http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/10/11/philip-blond-turns-on-cameron-or-how-do-you-make-localism-a-governing-agenda/ A First Things Blog Fri, 24 May 2013 03:57:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/10/11/philip-blond-turns-on-cameron-or-how-do-you-make-localism-a-governing-agenda/comment-page-1/#comment-76796 Adrian Voce Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:15:56 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/?p=48875#comment-76796 It has always seemed to me that there is a fundamental paradox at the heart of the “new localism” which in the hands of an ideologically confused government simply became a lie. The big society, in any meaningful sense, is not synonymous with a smaller state. But in an attempt to make the austerity agenda more palatable, they have attempted to sell it as the big idea – a genuine alternative to the welfare state. This was the lie. Volunteerism and social enterprise cannot move in to the space created by a shrinking public sector without serious and strategic state intervention. This is anathema to the free-market worshipping, deficit-reduction fetishists who hold sway, and so the space remains unfilled, the big society becomes an embarrassing memory and the truth is revealed. Cuts are just cuts and they hurt.

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