To dinner on Sunday evening, where there was only one topic of conversation: the election. Where had Cleggmania come from? How much is David Cameron enjoying himself right now? Is Gordon Brown feeling ok?
Quickly, talk turned to the rather strange Tory election campaign in which they have spent a lot of money but not connected. Cameron, noted several people, keeps on talking about the “Big Society,” but what does that mean? It sounds as though he wants busy people to get home from work and then head straight out again to help with the renovation of their local youth centre whether they want to or not.
But the ideas on responsibility within the Tory manifesto, said one of those present, are classically conservative. The concept is an attempt to explain how civic society might fill the gap when the state does less. This didn’t get much of a response. The Big Society sounds far too wimpish, said someone else. Like a song by U2, Then Jerico or Big Country from the 1980s. And it is so vague that it reinforces the widespread feeling in the country that Cameron and his ideas lack definition.
A friend, not involved in politics or journalism, then made a brilliantly clear point that stopped the discussion in its tracks. “Wouldn’t they have been better calling it The Strong Society? Much tougher and far less vague. Strong is a good word.”
There followed several seconds of complete silence as everyone present digested the fact that, yes, all things considered the Tories would have been much better off talking about a Strong Society rather than the Big Society.