Saturday 8 January 2011

Big Society Anyone?

So, it seems I've been a bit "Mr Angry" the last couple of days, so I'll round up with one last bit of social rage.

Every day there are news stories about public service cuts, the ever-increasing cost of living and rising unemployment.  At least on those days when the media can get its head round a story that isn't about some vacuous C-list celebrity.  It feels grim.  I saw a piece of graffiti on the way into work the other day - "Cuts kill Communities".

And yes, there are going to be cuts here in Norwich too.  On the Norfolk County Council Consultation website, there are (I think) 154 different consultations, and after a bit of searching, I found the Environment and Development - Budget Saving proposals 2011-2014 section.  Unlike the petition section of the 10 Downing Street website, you can't see if anyone else has commented, which is a shame.

Oh, and the consultation closes on 10th January 2011.

Yes, 10th January - that's this Monday.

When I went to see Billy Bragg last month, he talked about cynicism and apathy as the biggest threats to social change and social justice.  Hardly anyone I've spoken to seems to know about these, and I only know of one other person who's responded to any of them.  There are lots of words such as reshape, reduce, streamline, efficiencies.  I'm not against those sorts of things per se, and some of the wording seems very innocuous, but if we don't make our feelings known, we can't complain if things don't go the way we would want them to.

So please take some time tomorrow, have a look at the site and response.

If nothing else, it shows we care.

And that we're paying attention.

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