"There is no such thing as society" Margaret Thatcher

“You can call it liberalism. You can call it empowerment. You can call it freedom. You can call it responsibility. I call it the Big Society.”

David Cameron

A society is ‘the community of people living in a particular country or region and having shared customs, laws, and organizations’. In every democracy people are given the right to make decisions influencing policies. Winston Churchill once said: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried” and it is argued that, even though, democracy means ‘rule by the people’, the public lacks the power to have an direct impact on the policy-makers.

The central theme in the 2010 Conservative manifesto was the so-called ‘Big Society’. After the 2010 General Elections it has become the ideological flagship of the new coalition government. The prime minister and his Lib Dem deputy said people should have more say over planning decisions and voluntary groups be able to run public services. David Cameron said that in the past, the talents and initiative of people had been wasted, claiming that over-centralised government had turned public sector workers into the "weary, disillusioned puppets of government targets".  Therefore, the government wants make society stronger by getting more people working together to run their own affairs locally. The idea of the ‘big society’ suggests that people at local level should take more responsibility and do more to help themselves and their communities, rather than relying on action taken by state institutions and public services. “This includes giving communities power to stop post office or pub closures, training community organisers, encouraging volunteering, creating a Big Society Bank to fund social enterprises, giving people greater access to government data and reviewing of local government finance.” The government has committed to setting up a Big Society Bank to give social enterprises, charities and voluntary organisations access to greater resources. It would be set up using money from dormant bank accounts  and would encourage investment in social change.

It all sounds very impressive but unfortunately it did not work as well as the Prime Minister has dreamt it would. Nobody (most possibly including David Cameron) really knows what the ‘Big Society’ is really about. The public was confused by or uninterested in the new proposals. 

David Cameron was accused of using this populist slogan to encourage many people to work for free and, therefore, cut government spending. Even though, David Cameron rejected suggestions that the plans were a “cover" for substantial cuts in public services due next year, many people said, that it was his synonym of ‘savings’.       

        

During the last Conservative conference in October 2011, David Cameron did not mention the ‘Big Society’ directly. Does it mean it is the end of his dream? I guess not. Maybe he will find another ‘catchy’ term… ‘Help the economy – work for free!’ perhaps?

While doing my research about the ‘Big Society’ I found an interesting conclusion…

That’s what I think,

MANU