"In Britain, Big Society is defined as smaller government" by Anthony Faiola, Washington Post | August 19, 2010
LONDON — The Obama administration might be reasserting the government’s place in American life. But on this side of the Atlantic, the so-called Big Society vision of Britain’s new Conservative prime minister is of a nation with minimal state interference.
David Cameron’s three-month-old ruling coalition is launching an effort to reduce the role of government, seeking to vest communities and individuals with fresh powers and peddling a new era of volunteerism to replace the state in running museums, parks, and other public facilities. Supporters and opponents describe the campaign as the biggest assault on government here since the wave of privatizations by conservative firebrand Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
We have had mixed results on that.
The idea, one with distant echoes of the Tea Party movement in the United States, is to pluck decision-making out of the hands of bureaucrats. Groups of like-minded parents and teachers, for instance, are being invited to open their own taxpayer-funded schools. The groups — not government school boards — will be able to determine the curriculum at these “free schools,’’ using their own discretion to make some subjects compulsory while omitting others they find objectionable or unnecessary, such as lessons on multiculturalism.
I'll bet the ADL will have to get involved!
You better have a Holocaust™ curriculum.
But the government’s push is also about pinching pennies in an age of austerity in Britain, which, like many nations including the United States, is heavily indebted and increasingly broke.
Related: Queen Mothers
Maybe you should dump the monarchy and let them fend for themselves.
Through the toughest budget cuts in generations, the new coalition is moving quickly to shrink the size of the state....
“The Big Society is about a huge culture change, where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighborhoods, in their workplace don’t always turn to officials, local authorities, or central government for answers to the problems they face,’’ Cameron said in a keynote speech on the issue last month.
In what it calls a “radical extension of direct democracy,’’ the new government is moving to give citizens the right to veto property tax increases above certain limits....
The new coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats is set to present legislation to dissolve the government health boards that once determined needs at public hospitals, which would allow doctors to become the ultimate deciders.
Cameron’s critics say the proposed cuts risk fueling more unemployment and triggering another recession. Public outrage has already forced the government to backpedal on some attempts to trim public spending, including a plan to scrap a government-funded free milk program for needy children under 5....
Couldn't get that out of the war budget?
Britain remains far more state-dominated than the United States, with a broad national health care system and a balance sheet of nationalized banks as a legacy of the financial crisis. And with TV cameras on every street corner.
But don't worry, AmeriKa, you are getting there.
And I would like shot at the health system.
In addition, Cameron, 43, is a conservative whose politics on social issues — he supports gay rights and green energy policy — clash with the diehard Republican base in the United States.
Afterthought issues that mean nothing.
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Was that the change you wanted?
And look how the newspaper treated your suggestions:
"Sell the royal swans: UK public has wild ideas for budget cuts" by David Stringer, Associated Press | August 20, 2010
LONDON — Sell off the Queen’s swans. Make lawmakers work for free. Force prison inmates to generate cheap power on the treadmill.
As Britain’s government decides how to make the toughest spending cuts in decades, it has asked the public for help. The result? A list of wild ideas on how to save money....
Like ending a war?
More than 45,000 ideas for savings have been posted on the Treasury’s website by members of the public and government workers. They range from the deliberately extreme — scrapping Britain’s monarchy and the $12 million in annual government funding to Queen Elizabeth II’s royal household, to the seemingly sensible — have staff book hotels online, not through travel brokers.
Yeah, NOTHING that upsets the ELITES!
“We asked everyone across the country — the people who use our schools, hospitals, transport systems, and other public services — to send in their ideas for how to save public money and get more out of our services,’’ a Treasury spokeswoman said on the condition of anonymity, in line with policy.
Among the edgier ideas are plans to put Britain’s population of almost 100,000 prisoners to work.
We already do it in the jails over here so what's the fuss?
One suggestion calls for convicts to cook meals for public hospitals or government-run care homes for the elderly.
Related: The joy, and freedom, of cooking
A wackier plan demands treadmills and rowing machines in prison gyms to be adapted to produce power for the national electricity grid.
Other offerings propose lining the roofs of government buildings — including Parliament — with vegetable gardens and selling the produce at a profit. Another idea suggests seeking corporate sponsors for Britain’s spectacular, but expensive, military parades.
Why not? That is who governments go to war for.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: British and French Belch Fart Mist
Nice waste of money warming the planet, 'eh?
But they don't have money for what?
One submission suggested asking the Queen to sell off her swans for meat. Under ancient laws, the Queen owns most swans in Britain and the bird was once a favored dish among the country’s aristocracy....
Contributors to the website say that doesn’t go far enough — calling for Queen Elizabeth II either to step down or drastically reduce the number of her family members who receive public money.
“The French have not had a monarchy for more than 200 years and tourists still flock to Versailles,’’ one of the ideas posted on the Treasury site reads.
Other submissions call for the United Kingdom to share its plush — and costly — overseas embassies with its allies, sharply cutting the costs of the diplomatic service.
You might as well move into the Israeli embassy then because that's who calls the foreign policy shots.
Dozens of entries demand cuts to development aid paid to poorer countries.
When you are running deficits and cutting services, yeah!
How much does your government give to Israel?
While ministers say fast-growing economies like China and India won’t in the future receive money from Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron has already pledged not to cut the United Kingdom’s overall aid budget.
Why were they getting aid in the first place?
Those economies were roaring as yours was crapping.
Submissions provided by government workers offer a long list of grass-roots efficiencies — suggesting less expensive ways of paying for cellphone contracts, stationery, and printing.
They would like to keep their jobs.
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Related: The Looting Legislators of London
I'm surprised those did not come up... not!
Also see: Britain's Brown-Out
Election made him go completely dark.
