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David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ proposals on face value admittedly look quite promising from an English Radical perspective. However there is a certain fable about the scorpion and the frog that rings alarm bells in our ears. For those that are not familiar with the tale a frog offers a scorpion a ride on its back across a river, only for the scorpion to sting the frog half as they were midstream. ‘Why on earth did you do that?’ asked the frog, ‘Now we shall both die?’
The scorpion shrugged and replied, ‘I could not help myself. It is my nature’.

The Tories have their own distinctive nature. Cameron’s Conservative Party remains the party of big business, of the multi-nationals and of the Lord Ashcroft’s of this world. They are poles apart from the sole traders, local shopkeepers and small businessmen of this country and die-hard Tories would shun any thought of encouraging co-operatives. Like the scorpion, the Tories are a party with a sting in their tale.

Yet Cameron’s Conservative’s ‘Big Society’ wishes to return decision making on planning and housing to local councils. Communities will be given powers to save local facilities threatened with closure such as pubs and Post Office’s and have the right to bid to take over local state run services such as libraries.  A bold move, and one on face value we as English Radicals thoroughly support as it is in line with our distributist principals. However I think a lesson can be learnt here from history.

In the Thatcher years of the 1980’s there were other superb opportunities offered to ordinary people. We were told we could be shareholders in our utility companies and become players on the stock market. Enter characters such as ‘Buzby’ and ‘Hissing Sid’ to sell the idea to the trusting public, an idea snapped up by people thinking they could make a tidy sum within a few months. To be honest, many did make a profit – but years down the line we are all now paying the price for the family silver being sold.

So how is that relevant to Cameron’s big society? To begin with the Conservative’s are a capitalist party, a party of big business and not a distributist party, a party of community interest and co-operatives. When they talk of returning decision making to local councils they do not mean to local people as we do in the English Radical Alliance. They mean local council’s hiring more expensive consultants, that often have no connection with the local area. This will be at the council taxpayers expense.  When they talk of communities taking over shops, pubs and libraries, they do not mean supporting these, they mean the capitalist ideology of ‘sink or swim’, ‘survival of the fittest’. Just as large, very often foreign owned companies came in and snapped up the ordinary peoples share in our utility companies, you can be assured vultures will be circling over the heads of these new community initiatives waiting to pick off the weakest. Nothing will be put in place to prevent community managed shops and services from facing unfair competition or helping to support them. It is the way of the sting in the tail capitalist Conservatives. 

Mr Cameron is playing distributist politics, but only offering part of a distributist package. It is like selling you a car with no engine and then expecting you to take your driving test in it straight away. The English Radical Alliance believes in real community initiatives and a complete distributist package. Local decision making by local people, local economic networks, opportunities and support for community initiatives, co-operatives and small businesses and doing our utmost to ensure all survive through training and ensuring unfair competition does not exist.

The fable of the frog and the scorpion may be an ancient tale, but history does have a habit of repeating itself and I am sure ‘Buzby’ and ‘Hissing Sid’ lurking somewhere in Cameron’s closet are now waiting to embark on their comeback tour.

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