The BullShit Clarifies...

The BBC is reporting that PM Dave has written yet another article clarifying what he means by his Big Society (BS). And this time, there actually is some clarity, although not a lot of reassurance.

David Cameron says his vision for public services is an important part of his Big Society agenda

"David Cameron has promised to....end the state's monopoly over the public sector......the prime minister described his vision of "open public services"....and promised to release public services from the "grip of state control.....Mr Cameron added the initiative was was an important part of his Big Society agenda....The prime minister said he wanted an automatic right for private sector bodies to bid for public work, decision-making power to be given back to professionals, and people to have more control over the budget for the service they receive.... public services should be open to a range of providers competing to offer a better service.... there are some areas - like national security services or the judiciary - where this wouldn't make sense. But everywhere else should be open to real diversity....Cameron....insisted the state still had a crucial role to play in ensuring fair funding and access.The government hopes the plan will reduce bureaucracy, improve quality and save money....."

Let's interpret the PM's words.....

"an automatic right for private sector bodies to bid for public work"

= straightforward privatisation.

If any big international business can undercut the current provider, they can take the contract. And how would the undercut? By paying less and having fewer rights for the workers (that'd be the workers recently sacked from the local authority who were previously doing the work...). That's what happened in the '80s and that's what would happen again if this "plan" is ever put into action.

"...public services should be open to a range of providers competing to offer a better service...."

= cost cutting and quality reduction.

Contracting out has always, in the past, led to cheapest contracts being accepted and standards of quality falling. Think about it: we never had MRSA in our hospital wards until the Tories insisted in contracting out cleaning services. In recent years we have spent millions and had "cleaning task forces" and "emergency cleaning teams" in our hospitals to attempt to put that  situation (which should never have been allowed to happen in the first place) right.

"there are some areas - like national security services or the judiciary - where this wouldn't make sense."  

=  the police and the judges are generally Conservative, but don't worry lads, we'll protect your jobs.

There are actually lots of other services (see hopitals above) where it doesn't make sense either, but we have to keep the police and the justice system onside (ref. Miners Strike 1984) in case the oiks get uppity.

"Cameron....insisted the state still had a crucial role to play in ensuring fair funding and access." 

= we, you and me, the mugs, still pay....

You continue to pay, it's just that you no longer have any real democratic control over service delivery...


"reduce bureaucracy, improve quality and save money....." 

= cut jobs, cut quality, cut taxes for those still able to pay them...

So the Big Society isn't really Bull Shit. Dave wasn't being vague because he wasn't clear about his own ideas, he was being evasive, because he knew fine well the real implications of the Big Society (BS). This version of the BS is revealed as a return to Thatcherite privatisation, job cutting, the run down of services and the weakening of local democracy.

It's a Thatcherite dream and it's coming to a school or a hospital or care home near you. Let's hope it's not the one your kids go to or your elderly relatives are in....

Relaunch....yawn..

I have just watched David Cameron try to "relaunch" the "Big Society" (again...). I listened as closely as I could to the PMs words, but still it did not form any shape in my mind. It still comes across as a silly amporphous "let's all hold hands and help each other" non-sense. And, that being the case, it is anathema to what we know of Tory philosophy and politics in action. Mrs Thatcher put it most succinctly....."there is no such thing as society".

Which begs the question: if Tories believe that there is no such thing as society, how can they convince us to believe that there is such a thing as a "Big Society"?

The Guardians's Steve Bell has a v. funny take on it here...

Big Society Brass Neck....

Last Thursday I blogged about Lord Wei, the Tories' "Big Society Tsar", and his pressing need to give up voluntarily working for The Big Society and earn some dosh to put food on the table. The ironic humour inherent in the situation was side-splitting.

Now the same Lord Wei has posted on his blog that public sector workers should go part time... to support The Big Society....!

"The second action local authorities can take is to have a serious look at their core costs – not just the salaries of middle management and their CEOs but also what hours they do. One of the major surprises of the recession in the private sector has been how low unemployment has been given the severity of the downturn. One reason is because many firms invited staff to go part time."

Translated: why are local authority workers so selfish? Why do they need full-time work? Why don't they (unlike me) go part-time to help me meet my targets....?


Really, the twists in this story are enough to furnish a whole series of  Tales of the Unexpected...  

The Big Society is about volunteering at a local level but the man who runs The Big Society can't afford to work part-time to support The Big Society, so he demands that everybody else should work part-time to support......The Big Society!!!

Truly, you couldn't make it up. But then, you don't have to if the Tories are making the rules....

The Big Society

Although David Cameron is constantly pushing his "big idea" of the Big Society, he never seems to explain clearly what it may mean in practice. Let me have a go.

I think a reasonable definition of an organisation which promoted and encapsulated the Big Society would have several characteristics:

independent of local and national government: organising at local and national level for the common good; involving all interested parties in promoting common aims; self motivating; self financing; self organising: effectively representing your own group.

Any group meeting this definition would, IMO, be eligible for inclusion in Cameron's pantheon of concerned citizens acting independently of the state and for the common good.

I also think that is a reasonable defintion of a Trade Union. But the Tories, despite their devotion to The Big Society, seem to have trouble with Trades Unions, i.e. The Big Society in action. The Big Society in reality. The Big Society on the ground.

In fact the Tories hate the Unions, because they are independent of government and they do act in the common good. The Conservatives are always thinking up new ways to limit TU power and undermine the rights of workers. David Cameron hinted so at PMQs yesterday.

The latest is Boris, threatening the underground train drivers.

