Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

The Big Society

I struggle with this. In the election people did not connect with it. Now it has moved from a hustings aspiration to a trial run in in five areas. Having heard Cameron’s speech I begin to see a little more clearly what he is talking about and what his vision is. I am not sure whether it will work, especially as the details do seem rather airy fairy, but I share the ideal to localise and empower. I have always thought the huge local government re-organsiation of the Heath administration was a disaster, with the creation of bigger local authorities and vanishing counties. These old boundaries were not based on maps and populations, but on centuries of shared interests, heritage and yes, the buzz word of today, communities.

If it is the Government’s plan to re-empower the very local communities and social networks which its Tory predecessor unraveled in the 1970’s, then this is a good thing. It will be cheaper too. I think the word I do not like is BIG. Big is bad now. Big deficits. Big debts. Big cuts. Also B is bad as in Banks. It is a rather early for a re-naming when not yet off the ground but something friendly and inviting would explain it better and be more welcoming. To many, replacing Big Government with a  Big Society sounds too much like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. The Big Society sounds ghastly anyway, which is why it did not play on the doorstep.

The Special Relationship

There is a lot of talk in the press and by informed commentators on the media about the Special Relationship on the eve of David Cameron’s U.S trip. The trendy ones argue that it no longer exists or that it is not as strong as it was because America is more of a Pacific Power than an Atlantic one. Much of this comment is about something that was never there. The relationship has never been about foreign policy or sharing defence secrets or having a similar world view, although all of this happens, sometimes more, sometimes less. Nor is it about business, though almost all our top corporations are active in the U.S and vice versa. It is not about personal chemistry either, good with Thatcher/Regan, but bad with Brown/Obama.

The special relationship is about something which cannot be altered except by the passage of history and has both a positive and negative streak. On the positive side there is a shared heritage; the dominant founders of America came from these islands and its Colonies were all eventually part of the British Empire.The negative stems from the fact that those colonists took up arms against Great Britain, beat it in battle and founded a Republic. This new republic sided with France in the Napoleonic wars and attacked British interests in Canada in 1812. It was slow to join Britain against Germany in both the first and second world wars. It saw itself as a rival to the British Empire which it did its utmost to undermine and unravel.

Having virtually bankrupted this country after WWII and become the first modern super-power, it extended its influence across the globe, mostly but not always, in regions where once Britain was the colonial power. The U.K, for that is what G.B. became, was not, however, idle in all this. Realising that its star was on the wain, it walked happily in America’s shadow, like a proud parent of  a celebrity child, nudging here and influencing there, opening doors closed to others , because our progeny gave us the key. Like the parent we are always there for America. Witness Iraq and Afghanistan. Like the child, America is not always there for us; witness Suez and recent State Department references to Las Malvinas, their antagonism of B.P. and their outrage over the Lockerbie bomber. Only once has a British Prime Minister faced a U.S President down. That was Wilson over Vietnam.

The bond of blood and kin will always remain. The rest of it is past its self by date. We need to move on. America is family so it will always be there. But it needs to walk alone now. Only then will it learn where it is going. Meanwhile we have other paths to tread and it is time for us to map them out.