Still Looking for the Clear Blue Water?

With the publication of the Labour and Conservative manifestos we should now have some idea of the real differences between the two largest parties. But I am more struck by the similarities. I know we are supposed to believe that Labour is the party of the enabling state, but it chose to emphasise how it would enable the individual during its manifesto launch, just as the Tories did. For the Tories’ Big Society read Labour’s “mutualisation”. There is not as much difference as the politicians would have you believe. Both policies are born out of a simple, pragmatic realisation that the state will not have the cash to intervene even if it wanted to.
Both parties are right to encourage voluntarism, mutualisation and cooperatives — although they would do well to think of less daunting language with which to express these concepts.
And there are serious problems here. It is not cynical to ask what happens if no one turns up to volunteer, set up new schools or take on the functions of the state.