To think that David Cameron, like Margaret Thatcher, has no idea what 'society' is?

[goldenbirdies]

He's so arrogant he can't see there's already a 'big' society - one where people are trying to help and support each other even in the face of his party's brutal cuts. He's so deluded he imagines you can attack education and healthcare and welfare etc etc etc and still preach to people about 'building together'.
Foolish, foolish man.

I think you are being unreasonable - he has a different idea of society, and the size of Government. And yes, like others, he tends to localism and self-reliance.

Not everyone will agree with this approach.

The cuts are an agreed coalition policy. The "nasty Tory" demonisation is a current Labour party tactic.

"When you can't play the ball, play the man": has anyone laid out alternative, costed plans to show an alternative vision that is affordable now?

YABU... 13 years of the last administration has left us with a very fragmented society and a collapsed economy. People don't help & support each other as much as in the past because they expect help will arrive magically from above. Even our charities were mostly government-funded, it turns out.... when did that become the norm? I think it's a very important change in direction.

I Personally think they should be given a Viking Burial...On a scale replica of the Belgrano.

We should float it out into the English Channel and detonate it!

you don't have to like him but there's nothing wrong with wanting a society where people genuinely think about how they can contribute to the greater good rather than obsess about what they "are owed" by the state.

But people aleady geuinely think about how they can contribute - there's a whole raft of them out there now contributing in the teeth of the cuts. What has Cameron contributed? The man has only ever served himself.

i read a thought provoing piece by Guido Fawkes a right of centre (but not Tory) blogger on this. He also links to an article by Steve Richards on this issue.

This point made by Guido really sumarises the state of the debate.

"... most of the left don?t understand right-of-centre thinking because they hold a mental caricature of centre-right and right-wing ideology in their minds, attributing malice to their opponents. The Big Society is about displacing Big Government as the key actor in society, so when the left-wing quangocracy, unions and their media allies complain that charities are losing their taxpayer subsidy and this undercuts the Big Society agenda, they misunderstand.

.. liberals have always wanted to disperse power away from first the monarch and in modern times from the state. The Big Society agenda is not about the state delivering through para-statal bodies, it is about society delivering for itself. Ask not what your government can do for you, but what you can do for society?"

goldenbirdies - where to begin. What he is doing for the country? hmmm, i don't know, formulating policies to improve it, improving its standing with the rest of the world so that it will continue to trade with us and fund our public programs. For a start.
I don't see how he, or any PM, can be said to be enriching themself.

There are lots of people contributing to society already but there are whole rafts that could contribute more. The concept with the most potential, I think, is this 'Big Society Bank' - a golden opportunity to take the present public mood of anti-ostentation & put charitable giving and philanthropy much more firmly centre stage. Not the tin-rattling, small beer type of fund-raising, but giving big business and wealthy individuals chance to donate serious sums voluntarily.

God I'm sick of hearing that phrase 'ask not what your country can do for you etc' misused in this way. The plain fact is you can't take a country apart and then ask the people to 'contribute' to rebuild it themselves. Cameron has led a protected life and will continue to do so after this fiasco is over.

YANBU. watching bbc news, just watched his speech. i really have no idea how people swallow this crap.

"The man has only ever served himself."

Examples please, goldenbirdies!

The problem is that Govt already takes so much of what people earn that in the end an average family is working all the hours God sends to keep the show on the road.

If Govt stepped back, was only 25% of the economy rather than 50% there would be room for localism and big society to floursh. That isn't what the last 13 years have been about though.

Socialism is always about taxing 'the evil rich' and making poor people 'dependent and grateful' for what they are entitled to from Big Govt and frightens them by tellng them what the 'nasty capitalists' will do to take away their entitlement.

I'm not saying I agree with much of what the Coalition is doing, in fact I think they have been totally useless, but going back to what we had over the last 13 years isn't the solution either.

I'm voting UKIP next time because the main parties have driven me to it.

GiddyPickle - very good point about the snow. Problem is that some petty bureaucrat somewhere decided that on health and safety grounds we are not allowed to or we wil be liable if someone slips.

I would have been more than happy to shovel snow.

That 'you're liable if you clear the snow' thing is actually an urban myth.

But it's symptomatic of the nervous, over-regulated feeling of helplessness that gets generated by an intrusive nanny state that people have come to believe this.

I cleared the snow in front of my house. It's ridiculous not to.

Oh, and I got out and shovelled snow. So did DP. He lives on a private close, and cleared it all the way to the exit onto the street (a few hundred yards). He was amazed at how many people came to their front doors and watched without offering to help, or just asked 'Oh are you from the council?'.

I saw a programme a few weeks ago hosted by Jeremy Paxman. It was about the Big Society and philanthropy and someone made the point that in the last few decades the very wealthy have changed substantially from having 75% inherited wealth and 25% self made wealth to the other way round. Formerly, genuine philanthropy and charity was a bigger priority for the very rich, because they were there because of their good fortune and many had a noblesse oblige thing going on as a result. Now that the positions have switched, there is less of this going on, because the 75% who have made their fortunes themselves think "Well I worked bloody hard for my money - why should I give it away?" So we are not getting the big donators and "do-gooders" that we did in former decades and like they have from the old East Coast families in the USA.

It was interesting.

"There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."

Whilst the soundbite quote out of context is the one everyone remembers, I think the full quotation is worth reading sometimes.