"Big Society" and The Markets

Last week we elected a new government in the UK, and for the first time in 65 years, it's a coalition - of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. For an uneasy moment, there was talk of a ‘Rainbow', or ‘Progressive Alliance’, but a chocolate teapot might have lasted longer, so the New Labour rump rejected the idea of coalition with the Liberal Democrats and a handful of Nationalists and, (hallelujah), one Green MP, Caroline Lucas, and limped off to lick their wounds and choose a new leader.

The two expressions I'll remember from this election are "The Big Society" and 'what about the markets?' To me, both of these expressions seem indicative of the bind in which we now find our so-called democracy. "The Big Society" started out as the big idea of the Conservative manifesto, but it left voters on the doorstep so nonplussed, that they dropped it like a hot spud. I expect that’s the result of 30 years of individualism. After all, Tory fundamentalism was always about the big individual, not the Big Society, and considering Lady Thatcher's "no such thing as society" ideology of the 80s no wonder the voters were flummoxed. It would be like witnessing a banker from the highest echelons, on a street corner, sharing out his bonus, in between spliffs, with a gaggle of Big Issue sellers. No wonder their minds boggled. 'What does it mean?' They all asked.

However, 'what about the markets?' was the most telling of the two expressions. Every twist and turn of the drama was analysed for market reaction, by the media presenters and pundits. Conventional wisdom would have it, it seems, that in order to placate the markets, the irritating inconvenience of democracy (of sorts) should proceed in a timely and suitable fashion. We were to take note of the economic crisis in Greece, poised to spread through Europe like Chlamydia, and observe how the markets deal with the incompetence of others. Of course, in a world where the expression 'spreading the wealth' is pejorative, whilst spreading the debt is truism, what else might we expect? So, there they were, the same old faces complicit in the recent banking crash, still pontificating down at us, and showing no trace of irony or shame.

Maybe our new Prime Minister has sussed it, and “The Big Society” is a coded message to his beloved electorate like that of a hostage in a rescue plea, to family and friends. For a long time now, I've wondered why our politicians don't just come out and say it: "We can do nothing for you, the markets are in control. Your only hope is “The Big Society” - sort it out among yourselves while we work out how much tax revenue we need from you, to feed the beast." Their only problem would then be their own redundancy. After all, how hard is it to total up a blank cheque?

Yet, if “Big Society” is defined by what we do together, then maybe one day, together, we could elect a government, that actually serves ‘the people’ first - before ‘the markets’ and their ilk. Failing that, there are endless ways that 'we the people' could work together for a better sort of society. I've heard talk of a 'Peoples' Bank', which seems a good place to start.

‘Ya canna tak’ it wi’ ya’’, they say in my part of the World, which roughly translated means that money has no value in eternity. Yet, although they say, ‘nothing is certain but death and taxes’, there are those to whom the latter, apparently, doesn’t apply. As for the former, if bribery and corruption of The Almighty fails, and moral and economic constipation prevails, they might try 'to pass through the eye of a needle', by ‘quantitative easing’.