David Cameron's "big society"

[graffic]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/13/general-election-david-cameron

So the UK general election is on 6th May and the Conservatives launched their manifesto yesterday, with a title on the front saying "Invitiation to the Government of Britain", the "big idea" in the launch being a "big society" emphasising a more active role played by individuals rather than "bureaucracy" ruling our lives. One of the ideas, which is being presented by shadow education minister Michael Gove, is too give parents the freedom to set schools up themselves. They will take away the bureaucracy that prevents parents from setting schools up themselves and thus de-centralise education. David Cameron also talked about giving people more "power" (a strange line for the Conservatives to take) by allowing people to "sack their police chiefs" amongst other initiatives.

To me, behind the semantics, I think Cameron believes in small government, strong defence and low taxes, which is Thatcherism in all but name. It is also a traditional Liberal Democrat idea - to de centralise politics. I think he will perhaps convince Liberal Democrats to vote for him by pushing this line and perhaps give the Tories a greater majority in the HOC.

What do you think? Do you think Cameron is putting the CON back into conservative? Or do you buy the claim that the party has fundamentally changed some of its values? I remain unconvinced

[Bitter Ashes]

All he's doing is jumping through the IMF's privatisation hoops. Nothing different to buisness as usual.

[cb9's_unity]

So instead of trained professionals setting up and administering schools were going to just let any yahoo with a child run them?

That's some common sense conservatism right their.

[LeftSideDown]

So instead of trained professionals setting up and administering schools were going to just let any yahoo with a child run them?

That's some common sense conservatism right their.

Yah! We should have trained government bureaucrats setting up businesses too! Who needs entrepreneurs when we can just have bureaucrats!

[Dean]

In the US, republicans (conservatives) love to talk against big government and all that. Its a populist tactic and they don't back any legislation to that end.

I don't know what the conservative scene is like in the UK as well, but I would guess it is pretty similar. If nothing else, no reasonable ruling class would willingly decentralize and disseminate political or economic power to the populace. I could see this used as an excuse for privatization, but we know that has nothing to do with decentralization, and everything to do with centralization.

[cb9's_unity]

Yah! We should have trained government bureaucrats setting up businesses too! Who needs entrepreneurs when we can just have bureaucrats!

I know right? I mean they totally didn't teach them anything about business at bureaucrat school! But I'm sure the government of one of the most powerful capitalist nations on earth doesn't ever hire anybody who has extensive knowledge of the fields their jobs pertain to.

And thank god that invisible hand makes sure entrepreneurs will act more in the interest of the whole economy than someone hired to specifically stabilize the economy.

[Demogorgon]

We all know what decentralisation means to that party. It means flogging off as many public services to crony run arms length organisations selling it as "rolling back the state" while running ultra-centralised control over the Government. The last time they were in power after all they essentially removed almost all the power of local Government and required them to simply follow London set policies regardless of what the local voters wanted.

Indeed when voters got too uppity about that, they simply abolished local Government in the case of London or changed the law so that Councillors would face personal legal ruin if they didn't do what the central Government told them in the case of Liverpool.

They are probably the most central-government oriented party in the Western World and for all their bleating that they have changed, we know all they really mean is that they will try to shift what little power local government still has to other unaccountable bodies.

[Demogorgon]

Yah! We should have trained government bureaucrats setting up businesses too! Who needs entrepreneurs when we can just have bureaucrats!
That reminds me of something else the Tories did last time they were in power actually. They spoke a great deal about how entrepreneurial talent was better than the public sector, but it was mighty funny how all these privatised firms operated on the principle of "jobs for the boys" and had exactly the same men or (very rarely) women running them as they did when they were in the public sector.

The main difference it seems was that retiring Conservative MPs could then join them for extremely high paying sinecures afterwards which they weren't allowed to do when they were public sector.