default and a run on the pound. It does not mention that these further sacrifices will be used to prop up the very same bailed-out institutions whose speculative practices precipitated the economic crisis.
The “Big Society” is a recipe for social disaster, the responsibility for which rests squarely with the Labour Party and the trade unions. As with every announcement of cuts by the government since it came to office, Cameron’s “Big Society” speech evoked only mealy-mouthed platitudes from Britain’s trade union leaders.
As for Labour’s official response, Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Tessa Jowell tried to claim ownership of the Tories’ initiatives—calling Cameron’s speech a “brassnecked rebranding of programmes already put in place by a Labour government.”
The front-runner in Labour’s ongoing leadership contest, David Miliband, has been at pains to stress that criticisms of Cameron’s proposals should be focused on how these plans will be implemented, rather than their substance and intent. He clearly calculates that these measures are very popular with big business, as well as providing a potential bonanza for many Labour hangers-on who are involved in contracting companies and the social enterprises.
Relying on the trade unions to paralyse and head off opposition in the working class, the bourgeoisie is using the crisis of its system order to carry out a massive programme of social de-engineering. Their aim is to obliterate the welfare state mechanisms set up in the immediate aftermath of World War Two and carry through an historically unprecedented redistribution of wealth from working people to the super-rich.
That is why Cameron’s language, with its emphasis on charity, philanthropy and altruism, reeks of the Victorian era. This is the only point of reference from which the impact of these measures can properly be judged.
The myth of the “big society
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2010/04/public-society-asked-local
Posted by Mehdi Hasan - 14 April 2010 12:56
The public don’t want to get involved. Do you blame them?
James and I have a column in the mag tomorrow in which we critically analyse David Cameron's "big society" big idea.
In the meantime, a couple of related things.
To what extent do people want to be part of this "big society" and accept the Tory invitation to "join" the government? Gary Gibbon of Channel 4 News asked Cameron where the evidence is that people want to be "prised away from the telly" in order to run public services or their local communities. The Tory leader said he "profoundly" believed that people want to be more involved.
Really? This poll from Ipsos-MORI asked voters if they wanted more involvement in the provision of local public services. Only one in 20 wanted "involvement", whereas one in four wanted "more of a say" and half of them only wanted "more information". (Incidentally, the poll also showed that less than a quarter of the public agreed with the statement: "There is a real need to cut spending on public services in order to pay off the very high national debt we now have.")
Another, earlier poll from the same company asked voters to what extent, if at all, they would like to be involved in "decision-making" in their local communities, to which 50 per cent responded "not very" or "not at all". And when asked about being "involved" in the running of the country as a whole, the percentage of "uninteresteds" increased to 55 per cent.
People seem to opt for quality over control. My colleague Tom Calvocoressi makes an interesting analogy between the "DIY government" being proposed by the Tories and the do-it-yourself checkout procedures on offer from Tesco self-service tills.
In a busy superstore, with long lines for the checkout, self-service seems like a great idea to start with, supposedly speeding up your progress and handing power and responsibility to you, the customer. But then the barcode won't swipe, "approval is needed" for your carton of milk, the bags have run out and the whole procedure ends up taking you even longer than queuing for a cashier.
Ultimately you conclude that it's quite nice having someone who is paid and trained to do the job for you. We have other things to be getting on with.
Or, as Jackie Ashley put it in the Guardian yesterday, "Perhaps the biggest problem is that the politicians dreaming up these plans are different from the rest of us. After all, they are quite happy to spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week working at politics. The rest of the country have a life."
Posted by Mehdi Hasan - 14 April 2010 12:56
The public don’t want to get involved. Do you blame them?
James and I have a column in the mag tomorrow in which we critically analyse David Cameron's "big society" big idea.
In the meantime, a couple of related things.
To what extent do people want to be part of this "big society" and accept the Tory invitation to "join" the government? Gary Gibbon of Channel 4 News asked Cameron where the evidence is that people want to be "prised away from the telly" in order to run public services or their local communities. The Tory leader said he "profoundly" believed that people want to be more involved.
Really? This poll from Ipsos-MORI asked voters if they wanted more involvement in the provision of local public services. Only one in 20 wanted "involvement", whereas one in four wanted "more of a say" and half of them only wanted "more information". (Incidentally, the poll also showed that less than a quarter of the public agreed with the statement: "There is a real need to cut spending on public services in order to pay off the very high national debt we now have.")
Another, earlier poll from the same company asked voters to what extent, if at all, they would like to be involved in "decision-making" in their local communities, to which 50 per cent responded "not very" or "not at all". And when asked about being "involved" in the running of the country as a whole, the percentage of "uninteresteds" increased to 55 per cent.
People seem to opt for quality over control. My colleague Tom Calvocoressi makes an interesting analogy between the "DIY government" being proposed by the Tories and the do-it-yourself checkout procedures on offer from Tesco self-service tills.
In a busy superstore, with long lines for the checkout, self-service seems like a great idea to start with, supposedly speeding up your progress and handing power and responsibility to you, the customer. But then the barcode won't swipe, "approval is needed" for your carton of milk, the bags have run out and the whole procedure ends up taking you even longer than queuing for a cashier.
