Using the Big Society to fight the cuts.

The Big Society is bollocks. We know this. The purchaser provider split  that gave charities, private companies and other agencies  responsibility for delivery of our public services in the first place, used the same 'Big Society' rhetoric that is now being used to push those organisations to extinction . Along with the statutory organisations who used to deliver those services. We know where this rhetoric goes, we have a cast iron demonstration in the field of social care- and it is now a prophesy of what is going to happen to our health service. State support is being pulled away, and the welfare state is being rolled back. Private companies and consortiums are hovering like vultures.

I could go into a lengthy treatise about the merits of Direct Action, or political engagement or the myriad of ways that these program of cuts will damage the people I know and the area I love, but I don't have time.

In the emergency budget and the subsequent spending review it was made clear that this was happening. There might be discussion over the interests of the middle classes, cries to save forests and Surestart- but the welfare cuts are going ahead. The cuts to local authorities are going ahead. There isn't a single political party who is willing to stand up for anyone outside the 'squeezed middle' and protests about cuts generally find more attention if they are about Middle Class niceties. Single parents, te disabled, the ill, those in the cinderalla public services will not find themselve sthe subject of passionate defence. We can go screw, and perhaps someone might fight for us at some point, as long as we fit their ideals.

So we need to talk about a new form of direct action. The type of Direct Action which will allow people to survive. You can't fight an economic attack with protest alone. You can't fight this agenda if you are constantly fighting to keep a roof over your head, or watching as mainstream charities ignore anyone without glossy fashionable needs.

The Big Society is being used to mask cuts. If all those who sign up to it, allow themselves to be used to fly the flag of the Conservative led Government's agenda that is all it will be. It is an expansion of Labour's much vaunted third sector (privatisatisated services running alongside voluntary and public sector) But it is also a very clear economic defence which could mean that you don't have to watch your life disintegrate as work and state support dissapear simultaneously.

The only way to fight being pushed into destitution is to find money and to work to strengthen your community to lessen the catastrophic effects of these cuts.

Money is scarce when you dont have a job, have no chance of getting one, and aren't living in an area where business start ups are a good idea. But there is money out there. Through organisations like Unltd, and Key Fund- and the myriad of other initiatives developed by Labour to perpetuate the marketisation of our public services, there is money. There is support. And there is still the facility to create enterprises which will provide work, and strengthen communities. To help preserve professional knowldge. Most commissioning strategies for Local Authorities will ask that preference be given to local projects, community projects. This is David Cameron's big idea while he needs a glossy mask for hiding cuts- this money will not be about forever.

I started a business in the weeks after the budget. I started it to help create jobs for me and the people around here. The point was to reinvest profits so that we could create more jobs, and in doing so create legal protection for those working in peoples homes under new Social Care policies- and to protect the professional knowledge that is under attack. We are going through the process of becoming a social enterprise, because we have found out that this is the ONLY way we will be able to achieve what we need to. It might fail, we may not get properly up and running- but it beats waiting around as our lives fall apart.

This is not a difficult process. If you have an idea then there is money out there. There are many problems with the social enterprise model, many ethical dilemmas posed by it.

Youu don't have to become a flag waver or be part of the lies that justify these policies, to use the resources available to protect yourself and your community. The romance of protests is one thing, but unless people survive they cannot fight. Whether it be a social enterprise setting up a kitchen that will pass local authority requirements so you, and others can cook food to sell- or funding to allow you to set up a service which meets a need when the state pulls back- funding is there. And it won't be for long.

Direct action about protest is useful- but on it's own pointless. This situation is very real, and it is time to start getting smart about how to protect people from its effects. Especially those who noone else has any interest in fighting for. Never has a Big Society been more necessary, and the fact that old shiny face is using it to mask cuts- does not change that that is precisely what needs to happen if our communities are going to remain anywhere near intact. This is no substitute for adequate public services- but it may be a means to ensure that more people and communities are slightly protected from what is to come.