Last week Steve Hilton set up a war room in Downing Street. In daily meetings, Hilton plotted the ‘big society’ fight-back that started today with Cameron’s op-ed in The Observer.
Hilton, who is predominant in Downing Street at the moment, knows that Cameron will never u-turn on the big society. It is what the Prime Minister thinks defines him as a politician. Cameron is desperate to be seen as more than a deficit hawk and the big society is what he wants to be his legacy.
The big society is sailing into quite a headwind. Francis Maude’s unintentionally comic comment today that the big society has been a massive ‘communications success’ ignored the fact that most people still don’t know what it is and most of those who do suspect that it is just ‘cover for cuts.’
If Cameron wants to make the public understand BS, he needs to show them rather than tell them.
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