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"?

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

Oh, god, YYYYEEESSS!! I completely agree .

agree with EdgarAllenPoll, the economy and other issues were far more important than Big Society, which is more like council level politics. Since the majority don't have time to help out, the only way that a real Big Society could work is if there was an element of compulsion. This smacks more of a socialist type society, Big Society, Big Socialism, a central planner's dream. The British public are too individualistic, the English have a reputation worldwide for being eccentrics. As Oscar Wilde said about socialism, which also holds true about Big Society
"The trouble with socialism is that it takes up too many evenings"

Big Society, more like Big Disaster for Cameron's popularity.

FYI Riven, his first name is Michael.

Hates that he has the of Belize.

His dad was a Commonwealth officer in British Honduras in the Fifties therefore he went to primary school there for a few years. Maybe he was born in Staines or somewhere hence not using that instead.

It seems that the 'average' person spends 4 hours a day watching TV. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1271527/Watching-TV-rises-hours-day.html

yes the average person wants to be allowed to do what they want to relax. How will they like being told to spend an hour each day at the local community centre helping out? Comedians will have a field day mocking the Tories, it will be like "get on your bike" and help the Tories sort out the nation's problems without being paid. First there will be jokes, then resentment, as people realise that the rich elite are not taking part in Big Society because they have more important things to do, while the poor single mums will be badgered and hectored and told that they are not doing enough for the community on top of everything else they have to struggle with.

If a local committee sets up a school you will have the choice of sending your child there. They will recieve state funding.

there is also a dark undertone to Big Society. It is the Tory policy of funding through charity, rather than the state providing the care. Slowly, slowly, state funding will be reduced and the people will be told that they should be more charitable, more giving (of their time and effort). The poor and vulnerable will suffer as the state withdraws its funds, and a harsh selfishness will arise where the well off will say that it serves the poor right if they are not prepared to make the effort and volunteer. The poor will be classed as undeserving scroungers, not prepared to help themselves. It will be their fault, they will become like asylum seekers.

'The poor will be classed as undeserving scroungers, not prepared to help themselves. It will be their fault, they will become like asylum seekers.'

They already are.

Look at the threads on here. SO many assumptions that people who object to higher-earners being taxed more are benefits claimants, that the poor don't work (no clue about the millions of working poor), that the nation's debt is the result of benefits claimants, etc.

Victoriana is alive and well!

The trouble with 'Big Society' is that this is a very secular nation and does not have the tradition of limited government that say, the US has, which also has the big religious element that is the foundation of many charitable endeavours.

This is also an extremely expensive place to live, with tenancy laws that make privately renting insecure at best, so many have stretched themselves financially to obtain a mortgage.

'On yer bike' forced thousands to move away from their original communities to seek work, and brought up a generation of people with no sense of roots or loyalty to their community because, well, you need to keep your bike handy, don't get too comfortable!

You can't take a model from some other country and just paste it over onto another.

It's not only unoriginal but also lazy and patronisingly insulting.

agree with you 100% expatinscotland. I was a Tory voter, but Big Society is wrong. It is Orwell's doublespeak to fool the public. It means going back to Victorian England. It means tax cuts for the rich, and the poor having their funds cut and being told to "get on their bikes". It is "I'm Alright Jack" dressed up in fancy clothes and language, so that the people can't see it for what it is. It is a charter for screwing the poor and dressing it up in a false morality of "God helps those who help themselves", because the Tories certainly won't help them.

well this thread certainly proves the point about how badly the Tories have failed to communicate their Big Society idea, given that there seems to be a vacuum into which people can just project any old crap they make up Where have they said they'll be forcing people down to the community centre for an hour a day?

I do agree though about the hectoring - it is coming across that way already. I think all this 'no-one has time to volunteer' stuff is absolute crap but one way the Tories have gone wrong is by implying that nobody actually volunteers at the moment, rather than stressing how much people already do and saying they want to build on that and make it easier for our existing army of heroic volunteers to achieve results etc etc.

One thing they would absolutely have to do which they have not done is to go on much more about the rich doing their bit. Rich people in this country give very little to charity compared with the rich in the US. (Mean bastards.) Cameron needs to start hectoring his friends, and doing it very visibly. He will only get the nation on side to give of their time if he can show the rich people giving their money. (Many rich people already do give time to 'volunteering' but often that means stuff like being trustees of high status institutions like the British Museum or whatever and going to lots of fancy pants receptions or networking with other rich people at committee meetings, or being a magistrate for instance and exerting power, so they'll never convince us that this is 'work' in the same way as washing the floor in the community centre after a party!)

We're not a country of volunteers. We are already doing our bit. Maybe some of the MPs on all sides could start doing their bit instead of having their hands in the till, living expense-free off the sweat of the working people up and down this land. We are a civilised society, we have created state structures and welfare systems to help all of our people. We don't want to be told by millionaire politicians, who would't know hardship if it slapped them in the face, to start doing our bit and pulling our finger out.

what do you mean when you say 'We're not a country of volunteers' Claig? Do you mean volunteering isn't a good thing and shouldn't be encouraged?

