The small society

No one, especially me, has comprehended the Big Society in its entirety. As far as I can gather, the state will shed some of its bureaucratic armour, but there is no clue as to where it will be dispensed. Writing in today’s Times, Rory Stewart, whose constituency contains one of the ‘Vanguard Communities; attempts a definition. He writes:

‘It is about decentralisation, but without giving more power to county councils. It is not necessarily about charities or even the private sector. It’s about collective action.’

Collective action already exists in Britain. People group together to re-paint the Village Hall; they organise a school run; they teach knitting to the inmates of Wandsworth Prison. Voluntarism is primarily a moral or community response – it would have been described as ‘Common Christian Kindness’ in another era – it is uninterested in government, which has been left to the representatives of the people. Therefore, it’s odd that Cameron and Stewart have excluded county and borough councils from their vision of the Big Society.