How Big is a big society?
Big?
Big?
Big?
Big?
or
Big?
In practise Mr Cameron's big society is so small that it is no longer visible, it has disappeared.
Now this is a shame because a) it means that the rationale for this blog has all but disappeared and b) what was, possibly, the one half decent idea to emerge from the think tanks of opposition, now needs to be recovered.
My society suddenly became smaller today because my iphone stopped working.
It wouldn't download the body of the emails that I received, only the headings. This was doubly frustrating because it allowed you to see that x an interesting correspondent from Spain had sent what looked like an interesting email only to not then enable you to read the message.
However there was little point in shooting the messenger, i.e. throwing said iphone against the nearest wall, which in my younger days ............. Oh well, still with the help of an excellent adviser from my phone company I was able to reset my phone and now it is working perfectly well.
If Mr Cameron wants to reset his big society app. he first needs to go to settings and then scroll down until he finds reset and then he needs to enter the scary world of wizardry where he needs expert guidance to help him find his way.
Of course most of the information I needed was already loaded on the 'cloud' but sadly some of what the big society claimed to be about appears to have been downloaded from cloud cuckoo land.
As the indoor critic commented after a recent stay in a hotel, 'whatever he (Mr Cameron) says, people still see the wheelchair and not the person sitting in it' and she should know.
The paralympics, if anything seemed to give some people the idea that disabled people could do any amount of startling and heroic activities almost because of rather than despite their disability, doubtless some of that positive role modelling will find its way into the minds of those responsible for assessing peoples suitability or capability for work?
A truly big society is surely one where there is respect and support for individuals achievements and contributions however big or small they might be.
A truly big society is one where there is some degree of relationship between the earnings of the many and those who to paraphrase John Lennon's words, are the toppermost of the poppermost.
In a truly big society there can be no justification for a CEO claiming a salary that is hundred times greater than that paid to the average worker in the business he runs.
It becomes clear why the big society has been set quietly on the back burner, as an idea it was perhaps a little too radical for the party that rejoices in the name conservative.
The world has changed so dramatically with wage and benefit cuts for the poorest and astronomical pay hikes for the wealthiest that it going to take some radical action to get the genie back in the bottle, but that is undoubtedly what needs to happen.
On Saturday the indoor critic and I went to see Rodriguez aka sugarman.
A seventy year old from Detroit whose album Cold Fact disappeared without trace in the US but became a huge, sleeper hit in South Africa, where it was considered to be one of the powerful influences to bring down Apartheid.
Rodriguez, thought by many to have died, stopped recording and playing and earned his living as a demolition worker in his native Detroit until a documentary film was made chronicling the journey of two South African fans to discover what became of the greatest rock idol who never was.
Sitting in The Sage, Gateshead, I had a sense of a big society when a man so committed to peace and justice could continue to sing his songs and perform with a huge sense of humility and hope, it was interesting to compare our experience with that of the folk who paid hundreds to watch the Rolling Stones at the O2 Arena and as one fan shouted out when Rodriguez performed a brilliant version of Blue Suede Shoes, 'hey Elvis can you do a Rodriguez cover?'
As Rodriguez respond, you need to be a great musician to successfully perform a cover.
Just as you need to be a great politician to successfully introduce a
big
big
big
bigger
biggest (that should of course read fairest)
society.
Big?
Big?
Big?
Big?
or
Big?
In practise Mr Cameron's big society is so small that it is no longer visible, it has disappeared.
Now this is a shame because a) it means that the rationale for this blog has all but disappeared and b) what was, possibly, the one half decent idea to emerge from the think tanks of opposition, now needs to be recovered.
My society suddenly became smaller today because my iphone stopped working.
It wouldn't download the body of the emails that I received, only the headings. This was doubly frustrating because it allowed you to see that x an interesting correspondent from Spain had sent what looked like an interesting email only to not then enable you to read the message.
However there was little point in shooting the messenger, i.e. throwing said iphone against the nearest wall, which in my younger days ............. Oh well, still with the help of an excellent adviser from my phone company I was able to reset my phone and now it is working perfectly well.
If Mr Cameron wants to reset his big society app. he first needs to go to settings and then scroll down until he finds reset and then he needs to enter the scary world of wizardry where he needs expert guidance to help him find his way.
Of course most of the information I needed was already loaded on the 'cloud' but sadly some of what the big society claimed to be about appears to have been downloaded from cloud cuckoo land.
As the indoor critic commented after a recent stay in a hotel, 'whatever he (Mr Cameron) says, people still see the wheelchair and not the person sitting in it' and she should know.
The paralympics, if anything seemed to give some people the idea that disabled people could do any amount of startling and heroic activities almost because of rather than despite their disability, doubtless some of that positive role modelling will find its way into the minds of those responsible for assessing peoples suitability or capability for work?
A truly big society is surely one where there is respect and support for individuals achievements and contributions however big or small they might be.
A truly big society is one where there is some degree of relationship between the earnings of the many and those who to paraphrase John Lennon's words, are the toppermost of the poppermost.
In a truly big society there can be no justification for a CEO claiming a salary that is hundred times greater than that paid to the average worker in the business he runs.
It becomes clear why the big society has been set quietly on the back burner, as an idea it was perhaps a little too radical for the party that rejoices in the name conservative.
The world has changed so dramatically with wage and benefit cuts for the poorest and astronomical pay hikes for the wealthiest that it going to take some radical action to get the genie back in the bottle, but that is undoubtedly what needs to happen.
On Saturday the indoor critic and I went to see Rodriguez aka sugarman.
A seventy year old from Detroit whose album Cold Fact disappeared without trace in the US but became a huge, sleeper hit in South Africa, where it was considered to be one of the powerful influences to bring down Apartheid.
Rodriguez, thought by many to have died, stopped recording and playing and earned his living as a demolition worker in his native Detroit until a documentary film was made chronicling the journey of two South African fans to discover what became of the greatest rock idol who never was.
Sitting in The Sage, Gateshead, I had a sense of a big society when a man so committed to peace and justice could continue to sing his songs and perform with a huge sense of humility and hope, it was interesting to compare our experience with that of the folk who paid hundreds to watch the Rolling Stones at the O2 Arena and as one fan shouted out when Rodriguez performed a brilliant version of Blue Suede Shoes, 'hey Elvis can you do a Rodriguez cover?'
As Rodriguez respond, you need to be a great musician to successfully perform a cover.
Just as you need to be a great politician to successfully introduce a
big
big
big
bigger
biggest (that should of course read fairest)
society.
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