Why the "Big Society" will fail

Yes, I know this article is in the Mail, but it pays among the highest wages in the journopuke sector, has the highest circulation of any daily and even those who define themselves by loathing what it stands for very, very seldom dare to question the accuracy of its reporting.

The article - a long interview with an anonymous senior planning officer - is not really news at all. Most people know that local authorities - regardless of the dominant party - are over-manned, chronically unproductive, and corrupt. The trend to over-centralization that accelerated under Margaret Thatcher was driven by those facts, plus the fiscally irresponsible loopiness of councils that fell to arseholes posing as revolutionaries.

David Cameron's "Big Society" seeks to resolve the problem another way, by empowering citizens to create alternatives to statist "solutions" that never solve anything. It's a great idea, and it might work - if only we could import millions of ethnic Chinese and export a like number of made-in-Britain scrotes.

But who would have them? The most staggering fact of the last decade is that the Labour regime created jobs only in the feather-bedded state sector, and most of those jobs went to immigrants, because the British unemployed lack basic skills, motivation and self-discipline. Cool Britannia, innit?    

I'm in no doubt the article's conclusion is correct: Britain is a long way past the point of no return, and the drain of statist parasitism will continue until the society is reduced to a husk. I weep for my grandchildren.

Cuts and pay freezes are desperately needed, but the one thing Mr Osborne will never be able to control is the culture of inertia and inefficiency that is rife throughout the public sector.
 
Of course, when I tell my friends in the private sector about my working conditions, they can scarcely believe it. As the recession bites, they consider themselves lucky to be holding on to their jobs, and are willing to work extra hours or take a pay freeze to ensure their firm's survival.

In the public sector, though, there is no competitive edge; no incentive to cuts costs or improve efficiency. Few genuinely fear for their job security, protected as they are by threats of union action every time the axe looks likely to fall.

It's the same story across the world: when a nation's public sector is allowed to expand into a bloated behemoth, it is almost impossible to cut it down to size, still less to change the culture of waste and laziness that sets in.