Sunday 11 November 2012

Big Society Big Con

The Conservatives once had an idea they called the Big Society that worked like this, 'Sorry librarian but we are going to have to make you redundant because the country is running out of money. Sorry'.
'Hey, ex-librarians, you got some free time now so how about you volunteer to come and work at the local library doing the job we deemed worth £15k a year for last year while you look for another job'.
In short, they planned to sack ten of thousands of public servants and then ask for volunteers to run the amenities that they had just sacked all the people from.
Obviously, everyone gave the idea short thrift and we haven't heard it mentioned for a long time but it doesn't mean that the idea of sacking people and then getting people to do the same job for free has gone away.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced this weekend that he is looking to recruit an extra 15,000 army reservists who are ready to train and make themselves available for deployment.
Maybe it is just a coincidence that the Government has cut 20,000 regular army jobs and are wanting to take an extra 15,000 on weekend warriors and pay them £35 a day.
Only the most naive would think it a coincidence at all but don't worry if you are one of the 20,000 ex-servicemen and women now on the dole, you can still get posted to war zones and get shot at for £35 a day instead of the £21k you were getting paid for getting shot at last year.
The Tories Big Society sounds much like a big con to get people to do their old jobs for free or maybe i'm missing something here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

that is the opposite of LBJ's big society which said: hey libarian, even though you don't do much to contribute to society we are gonna tax others and create more librarians... world wide web? what? hire more librarians!!! build more libraries!!! let's do what only the government can do. pay for things that nobody needs!!!

BRILLIANT!!!

q

Lucy said...

Nobody needs libraries?