Just how much appetite is there for David Cameron’s Big Society? Not much, according to the chattering classes. One of the more bizarre sights on the day the Conservatives’ launched their manifesto was watching the liberal left poo-poo the notion that ordinary people could be ‘prised away from the telly’.
Jackie Ashley in the Guardian, for instance, had never heard of such a preposterous idea. ‘Modern life is so busy, with longer working hours, 24-hour TV, emails, blogging, tweeting and the rest, that I wonder how many people will find the time to go along and organise their local school or hospital or police force,’ she wrote.
Funny to think that empowering ordinary citizens was once a rallying cry of the Labour party. I expected journalists like Jackie Ashley to reject any attempt by the Tories to hijack workers’ co-operatives or free schools and stake out a claim to being the true custodians of progressive values.
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