When a fresh-faced David Cameron made his pitch to the nation in 2010, he promised to fix what he known as “damaged Britain”.
On this first episode in a two-part sequence, Jonathan Freedland and Helen Pidd focus on how Cameron launched the thought of the “huge society”, arguing that it will be communities, moderately than authorities, that may enhance the nation. He promised a kinder, gentler Conservative occasion that may give actual energy to charities and neighbourhood teams to vary the UK for the higher.
However virtually as quickly as he grew to become prime minister, Cameron carried out a historic handbrake flip. As a substitute of ushering in a brand new, compassionate Conservative age, he and his chancellor, George Osborne, started a programme of shredding the state and the social material, ostensibly to chop the nationwide debt.
Austerity touched each facet of society, and resulted in native authorities shedding 60p in each £1 of the cash they obtained from central authorities. Swimming swimming pools have been drained, youth golf equipment shuttered, police forces slashed and half of all magistrates courts have been closed.
We return to the UK’s greatest meals financial institution to debate how Cameron and Osborne’s austerity agenda continues to shatter lives, years after they left Downing Road. With 3,000 meals banks now working within the UK, is that this the massive society in motion or the clearest image of the merciless legacy of Tory rule?
{Photograph}: Reuters
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