This interview with Michael Gove on Newsnight, and this article from the Telegraph yesterday explain – with examples – why localism will work.
I was at a discussion last night with a bunch of people who I would have said should be classic target Cameron voters – but virtually everyone who spoke was disdainful of the Big Society. There was one big difference between them and normal voters though – they were, I think, all sufficiently well-off to buy choice where they wanted it.
I remain convinced that devolving power, publishing transparent and mashable information and making public service properly accountable is how to empower people and thereby enhance the opportunities available to those who currently have so few.
I have never been in favour of simply handing out favours; I believe that people make their own success. But they need a certain level of – for example – education, healthcare and access to information – and the sad fact is that, as Michael Gove admits in that Newsnight interview, and as David Cameron said in his Paxman interview last week, there is an ever-widening gap between the haves and the have nots in our country.
We are a rich country (well… normally we are), and we spend billions on all sorts of things that are supposed to give people a helping hand. But the state just handing stuff over doesn’t seem to work. Asking people to get involved a bit more and to work together with the state, the third-sector and other individuals will – of course – take extra time, extra commitment and will without doubt not work in every single case.
But it has to be a better way than what we’re doing at the moment. Which simply isn’t working. The Big Society is radical, comprehensive, coherent – and yes, difficult – but it just might work.
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