This is a cut and paste from my fortnightly column in the Herald Express today...
WE KEEP being told about the Big Society and my question remains the same: What Big Society?
David Cameron and his band of Eton College Old Boys keep banging on about how we must all pull together and how we are all in this together and yet, to me, the evidence is stacking up against that battle hymn.
We are told they have been handed the empty coffers and devastating debt by the previous administration.
But what must be clear to anyone with half a brain cell that poor old Gordon Brown was just the silly sausage who got left with the useless parcel when the music stopped in the international game of financial pass the parcel.
When he opened his cleverly-wrapped parcel he found it full of junk bonds, worthless mortgages and other dubious financial goodies. Had David Cameron been in that seat at the time, he too would have been clutching that nasty little goodie bag. But he wasn't.
Some bright spark suggested that never in the history of man has so much been taken from so many by so few.
It is worth looking at where our elite group of political leaders came from and where the money came from which supported and still supports them. So when George Osborne famously said what he wants is what we want, and that he wants for his children what we want for ours — we're all in this together — I wanted to cry.
So what do you think of the Big Society in Torbay? Remember that we are all in this together, are we not?
Tell the man who has just lost his job that we are all in this together. Tell the parent struggling to buy food as prices increase and fuel prices escalate that we are all in this together.
Tell the young people who left school last summer and still can't find work that we are all in this together.
Tell the young graduate with a good degree and now a Masters, yet can't find a job, that we are all in this together.
Tell the Torbay citizen looking at high council wages for senior staff, the bonuses still being paid to bailed-out bankers and the manipulation of curious business deals locally that we are all in this together.
Being a sad soul I sat, the other night, through a meeting of our local transport committee which had been opened to the public.
The purpose of the meeting was to look at the ludicrous proposal to stick even more traffic meters in popular areas.
Has no one told these people that you have to plant before you harvest?
Stripping yet more money from the people will accelerate decline. What worried me a little was the rabbit-like look in the eyes of a number of councillors.
Gordon Oliver wandered in during the meeting and sat quietly in the councillor corner. At the end of the meeting he was ambushed and asked suddenly to comment.
Gordon spoke for about 15 minutes, wandering loosely through the fact the country was short of cash, that Torbay was something or other (I couldn't understand that bit) and that hard times were ahead; which perhaps accounted for the rabbit-like look in the eyes of his fellow councillors, although not in the eyes of the council officers.
Therefore Mr Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Cable, are we really, really, in this together, and is the Big Society not quite what we think it is as funding is yet again cut from another charity?
I was asked the other day how I would get the economy running again, and my response was to tell them to go and buy an ice cream.
You see, in order to buy an ice cream a commercial exchange has to take place.
The ice cream seller now has income and the ability to buy more stock.
People see you eating the ice cream and do the same. Suddenly the ice cream seller is busy and has to employ people to help him.
He buys more stock from the local producer who in turn can buy a new machine from the factory that was about to make people redundant.
Now that is what I call a Big Society!
David Cameron and his band of Eton College Old Boys keep banging on about how we must all pull together and how we are all in this together and yet, to me, the evidence is stacking up against that battle hymn.
We are told they have been handed the empty coffers and devastating debt by the previous administration.
But what must be clear to anyone with half a brain cell that poor old Gordon Brown was just the silly sausage who got left with the useless parcel when the music stopped in the international game of financial pass the parcel.
When he opened his cleverly-wrapped parcel he found it full of junk bonds, worthless mortgages and other dubious financial goodies. Had David Cameron been in that seat at the time, he too would have been clutching that nasty little goodie bag. But he wasn't.
Some bright spark suggested that never in the history of man has so much been taken from so many by so few.
It is worth looking at where our elite group of political leaders came from and where the money came from which supported and still supports them. So when George Osborne famously said what he wants is what we want, and that he wants for his children what we want for ours — we're all in this together — I wanted to cry.
So what do you think of the Big Society in Torbay? Remember that we are all in this together, are we not?
Tell the man who has just lost his job that we are all in this together. Tell the parent struggling to buy food as prices increase and fuel prices escalate that we are all in this together.
Tell the young people who left school last summer and still can't find work that we are all in this together.
Tell the young graduate with a good degree and now a Masters, yet can't find a job, that we are all in this together.
Tell the Torbay citizen looking at high council wages for senior staff, the bonuses still being paid to bailed-out bankers and the manipulation of curious business deals locally that we are all in this together.
Being a sad soul I sat, the other night, through a meeting of our local transport committee which had been opened to the public.
The purpose of the meeting was to look at the ludicrous proposal to stick even more traffic meters in popular areas.
Has no one told these people that you have to plant before you harvest?
Stripping yet more money from the people will accelerate decline. What worried me a little was the rabbit-like look in the eyes of a number of councillors.
Gordon Oliver wandered in during the meeting and sat quietly in the councillor corner. At the end of the meeting he was ambushed and asked suddenly to comment.
Gordon spoke for about 15 minutes, wandering loosely through the fact the country was short of cash, that Torbay was something or other (I couldn't understand that bit) and that hard times were ahead; which perhaps accounted for the rabbit-like look in the eyes of his fellow councillors, although not in the eyes of the council officers.
Therefore Mr Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Cable, are we really, really, in this together, and is the Big Society not quite what we think it is as funding is yet again cut from another charity?
I was asked the other day how I would get the economy running again, and my response was to tell them to go and buy an ice cream.
You see, in order to buy an ice cream a commercial exchange has to take place.
The ice cream seller now has income and the ability to buy more stock.
People see you eating the ice cream and do the same. Suddenly the ice cream seller is busy and has to employ people to help him.
He buys more stock from the local producer who in turn can buy a new machine from the factory that was about to make people redundant.
Now that is what I call a Big Society!
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