The Archbishop of Canterbury is right that not much from the key policies being implemented by the government was put before the voters, says Mark Field MP.
The ‘Big Society’ is becoming a fresh political battleground over the summer, says Simon Barrow. Shrinking the state by galvanising more money and resources from private citizens through volunteering, delegating and contracting is central to the Prime Minister’s approach – both to running the country and to keeping his own party together. But the strategy is beset with disagreement, and a huge 'reality gap'.
'Big Society' rhetoric is toothless and may be used to wash ministerial hands of responsibility for the impact of cuts, the Archbishop of Westminster has said.
Public and private spaces impose differing obligations. That statement might seem so obvious as to be otiose. But many people seem to be unaware that the sharing of space necessitates the exercise of a restraint which manifests and nourishes the mutuality without which any concept of society - big or otherwise - is impoverished.
On Wednesday 16 March I clambered onto a bus heading for Deptford Bridge in South London. It was an articulated, crocodile bus that can barely see what its back end is doing, and it was rammed. In fact, it was so rammed that I couldn’t get my Oyster payment card to the unmanned scanner halfway down the bus.
How much power can Nimbys be permitted to exercise over the long term well-being of their communities? Jill Segger says that 'localism' and the 'Big Society are actually obstacles to the building of the 'Good Society'