Now, I have no real knowledge of the Union's grievances in this case, and I have absolutely no opinion on the proposed industrial action. It just seems ironic to me that, at the very point when The Big Society manifests itself in action, the Conservatives do an about turn: they don't really want independent groups operating independently of government in the public good at all.

Either that or The Big Society is a fiction, a "we're all in it together" cynical joke on the public to try to fool us that the caring conservatism actually means something concrete, when it does no such thing.

Aye but, what is it!!!???***

On the ConservativeHome website someone called Oberon Houston has (yet another) go at explaining what the Big Society is and how it will work.

This must be the websites twentieth attempt to explain why the "big Society" is a good thing. So far they have had little success. Sad to relate, Mr Houston's "explanation" leaves the reader as bamboozled as any of the previous atempted "clarifications". It turns out that the bold Oberon has no more ability to explain what the elusive policy is about than any previous Tory interlocuter.

One of his prescriptions is that;

"...What it means is saying that central government won't decide what your kids' education will be, where they go to school, or what they learn (within prescribed requirements). Or which hospital you go to for treatment, your GP - the one you chose - will send you to the treatment centre which has the best provision and the best expected outcomes for you...."

But Michael Gove has comprehensively sunk the idea that "...central government won't decide what your kids' education will be...".   His so-called "free" schools will report directly to the Department for Education, i.e. more centralisation, not less, will be the result of the one policy which the coalition has enacted so far. So when Houston writes

"..Imagine all public services, still paid for by the state, but accountable to the people they serve instead of faceless politicians and bureaucrats in London. "...

...he has to explain how the Big Society aligns with Gove's insistence that his new part-private schools report directly to him and his "faceless bureaucrats in London"... What's that about? How does reporting to Westminster mean that "..... central government won't decide what your kids' education will be... "?

If Tory Ministers insist on policies which contradict David Cameron's big idea, and David Cameron let's them implement these policies, how is anyone to judge, let alone act on, what the "Big Society" really means?"

Needless to say, ConservativeHome has no reasoned explanation of this, very apparent, conflict.

In my analysis the Big Society has three possible meanings;
 
1. It is pure PR, and given that its creator has had only one "real" job (if you can call PR Officer for a  TV company a real job), that would be a reasonable assumption.
 
2. It is no more than currently happens when local councils work with charites and other groups to find economical ways and means of delivering effective services. In which case, it is no more than the long established Labour commitment to the cohesiveness and interdependence of government, local government and wider society, and owes a lot more to existing methods of achieving that cohesiveness than any supposedly new and fresh thinking. Not that it's a bad idea for that: partnership working is obviously key to the efficient and effective delivery of high quality services and the Tories stealing Labour's clothes is all right by me as long as it results in better services to the public (not that I think the Conservatives are motivated to deliver better public services).
 
3. It is a smokescreen for disguising the impact of the Osborne cuts, and a method of misdirecting attention away from the ideological nature of the cuts and the Tory Party's primary aim of cutting public services to the bone for ideological, not economic, reasons. In which case it's just a lie and a cynical lie at that: it will achieve nothing for the people of Britain.
 
There is, of course, possibility 4, and that is that the "Big Society" is a load of ill-thought-out meaningless tosh and should not have been made so much of by David Cameron, and he should drop it now before it becomes even more embarrassing to him and his party.

I have seen two headlines today:

 Cameron defines his Big Society

Cameron defines his Big Society "passion"

First statement not true, second statement true.

It seems that Dave has a "passion" for the "big society" but, like a lovesick teenager, he can shout from the rooftops the strength of his emotions, but, blinded by desire, he is dumbstruck and tongue-tied, unable to explain the actual nature of his love.

This quote from ConservativeHome;

"The Big Society is about a huge culture change… where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighbourhoods, in their workplace… don’t always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face… but instead feel both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities."

and ...

"It’s about people setting up great new schools. Businesses helping people getting trained for work. Charities working to rehabilitate offenders... Paying public service providers by results."

All very nice, and some of happening right now....but what does that actually mean in any practical situation?

Take "setting up great schools". We have six secondary and about 30 primary schools in our council area. If  I decide to take one of these schools out of local authority control, what happens next? Does the council still have to provide support for the deserting school? Legal, environmental, help with social issues and health matters? With dyslexic kids and those who lag behind? Or will my new "great" school bar all these troublesome pupils in the interest of remaning "great"? What happens to the schools left behind? Do they absorb the problems pupils I have just shed? Do they get less money allocated as the new school gets set up help from the government?

"Setting up great schools" seems like a great idea... but it looks like the typical Thatcherite Tory fragmentation - not a cementation - of society, whether you call it "big" or just normal....

There's a lot more of it, all as vague and imprecise as the above.
 
So we drive in the direction of where Dave thinks the "big society" might be, but we have no assurance that we are using the right road map and we have no clue as to how we will identify the beast, should it really exist, and should we ever find it....

With a bit of luck it'll all peter out in the sands of the desert.

With less luck, it will recreate the broken Tory society that labour inherited in 1997....

Brave Dave's New World

David Cameron has launched his manifesto, the key themes being "smaller government" and "big society".

Judging by the detail, "smaller government" means less investment in schools, hospitals and public services generally.

And "big society" means, you pay the difference..... , yes I mean you my lad.....

Also: the Manifesto itself looks like a missive from the Ministry of Works, circa 1952.....

Given that these publications are pored over and designed to carry the internal "message" of the document: what message is a boring, bland, civil service-ese hardback from the age of austerity cover supposed to convey?

When ideas like this used to come up in "Yes Minister", Sir Humphrey would say "that's very brave, Minister", meaning it's a damn foolhardy idea Minister, but I'm not going to alert you to it if your too stupid to see for yourseself...

So, Brave for Dave, but how clever?