Political Parties - David Cameron and the ‘Big Society’

David Cameron has recently floated the idea of the ‘Big Society’ as an alternative to the ‘Big State’ of the Labour government. With the party manifestos unveiled does writing on Political Parties for Unit 1 get more straightforward? In the case of the Conservatives not necessarily so…

In Sunday’s Observer, David Cameron in an essay entitled ‘This is a radical revolt against the statist approach of Big Government’ elaborates on “his vision for the Big Society, where Britons are freed from the ‘stifling clutch of state control’ and are enabled to shape their own destiny.” He asserts: “One day, we will look back in amazement at the idea that the state clung on to its data, ran a near monopoly for schools and was so flat-footed in the face of crime and poverty. It will seem as antiquated as the days when we had to wait months for a telephone line because there was a state-run phone company. So let’s stop hanging around and get the people off the hook of state control.”

However, the ‘Big Society’ is not without its critics and sceptics. For instance the Newstatesman’s James Macintyre and Mehdi Hasan argue in their article ‘There’s no such thing as a “big society”’ that ‘The Tories’ rhetoric about progressive conservatism does nothing to mask the fact their ideas mark a return to Thatcherism.’