28th July 2011

I read the news today, Oh Boy .......

Apparently Mr Cameron's big ideas guru has come up with some big ideas to give the big society some traction.

Amongst his proposals, Mr Hilton wants to abolish maternity leave and all consumer rights.

Maybe as the pregnant mum to be slips into the staff room, assuming it hasn't been abolished as well, to give birth and then strapping baby to her back resumes her productive activity in the tractor factory or wherever, she will comfort herself with the knowledge that she is helping to pay off the deficit.

Or maybe when the baby seat collapses or the cot or the high chair she will happily accept that, as she has no rights, she had better pop out to Mothercare and just buy another out of her wages instead of complaining thereby increasing productivity.

Another proposal is that Job Centres should also be scheduled for abolition with community groups instead directing young people into work.

At my first visit to a job centre/careers adviser aged 15 I was asked what I wanted to do, I said I thought working with people in a job that wasn't based in an office would suit me, the careers adviser riffled through his card index and said here's the perfect job, assistant to a coal man, I thanked him and became a Vicar instead.

So the loss of the Job Centres I could live with, now that I am retired I don't especially need them anyway, but then my grandchildren might need some good advice about job possibilities in the future assuming they don't decide to become Vicars or experts in selling daft ideas to politicians.

Essentially, it would seem to me, that Mr Cameron's strategy adviser is an anarchist rather than a radical.

Anarchists essentially believe that society will work better and more effectively if there is less state intervention, every decision that affects all of a society's members could be determined by referendum, and with less state intervention, society would be less aggressive, less directed and more open, indeed such a state could be characterised as a big society.

Occasionally I photograph graffiti if it is interesting in some way, appealing or in some way of artistic merit.

On my first ever family holiday to France I took a photograph of the words Anarcho-Syndicalism spray painted on a wall somewhere in the middle of Europe.

Anarcho-Syndicalism is my idea of a way forward for a society which has been nearly bankrupted by bankers and the almost failure of capitalism.

Essentially syndicalism is a co-operative economic system.

Rather than tinkering with the current failed economic system it proposes that capitalism and the state are replaced with a new society which is both democratic and managed by the people.

The trouble with this idea, which is no dafter and possibly more idealistic than some of the ideas apparently pedalled by the Government's strategy adviser, is that it challenges the vested interests of the ruling class and as such is ruled out of hand by those with interests to protect.

So the woman who works in the Bank will doubtless have contingency plans in place when the Government abolishes maternity leave, after half a days paid leave in the private maternity clinic, the nanny will have arrived and the baby will be cared for whilst the new mum is back at work hedging her funds or her bets or whatever actually happens when something is hedged and the Government can point to another new job having being created as a result of its thinking the unthinkable, turning back the tide of socialist ideas and introducing tougher rules and regulations to ensure that people can function without being reliant on state support ..........