Any Tory voters think Cameron's "Big Society" idea was a good one?

[VodkaAndTonic]

From The Guardian here:

Another senior and normally loyal Tory MP complained that Cameron's big idea for the campaign ? "the Big Society", under which armies of volunteers would come together to tackle the country's ills ? was "complete crap".

"We couldn't sell that stuff on the doorstep. It was pathetic. All we needed was a simple message on policy. We could have won a majority if we had not had to try to sell this nonsense."

Do any Tory voters:

a) think Big Society is a good idea
b) think it is a vote winner
c) think it is "complete crap"?

You don't need to do it if you don't want to.

It requires quite a small group to be very actively involved, with a larger group willing to send their children to the new school.

The existing school will also improve as competition, as long as it is suitably regulated, drives up standards. I understand that leftists will not believe this, but it is an article of faith on the right.

I think it's an excellent idea too. It would bring back our sense of community, something that we've lost.

We have lost our sense of community. The fabric of our society is no longer closely knit. We are encouraged to think more about ourselves than we do other people. How do you reverse this? I think the "Great Society" is a lofty goal and one worth pursuing but where do you begin?

Cameron never actually said Broken Britain, as far as I can tell.

He said "broken society" - and that was just a soundbite. Of course not all of our society is broken, but parts of it certainly are.

I am sure that Tory governments played just as big a role as Labour governments in overseeing that breakdown - but it is there nonetheless, and Cameron was the only politician talking about trying to solve the problems of drug addiction and alcohol abuse. He was the only politician seriously talking about welfare reform. Although I am not hugely keen on the social conservatism agenda, he was the only politician talking about family breakdown.

And yes, making society more cohesive is one strand of a "solution" to these problems.

Prolesworth - You are like a sulky teenager who keeps saying "But I don't geddit, Miss" -But you do geddit.

Simply - it's about engaging with the community in which you live. What can you offer it? What can it offer you?

The more we engage the happier we are. We need plenty of engagement. Which is why we all Mumsnet.

"The more we engage the happier we are. We need plenty of engagement. Which is why we all Mumsnet."

Just imagining how much this bag of ferrits could get done before a mass fight broke out?

think of it as a bit like the American system, but without all the religious stuff and nice tax breaks for donating to the charities that religions are which compel many people there to volunteer and donate.

which means it's a pile of twaddle when applied to the secular nation that is Britain.

If a vicar came up with it for his Sunday sermon I would think it a lovely idea. But I genuinely can't see how it translates into any sort of useful notion in terms of government.

I think Big Society was complete crap and a vote loser. It was patronising BS and made it look like they had run out of ideas and this was one of their main policies. It was an unclear idea that you had to spend time and effort trying to understand, and when you did finally understand it, you found out that you had wasted your time because it was complete crap. I think Cameron should quietly drop it if he doesn't want his poll rating to go down faster than a lead balloon.

Anything that re-builds a sense of cummunity is a good thing.

" then it is just what I took it for in the first place: empty rhetoric."

Our Borough council is conservative and they have been laying the plans for this for some time.

Firstly we returned power to the neighbourhoods by inviting residents to come along to a meeting in which ward councillors, the local police and the head of public protection attended along with members of staff from the council.

At these meetings the residents could point out exactly what they thought was going wrong with their neighbourhood and what could be changed to make things better, what they thought would benefit the area ( ie; youth clubs, active policing, elderly residents networks etc).

From there the residents are asked if they would be prepared to sit on committees to try to implement stategic changes in channeling help towards the core issues ( quite a lot of residents were eager and willing to rise to the challenge). They were also asked if they would like to donate some of their time in starting, running (with training) or participting in voluntary activities (again residents were eager to help).

Across the areas in our borough where these committees have been set up we now have a number of different / same schemes that have been identified and run for the benefit of the local communities ( youth clubs/ projects, cooking and healthy eating classes/ groups for children, twilight centres for teenagers to go, helpful hands ( odd job services for the elderly and disabled ) Social get togethers for pensioners/ cottage gardens, etc), women's groups and language groups to help people learn English, whilst also identifying areas of crime, malicious behaviour, anti social behaviour, drugs hotspots, fly tipping, dangerous routes (for women and children- clear up projects) etc.

Residents coming together to build a better, stronger and safer community.

It's working so much better than the government initiated projects that would have a set up funding and then be cut loose to try to gain finance from elsewhere and folding within a few months because the residents weren't involved.

thank you Atlantis - good post.
(That's not the borough in the Johann Hari article is it?)

I don't think it's empty rhetoric at all but it has certainly been appallingly badly communicated.

surprised Gove and Hague are portrayed as part of the 'smug and smarmy' bunch - I think Cameron has done himself a lot of harm by sticking with Osborne though. He is a liability before he has even done anything and from what people have said on the other thread it does seem unlikely he is up to the actual job of chancellor. Do you think he has some incriminating photos of Dave somewhere?

atlantis - agree a good post and Seth at Hari comment.

Might be scrapping the barrel here - but I think Cameron and Osbourne actually work well together and would form a strong team. Wouldn't it make a refreshing and constructive change to have a PM and chancellor who visably like and respect each other?

Riv - the point is it would be state-funded - it would get a pot of money per pupil (with a premium for the poorer ones to encourage the schools to be socially inclusive).
Anyone can start a private school as you say, but you can't currently start new ones within the state sector very easily.

It is not one policy that will bring back the lost community.

Who will get involved with setting up schools? Most of us can't afford to and haven't got time. It will be educated SAHMs.

And while they're all busy getting involved in their community, and the rest of us are all busy paying enormous mortgages, the government will just go to war over our heads, as they did last time, because they don't care what the peasants think when it comes to big decisions.

To mend our broken society and regain our community, we need a change from the top downwards. We need a government that genuinely cares about the community, instead of one that intends to bring back fox-hunting even though a clear majority of ordinary people are against it.

And just ask yourselves: what was so great about the community in past times? There were great aspects to it, but it was always united by a loathing of the upper classes, who exploited it.
If we really, genuinely want the sort of community that exists in Germany for example, where every aspect of life is governed by your rights and responsibilities towards teh community, it will be completely new ground for Britain.
And I don't see any signs that the Cameroonies are at all attracted by that.

So no one should have the right to set up a school just because not everyone has the time or the education?

Fox hunting is still HERE by the way, it happens all the time around here. they did a crap job of getting rid of it.

"Who will get involved with setting up schools? Most of us can't afford to and haven't got time."

teachers, mostly, judging by the groups of people that have already come forward.
One comment I read is that a group of doctors can get together to set up an NHS medical practice but at the moment a group of teachers can't get together to set up a state school.

'Big society is the opposite of 'big government' - the latter being the offering from labour..

as a vote winner, crap, because everyone thinks like the people on this thread 'i don't have time 'etc'...

they would have done better to really hammer on the economy.

It's indeed educated SAHM who will start their own shools (who else has the time?)- basically the already better-off will be able to opt out of the local school, funding will be syphoned off for the middle class adventure, leaving the local school to go down the tubes. It's an opportunity for the savvy to opt out of the system. What happens to the school left behind? Is there no ambition to make that a good school, instead of a holding pen ?

actually, anyway, most people have quite a lot of leisure time. It's only because on MN we are at the point in our lives when we have the least (ie children + jobs + elderly relatives in many cases) that from our perspective it seems so unlikely that people would want to volunteer.
most teenagers, young adults, childless people, retired people, have free time!