Jonathan Freedland has some nice things to say about the Big Society (still a terrible name, of course) so it’s only fair to say some nice things about his column too: there’s some good stuff in it and Freedland is right that the ideas behind the notion aren’t owned by any one political party. Indeed, there are strains in Toryism, Liberalism and the Labour movement that can each claim some measure of ownership.
And Freedland is also correct to argue that a government intent on pruning public expenditure might be easily accused of wanting to replace public services with cheaper alternatives without any regard to how those replacement services might actually function. (The converse is also true: a government happy to increase public spending might spend a great deal of time shouting about inputs while keeping mouse quiet about outputs. Perish the thought!). And he’s also right that sometimes, as with welfare and education reform, the coalition’s ideas might actually need, at least in the short-term, more not less money.
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