The Red Tories’ “Big Society”
So far, David Cameron’s domestic agenda sounds pretty darn good.
Will
Will writes from Washington, D.C. (well, Arlington, Virginia). You can reach him at willblogcorrespondence at gmail dot com.
Features
Hot Posts
Thank You!
Thanks to your generosity, we were able to upgrade our service plan. Hopefully this will help us address some of our performance issues.
Recent Comments
on A Note from EmWhatever it is will pass, and we all look forward to that.
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024...what an incredibly weird comment. It's impossible for you to honestly mean it, as you have spent…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024When was the Gabriella Miller Act passed by the House? According to Congress's own records, it says…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024One of the things taken out of the Continuing Resolution was money for Pediatric Cancer research. To…
on The Church EntertainmentGrandpa drawings for holidays and birthdays seem to have become a tradition rather quickly. Here is…
on A Note from EmHave had episodes like you describe too. It's nothing you need to apologize for. The muse will sing…
on Weekend Plans Post: The Ghost TownWell, I feel like I deserve my 3 weeks off after teaching four different classes, serving on two job…
Comics
-
December 20, 2024
-
December 19, 2024
-
December 18, 2024
-
Moving Picture of a Handy Man Around the House
December 17, 2024
More Comments
on A Note from Em
on Weekend Plans Post: The Ghost Town
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024- on A Note from Em
- on Weekend Plans Post: The Ghost Town
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024
on A Note from Em
- on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024
- on A Note from Em
on A Note from Em
Ah yeah- I was going to post something about that. See also: this week’s Economist cover story.Report
I get the sense they’re overestimating the amount of time the average person has for volunteering – while I’d love to believe that getting rid of museum workers and the like would just mean volunteers would fill in for them, it’s more likely to just make the museums stop functioning. And volunteer policemen and firefighters? Those jobs really do require a fair amount of training.
The “Big Society” seems to suffer from the same misconception that many idealistic left-wingers have had over the years – that regular people will do a lot of extra work without any economic incentive.Report
@Katherine, It’ll work for some things. Finally allowing proper charter schools for example will be effective, although its much more likely to be used by middle class families to get their kids of out schools shared with poorer neighbourhoods than by actual poor people.
The deal with the volunteer firemen and police, by the way, is that they don’t do the really tough stuff, but they free up professionals to do it. Both programmes were (whisper it quietly) introduced by Labour.Report