The Big Society
Our council is, apparently, a Big Society pilot area. I have no idea what Big Society is but I know what a pilot scheme is; it's where you don't have enough confidence tho roll out an ill-conceived scheme nationally and so do it in a few backwater areas and, when it bombs like a fat kid jumping into a swimming pool, explain that either the idea needs work or the bloody yokels in charge of the pilot couldn't be trusted to run a car boot stall, never mind a complex social experiment and anyway, next time the posters will be better.
So what, exactly is the Big Society? Well, it's the lynchpin Conservative policy that is, apparently, so brilliant that nobody can quite explain it. I think the gist of it is however that English people, who by tradition would all like to live in castles with moats far from any neighbours and by practice only really talk to their neighbours if they are caught dumping their garden waste over the fence, are supposed to take a community approach and look after things like keeping the streets tidy and, no doubt when the cuts to public services really start to bite, policing them too. You can tell that Big Society is a policy and not just an idea because it's capitalised, which ironically much of public spending is not.
In short it's an idea for avoiding a bloodbath following the spending cuts by expecting volunteers to do all the work. Crucially, this ignores the fact that most people who try to organise things in neighbourhoods are self-appointed irritants, usually in cardigans, with very fixed ideas about serving booze at street parties.
The Big Society (and it really is a load of BS) pilot has manifested itself on the streets with the arrival of, of all things, grit bins. That's right, every street now has a large yellow receptacle full of salt.
And each one is numbered. My first reaction, I'm ashamed to admit, was not to applaud this initiative (remembering last winter I realise that ready access to grit is a bloody good idea, but in all honesty I rather like the idea of it being sprayed from the back of a lorry or shovelled by a couple of blokes with fluorescent jackets while I observe proceedings from the safety of a pub while 'working from home' on a snow day), but to think what a good little project it would be to photograph them all, collect the set as it were.
This is as close to autism as you can get without actually being called 'Rain Man' by your friends, but let's not worry about that now.
The idea, of course, is that come the first snowfall, everyone grabs their shovel and heads for the nearest bin. We grit our own paths and roads and the transport infrastructure is safe. Hoorah. Of course, the thing to do is to get out there now, in the dead of night (currently 4.30pm in these wintry days) and load the contents of the nearest bins into a bin bag for stockpiling in your shed. This can then be sold on to neighbours for a pound a scoop when the first flake hits the floor and the inevitable panic starts or, even better, sold back to the council when their grit stocks expire, probably on day two of any snowy weather.
So that's big society; hoards of happy residents gritting their drives and the areas of the pavement just outside their drives where they accidentally spray grit in their enthusiasm, and looking at the pristine snow that covers the world beyond their drive, muttering darkly about council tax and whiling away their time mentally composing outraged letters that froth with indignation for the local paper.
But why stop at gritting? Other jobs currently undertaken by trained professionals that could be done by the public include maintaining parks (we can graze our sheep on them when we're all reduced to subsistence level living), health care (who needs doctors now we have the internet - what's easier, seven years at medical school or Googling 'nasty cough'?), or air traffic control.
Council grittier used to be grossly inappropriate rhyming slang for posterior, now it's not even an occupation or vocation, it's recreation.
So what, exactly is the Big Society? Well, it's the lynchpin Conservative policy that is, apparently, so brilliant that nobody can quite explain it. I think the gist of it is however that English people, who by tradition would all like to live in castles with moats far from any neighbours and by practice only really talk to their neighbours if they are caught dumping their garden waste over the fence, are supposed to take a community approach and look after things like keeping the streets tidy and, no doubt when the cuts to public services really start to bite, policing them too. You can tell that Big Society is a policy and not just an idea because it's capitalised, which ironically much of public spending is not.
In short it's an idea for avoiding a bloodbath following the spending cuts by expecting volunteers to do all the work. Crucially, this ignores the fact that most people who try to organise things in neighbourhoods are self-appointed irritants, usually in cardigans, with very fixed ideas about serving booze at street parties.
The Big Society (and it really is a load of BS) pilot has manifested itself on the streets with the arrival of, of all things, grit bins. That's right, every street now has a large yellow receptacle full of salt.
And each one is numbered. My first reaction, I'm ashamed to admit, was not to applaud this initiative (remembering last winter I realise that ready access to grit is a bloody good idea, but in all honesty I rather like the idea of it being sprayed from the back of a lorry or shovelled by a couple of blokes with fluorescent jackets while I observe proceedings from the safety of a pub while 'working from home' on a snow day), but to think what a good little project it would be to photograph them all, collect the set as it were.
This is as close to autism as you can get without actually being called 'Rain Man' by your friends, but let's not worry about that now.
The idea, of course, is that come the first snowfall, everyone grabs their shovel and heads for the nearest bin. We grit our own paths and roads and the transport infrastructure is safe. Hoorah. Of course, the thing to do is to get out there now, in the dead of night (currently 4.30pm in these wintry days) and load the contents of the nearest bins into a bin bag for stockpiling in your shed. This can then be sold on to neighbours for a pound a scoop when the first flake hits the floor and the inevitable panic starts or, even better, sold back to the council when their grit stocks expire, probably on day two of any snowy weather.
So that's big society; hoards of happy residents gritting their drives and the areas of the pavement just outside their drives where they accidentally spray grit in their enthusiasm, and looking at the pristine snow that covers the world beyond their drive, muttering darkly about council tax and whiling away their time mentally composing outraged letters that froth with indignation for the local paper.
But why stop at gritting? Other jobs currently undertaken by trained professionals that could be done by the public include maintaining parks (we can graze our sheep on them when we're all reduced to subsistence level living), health care (who needs doctors now we have the internet - what's easier, seven years at medical school or Googling 'nasty cough'?), or air traffic control.
Council grittier used to be grossly inappropriate rhyming slang for posterior, now it's not even an occupation or vocation, it's recreation.
Labels: big society, conservative, Government, Politics
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