I'm saying that the structures and foundations of this nation are not based on volunteering. We work and pay taxes to create the structures that support our society. We all pool the fruits of our labour together and agree to provide support for the nation from those sources. Volunteering is an extra, it is on top. We cannot rely on volunteering. Yes volunteering is good and should be encouraged and we have many good volunteers in this country, but volunteering is not a panacea and no substitute for the state helping to maintain our society. To create a policy called Big Society and place it amongst the top priorities and use it in the debates, even though all opinion polls show that it has fallen flat, indicates that there is more to it than just volunteering.
If the Tories want to keep pressing it, then that is their choice, but I think the public will see through it and it will rebound on the Tories.

May I just point out that one of the issues involved in volunteering is that of women and work.

Women used to do a lot of unpaid caring work, from looking after elderly relatives, to childcare, to running things. Women still do a lot of these things, but far less, because a lot of us now work, in paid employment. There is a hole now, where non-working women used to be.

This is hovering around in the background of "Big Society" but it is very hard to get to grips with it all because the concept is just v. v. woolly.

What did it mean? Who knows? Anything. Nothing. We actually have very little idea at all.

All I really know is that our local Conservative candidate handled it with tongs when he was asked about it. Which is a crazy situation to be in, so close to an election.

Thank God that all Tories are not for Big Society. VodkaAndTonic's Guardian shows that some Tories agree with me and IMO show sense

"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".

Clever comedians like Mark Steel will have a field day with Big Society, it will be like shooting fish in a barrel. The Tories are handing it to the opposition on a plate. If there is another election in a year's time, the Tories will be kicked out and the failure of Big Society will have played a major part in underming their credibility. Their judgement will have been shown to be off key, and Gordon Broon will be rubbing his hands as he waits in the wings.

i do get a very strong sense that it is being quietly strangled as we speak.

"We're not a country of volunteers."

Actually I was quite skeptical when this was first rolled out in my borough, but it does work, people do come forward and in pitching in they also learn new skills which helps people go on to get jobs.

Look at the borough's who had to sell off their housing stock because they could not maintain them because the government were taking 40% of the rents and there was no money for maintenance, some set up tenant led housing associations to run the housing stock instead of selling them to housing associations, tenants came forward in droves to get involved, and it worked there are some very successful tenant led housing associations around.

So to say it wont work because people wont get involved is wrong, it is working now and people will come and go from these endeavours as time and life suits them.

There are many examples of ordinary people setting up extremely good examples of 'big society' already in the communities of their own backs, just look around the projects of the inner cities, anti gang/ knife projects, anti drug projects, inclusion projects, youth projects, these things are going on now and they need recognition and expanding into all neighbourhoods.

I'm not a leftie, so maybe I shouldn't be here but ...

Surestart started out as a system of bringing together and co-ordinating the existing network of pre-school provision, some of which was voluntary, private, charity-run, and knitting it up with existing legislation, particularly around parents receiving benefits.

Perhaps that's what they have in mind? But a.) You need the gift of telepathy to know if that's the case - because it was never, ever, spelled out and b.) Sure start was backed up by lots of research and painstaking working out of details, and plans, and a budget. Lacking with "Big Society". Which had all the appearance of being something DC had thought up in the car on the way to somewhere or other.

It was an absolute, utter, communications failure. Just indistinct, which allowed all sorts of projection, wishful or concerned, because it was content-free.

Sorry, that should be "I'm a leftie". I'm sorry if I an butting in here, but I am kind of fascinated by the Big Society thing.

atlantis - are you in Fulham?

but atlantis, instead of putting the burden of solving gang, knife and drug problems on Mrs. Jones and her friends on the local estate, why don't the politicians instead make sure that they send some bobbies down there and start arresting a few people like the dealers? People up and down the country have been dying as their houses are attacked by arsonists, people have been bullied and tormented and ended up committing suicide because nothing was done to stop the thugs. Anne Wiiddecombe was a great Tory, marginalised by the rest of the party, because she was the most popular Tory by far amongst the constituency members. She went to rough estates and saw first-hand what goes on. We need people like her to push for change, more police, more justice, no more cop outs of Big Society, while the building is collapsing around us.

"atlantis - are you in Fulham? "

No Herts.

"but atlantis, instead of putting the burden of solving gang, knife and drug problems on Mrs. Jones and her friends..."

Claig, come on, you know as well as I do that the Conservatives are tough on crime, if we can guarantee one thing under a conservative government it's that they will use a big 'foot' to stamp down on criminals.

It shouldn't be about Mrs. Jones, your right, but it has been under Labour, but while these projects are there they need supporting, the police can't do it all themselves, they can't get inside the family home and find out what's going wrong and steer these kids towards the right way, it's not their job.

Under the conservatives at least the police wont be spending 80% of their time filling out forms.

Nice idea, complete crap in reality. ESPECIALLY when an idea implemented by Tories... When Tories say, "we'll take care of the hard working" they mean "we'll write off anyone who is not wealthy as lazy and undeserving"... I think it probably was not a great plan as it would not have convinced floaters who are looking at policy and will have pissed off some of the party... Yeah, basically a fairly meaningless idea unless thought about in context of the party presenting it and not a pretty idea taken in a Conservative context.