Challenging Times – lobbying local politicians at a time of cuts
Sean Creighton lists the questions to ask local politicians on their apparent interest in community action, and highlights the gap between rhetoric and practice.
“A key element in the Party political battle leading up to May’s local and national elections was over developing a new role for community and voluntary organisations in running services and in building local civil society. There is much talk about localism and mutuality and the former Labour Government cited Lambeth as a good example of a Council that was developing being a ‘co-operative Council’. David Cameron’s Big Society is a Conservative way of talking about what Labour claimed to be fostering through new mutuality, social enterprise, etc.
Big Society – a fig leaf for privatisation and cuts
“Only governments can provide adequate basic public services” …..Here’s what Bernard Davies from NCIA said of the Big Idea coming out of the other Coalition, when he talked to North West community activists at their conference in Manchester in September 2010.