Ultimately you conclude that it's quite nice having someone who is paid and trained to do the job for you. We have other things to be getting on with.
Or, as Jackie Ashley put it in the Guardian yesterday, "Perhaps the biggest problem is that the politicians dreaming up these plans are different from the rest of us. After all, they are quite happy to spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week working at politics. The rest of the country have a life."
Cameron: Don't treat public like a 'bunch of mugs'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8629073.stm
David Cameron has said politicians must stop treating the public like a "bunch of mugs" in thinking only new laws and more money can solve problems.
Speaking in London, the Tory leader said the era of "top-down" government was over and parents and businesses needed to take more responsibility.
The Tories' "big society" concept was the only "new idea" on offer, he said.
Other parties have said the Tory plans would not empower people but leave them to fend for themselves.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the Tories are offering a "do-it-yourself" approach to public services that will result in fewer jobs and lower standards.
Reflecting on the state of the campaign, Mr Cameron said the first prime ministerial debate - which opinion polls have suggested triggered a surge of support for the Liberal Democrats - had livened it up.
'Clean break'
Both Labour and the Conservatives have accepted that Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg performed strongly in Thursday's TV encounter - the first of three during the campaign.
However, they insist the "real choice" remains between the two of them and that they have the answers to driving growth and reducing the huge government deficit while protecting frontline services.
Mr Cameron said the reaction to the debate showed people were "fed up with the status quo" and were "desperate" for change.
He urged people to back the Conservatives as the only party capable of providing a "clean break" with the past, saying Labour were only offering "more of the same".
Renewing his call for government to hand power to communities and for people to become more involved in running public services and community projects, he said that too many schools were failing, too many people were not working and pensioners were being let down under the "big state".
"The big government way has not worked. It is time for something genuinely different," Mr Cameron said.
"There has only been one big idea to come out of any of the manifestos. It is what the Conservatives are talking about with the "big society". It is the only way we can get real change."
'Big lie'
Mr Cameron said it was "a fraud and a fixation" that passing new laws and regulations or spending more money would solve problems of persistent inequality, crime or educational under-achievement.
"For decades politicians in this country have been treating the British public like a bunch of mugs.
"Politicians have been saying 'just give us a little bit more of your money, just let us pass one more law, one more regulation, one more little order from on high and suddenly we will solve all the country's problems.
"It is a lie, it is a big lie, it is rubbish. It doesn't work."
Instead, he said parents needed to take more responsibility to ensure their children attend school and have a healthy diet while businesses needed to act to stop selling alcohol to under-age drinkers and get more involved in anti-crime initiatives.
"Think about every single subject and it is about the responsibility you need to bring to your lives, communities and country that is going to make a difference," he said.
David Cameron has said politicians must stop treating the public like a "bunch of mugs" in thinking only new laws and more money can solve problems.
Speaking in London, the Tory leader said the era of "top-down" government was over and parents and businesses needed to take more responsibility.
The Tories' "big society" concept was the only "new idea" on offer, he said.
Other parties have said the Tory plans would not empower people but leave them to fend for themselves.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the Tories are offering a "do-it-yourself" approach to public services that will result in fewer jobs and lower standards.
Reflecting on the state of the campaign, Mr Cameron said the first prime ministerial debate - which opinion polls have suggested triggered a surge of support for the Liberal Democrats - had livened it up.
'Clean break'
Both Labour and the Conservatives have accepted that Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg performed strongly in Thursday's TV encounter - the first of three during the campaign.
However, they insist the "real choice" remains between the two of them and that they have the answers to driving growth and reducing the huge government deficit while protecting frontline services.
Mr Cameron said the reaction to the debate showed people were "fed up with the status quo" and were "desperate" for change.
He urged people to back the Conservatives as the only party capable of providing a "clean break" with the past, saying Labour were only offering "more of the same".
Renewing his call for government to hand power to communities and for people to become more involved in running public services and community projects, he said that too many schools were failing, too many people were not working and pensioners were being let down under the "big state".
"The big government way has not worked. It is time for something genuinely different," Mr Cameron said.
"There has only been one big idea to come out of any of the manifestos. It is what the Conservatives are talking about with the "big society". It is the only way we can get real change."
'Big lie'
Mr Cameron said it was "a fraud and a fixation" that passing new laws and regulations or spending more money would solve problems of persistent inequality, crime or educational under-achievement.
"For decades politicians in this country have been treating the British public like a bunch of mugs.
"Politicians have been saying 'just give us a little bit more of your money, just let us pass one more law, one more regulation, one more little order from on high and suddenly we will solve all the country's problems.
"It is a lie, it is a big lie, it is rubbish. It doesn't work."
Instead, he said parents needed to take more responsibility to ensure their children attend school and have a healthy diet while businesses needed to act to stop selling alcohol to under-age drinkers and get more involved in anti-crime initiatives.
"Think about every single subject and it is about the responsibility you need to bring to your lives, communities and country that is going to make a difference," he said.
