Conservative Manifesto Launch

[anastaisia]

read it here

shall we pick this one to pieces too...

I find it odd that Margaret Thatcher said that 'There's no such thing as society', and now Cameron wants us believe the Tories will be 'Big on Society, small on government'.
I'm confused ...

walkies, think it's just that the Tories are wrapping themselves up in "community speak" to make their values more acceptable. Their values are still tax less, spend less on public services and value business above anything else. This is all just waffle.

I don't really know much about what went on when the Tories were last in power because I was a child then and didn't pay attention to the news, so its interesting hearing comments from people who remember them when they were last in power. Do you think the party have genuinely changed and taken a new direction, or do you think its all waffle and if they got in power they would revert back to a 'greed is good' and 'no such thing as society' philosophy?

Alicatte and jackstarbright - comments appreciated. Am getting serious policy burnout. Two done, two more to go!

What Thatcher said was "There's no such thing as society, only individual men and women." Cameron is focusing on society over individual people. I find him too much of a collectivist.

(don't get me wrong - I love community, but I find Cameron's Big Society ideology impractical and a bit creepy).

Actually I thought Cameron's comments were very reminiscent of Thatcher's "no such thing as society" speech. Like her he seems to be suggesting that government should not concern itself with trying create a fair society, but instead to allow individuals to do it themselves.

The mechanism by which individuals are expected to do this, and how we might all be individually persuaded to consider the needs of society at large rather than just serving our own interests are of course a mystery.

Yes - make it easy for individuals to do these things, definitely. But don't rely on it or co-opt it.

From a Cameron speech last year:

"But I also want to argue that the re-imagined state should not stop at creating opportunities for people to take control of their lives. It must actively help people take advantage of this new freedom. This means a new role for the state: actively helping to create the big society; directly agitating for, catalysing and galvanising social renewal.

So yes, in the fight against poverty, inequality, social breakdown and injustice I do want to move from state action to social action. But I see a powerful role for government in helping to engineer that shift. Let me put it more plainly: we must use the state to remake society."

Oh well, that's a little encouraging.

(Still won't be voting for him.)

Except that it doesn't actually mean anything does it?

Zephirine, I don't find it encouraging, I find it creepy and heavyhanded! I think you misunderstood me

Manifesto means "a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives, as one issued by a government, sovereign, or organization"

I don't see much of that

I see lots of posturing and fixing of things that don't need fixing.

As someone else said, there is no big idea. In fact there is a distinct lack of ANY ideas. I get no genuine impression of their motives and opinions.

This Big Society, Small government is a contradiction in terms.
They are advocating creating a big society........but who is creating it? Father Christmas? Oh no, that will be the government, so therefore the government will actually be extending it's platform by telling me, for example, that I should be married.

What a remarkably strange idea.

according to Cameron, your Facebook status page would also say whether you volunteered or not, "in much the same way as your relationship status."

(Not by law, obviously - by encouragement).

I would quite happily be a full time volunteer if I were a multi millionnaire

Absolutely spot on LadyBlahBlah - exactly the conversation DH and I were having last night. There isn't any kind of coherent idea. I think we really need a new direction, but the Tories have a lot of nice words but no real substance.

To answer your question Italy, I was quite a politics-aware teenager during the later Thatcher years and John Major government, and to me the policies now seem very similar to the way they were then, just put a nicer way and taking advantage of Labour's unpopularity to sneak through. There is very little difference as far as I can see.

I'm finding this thread a little weird to be honest. Where are the all the true blue Tories that have been laying into any doubters on the other threads?

I think the small government with community groups picking up the slack idea may come from the US. When I was over there working, local groups would adopt a highway for example, by maintaining the verges, and building affordable housing was done by supervised volunteers. Taxes and state interference were low compared to the UK. It was also quite common for people to donate 10% of their pretax income to local causes.

I liked it but I'm not sure I can see it working like that over here.

All this community empowerment stuff sounds exactly like the 'fourth sector pathfinders' guff from In the Thick of It. I reckon it's a smokescreen because the hidden agenda is privatising as much of local government as possible. It's the 'minimal state' theory from the Reagan era. A lot of Cameron's ideas seem to be coming direct from the American right.

@greatfiresoflondon

The idea being the money follows the
pupil/patient if they chose to move
from a failing school/gp surgery to >somewhere else.

This already happens. NHS hospitals already work on funding follows the patient. This is what worries me with the Conservative plans because if the patient does not go to an NHS hospital that means a real cut in the hospital's income.

Most NHS hospitals are already running at close to their most efficient - the private sector cannot approach many hospitals for the price that they do the treatments. The problem is that if the Conservative plans are implemented then it could tip some hospitals into debt. In my area the hospital is very efficient, but the chief executive says that if 10% of patients go private (which could happen under the Conservative plans) the hospital could no longer be financially viable. That means hospital closures.