"Big Society"

[The Spanish]

'The Coalition' as a term really gives me the creeps.

 

[keaton]

'The Coalition' as a term really gives me the creeps.

It should definetely be the name for a recently refurbished shite bar/club in Brighton. If it isn't already.

 

[The Spanish]

It should definetely be the name for a recently refurbished shite bar/club in Brighton. If it isn't already.

hahaha yeah you can see the posters.

Big Society Night at The Coalition. No Concessions.

 

[Norman Potting]

As we seem to be moving toward a "work until you drop" culture I find it difficult to see where all the recently retired and active will come from to make this work.

I would love to retire at 60 and then go and volunteer somewhere (Bluebell Railway springs to mind) but cannot see it happening.

 

[pork pie]

Binfest alert!

 

[bhafc99]

As others have said, it'd be a jolly good idea – if we all lived in nice middle class villages and towns where people were super nice and keen to help run their local services.

Sadly life isn't like that in 80% of Britain.

 

[Norman Baker suck my lozenge]

I'm all for patrolling my neighbourhood punching chavs until they fall into line,I like the big society and I shall embrace it fully.

 

[Silent Bob]

It just means privatisation.

 

[Don Quixote]

It is an abomination. Hopefully David Milliband will be elected soon and we can stop this mess for good.

 

[glasfryn]

I'v been around long enough to know that all MP's are in it to line their own pockets or on some ego trip and the tories are the worst at it.
would like to think it would work but with this lot in power the idea is crap

 

[drew]

Certainly sounds like they are absolving themselves from some area of responsiblity they would normally be in charge of. Then again, you can't really win, can you ? You devolve powers from the govenment and you inevitibly end up with "Post-code lottery" in that some areas will manage their resources better than others, or you centralise, and you can't change anything, because it's like turnng an oil tanker, it's too big a deal to change course.

Slightly O/T, but with all these proposed government cuts, I have a slight conspiracy theory. We all remember the quote from the US treasury guy in the run up to our election who said "whoever wins this election, will be so unpopular, they won't get back in for a generation". Well, my feeling is that the coalition are going further in the cuts than they really need to, further than any commentators are saying is needed, and I think they are doing it so that in, say, 3 years time, things have improved and they will be able to deliver some good news in order to get re-elected again. Don't know if that hold water at all.

Exactly.

The good news will be tax cuts and more in the pockets of their supporters and less public services.

The postcode lottery will be the major problem, especially if they go ahead with the putting money in the hands of GPs to manage. What happens when one GP will pay for a cancer drug that another won't or can't because they have overspent.

All grand ideas on paper but totally unworkable.

And if you think about it, what the tories are saying is that they want to deregulate society. Well, deregulation certainly worked in the banking sector!!!

 

[Billy the Fish]

Have they actually said what it is yet, or is everyone just guessing?

Isn't it just a concept, or an attitude, that's what I got from the election campaign, could be wrong though

 

[Barnet Seagull]

The big society will only benefit areas of the country where there are enough willing and able to volunteer.

I believe this is likely to be the more affluent areas of the country but we'll see...

 

[Pavilionaire]

A guy on 5Live this morning, speaking on behalf of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (or something like that) said there was more than 1 million people working with existing charities, and 3 million who work with charities and other social organisations.

Basically, there's a lot of people giving up a lot of free time already to "fill a gap" and I buy the idea that more people having to work longer will reduce those of useful retirement age stepping into these roles.

The people at the top should do something different to show the rest of us what "The Big Society" is all about. The public are still thinking "expenses scandal" so we need to see politicians, bankers and other fat cats take the lead, otherwise it WILL be social services on the cheap.

 

[e77]

hahaha yeah you can see the posters.

Big Society Night at The Coalition. No Concessions.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Big Marketing Speak Non-Starter. What a load of crap.

 

[Greyrun]

Big Marketing Speak Non-Starter. What a load of crap.

 

[Common as Mook]

Why not give it chance at least?

 

[clapham_gull]

Why not give it chance at least?

Give what a chance ?

 

[Beach Hut]

Give what a chance ?

Peace you leftie buffoon