Big Society or Big Failure?

Share the love on Valentine's Day. Share the love and watch as more and more people face unemployment. The day has not been about love, it's been about administration, liquidation and the Big Society and how you too can lose your job, but still do it.

The Big Society has potential. There are elements of it that appeal to my socialist tendencies. The idea of rebuilding community spirit is admirable, even if it comes from a party responsible for its original destruction. But while Cameron answers concerns by using soundbites like 'We're all in this together' and 'It's not up to central government to dictate to local government how to spend its money', there is an overwhelming fear as to how it will work, especially when local government is slashing the amount of money it's giving to the 3rd sector. The many friends I have who work in the voluntary sector are more concerned about losing their jobs than they are about making the Big Society work.

It would appear, that when you strip away all the political rhetoric, posturing and altruism, what the leader of the government wants is for people to do the jobs they do at the moment for nothing, or for about £60 per week; which is the average amount of Job Seekers Allowance. Alternatively, if you haven't lost your job and you're not already using most of your spare time entertaining your kids or doing all manner of other voluntary things, then perhaps you'd like to do some volunteer work when you could be eating or sleeping?

I could, if I don't lose my job, give up writing blogs, so I could go and work for nothing in a library; except, 8 of the county's libraries are shutting and possibly more will follow in the coming years; so perhaps I could stand on street corners with boxes of books and hope to encourage a new generation to read, when they're not being encouraged to go and do some volunteer work, like emptying rubbish bins or policing the streets.

The Big Society will ultimately get supporters and those supporters will criticise the people who complain about it or haven't got the time to get involved. They'll argue that by volunteering they stand a better chance of getting off the dole queue and into a very low paid alternative job to the career they once thought they had. The right wing press will spin it all to seem as though people like me are doing everything in our power to devalue a great idea and will be unaware of the short cuts that will be risking lives or the lack of funds that will be making people poor and wishing for food.

The government don't want to do anything; it's up to you to do it, until they have to make a decision and then they will blame you for forcing them into doing the job they were elected to do.