BIG SOCIETY BULLSHIT & 'YOU HAVE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD'.

So, the government are not giving up on this ' big society ' rubbish. What tends to happen, if you listen to the debates in the Commons, is that a Conservative back bencher trumpets something they say has occurred in their own constituency where a group of good citizens have got together to save a local duck pond or some-such and then the minister who is speaking says that this is ' a good example of the big society.' No wider context, no outcome, no indication of the status, power or influence of these people is ever given, nor, indeed whether or not the duck pond is really going to benefit a vast number of citizens. I always think of Barnes in south west London, although it is scarcely a part of London in that it is like a separate world, in this regard. Here we have an area that has indeed retained its duck pond, has a local post office, a local butcher, fishmonger, even a cheese shop, pssibly a candlestick maker, I would not be surprised, and all the open space you could wish for, surrounding well kept streets and gardens, established private schools ( St Pauls ) , two train stations with direct services into central London and half a dozen pubs and myriad restaurants. And it is also, I suggest, the home of much old money and can be bought into only if in the upper levels of income. People of influence live here, discretely, and have made sure, over many years of being able to use that influence and having the wherewithall, (polite euphemism for plenty of money), to obtain all the professional advice and use all the additional power that that brings. That is also why it is a little haven of gentility and an illusion of a cosy village within London. The point is these are not the conditions that exist in 99% of this country and even where they do occasionally they will be overridden by more powerful voices. The people of Barnes, well some of them, did not want a Sainsburys in their midst, not a giant megastore, just a modest outlet. But it was inserted after all.

Some people would be more than happy to have a Sainsburys in their high street.

This is the lie at the centre of all this big society bullshit. It is predicated upon the obviously false assumption that everywhere is like Barnes, peopled by those that have the money, time and influence to maintain their immediate surroundings in the way they wish. The reality is so different that it is tantamount to insulting for these ignorant and self-serving conservatives to keep repeating this inanity in the hope that someone will take it seriously. The conservative party spent 18 years assiduously dismantling the already faltering bonds and institutions that were the glue to this society, famously the vile utterance of poison from Thatcher that declared 'there is no such thing as society' which pretty well summed up the underlying attitude of that period of their government. To now try and portray this latest version of conservative rule as concerned with re-building the very thing they attacked and undermined for 18 years is a volte face and hypocrisy of a breathtaking arrogance that could only be spoken from those without any conception or experience of what life in this godforsaken country is like for those without the the means nor the remotest chance of entry to the small sub-section of society that actually pulls the levers and presses the buttons.

Meanwhile the execrable Lord Young, who was in Thatcher's government and apparently still serves some function in the current one, (why do these bastards never just go away to their manor houses and get out of public life, instead of continuing to re-visit and pontificate on the scene of their crimes ? Lord Lamont, the most inept Tory chancellor in my lifetime, appearing to give Ireland ' advice ' at great length on the BBC the other night, another example ) has come out with that ' you have never had it so good ' line that was previously uttered to the contempt even of most conservative commentators in 1957 when Macmillan was in office.

WARNING : ANGER RISING, ANGER RISING...