BIG society

Whether you agree with Cameron that it's empowering local people and communities and transfering power from the politicans to the people (hmm) or you think that the coalition is "cynically attempting to dignify its cuts agenda, by dressing up the withdrawal of support with the language of reinvigorating civic society" (copyright E Miliband), this has been making all the headlines in the UK of late.

From a personal viewpoint, I've worked (mostly) in the public sector for the past few years as a librarian and now as a teaching assistant. Volunteerism looks like an excuse to get rid of skilled, qualified librarians from the already ailing public library sector. Can our libraries be realistically sustained by volunteers? And as far as schools go...well, I was hoping to do a PGCE next year to train to be a primary school teacher, but the government have decided to withdraw bursaries from all but the 'priority' PGCE programs. Yeah, cheers for that. Now only city slickers who are concerned about losing their jobs and have £10K stashed away in savings can train to be teachers now then. Education was all about inclusion under Tony Blair, or at least that was the official line. It looks more like it's going down the route of exclusion now.

So in short: not a fan. I agree with the guy who said it was smoke and mirrors for an avalanche of privatisation.