Working Poverty is appallingly high and social care is in a funding crisis - the 'Big Society' was a cloak stolen by a wolf

David Cameron deftly altered the image of the Conservatives and his success has left us with a society in crisis. Photograph: Prime Minister David Cameron - official photograph by Number 10 (License) (Cropped)

Under David Cameron and George Osborne, the Conservative Party worked hard to change its image. With Labour in power, and getting very comfortable within the establishment, they sought to present themselves as warm and compassionate with just a light fondness for tradition.

Part of that 'compassion' was to roll back the 'nanny state' - to stop big government looking over people's shoulders. The counterpoint was to instead get society, out of charitable and philanthropic instincts, to pull together and support each other in their own communities.

But the 'Big Society' disappeared quickly. But then it had already served its purpose, as the sheep's clothing for the wolf - just the latest in fashionable lines, taken from progressives, that the Right had shrouded itself in to slip unnoticed amongst the livestock.

And if anyone still believed in the Conservative vision, after years of austerity had stripped their community of libraries and investment in roads, schools and healthcare, and left social care in a near terminal crisis (Triggle, 2016), recent reports should dispel the illusion.

The most recent damning report is that of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which reported that seven million people in Britain suffer from working poverty (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2016). That means that, despite earning an income in work, these people are still unable to make ends meet.

More than any of the other reports, working poverty is the most damning betrayal of the promises of Conservatives, and of neoliberalism. The basic promise, that hard work will bring reward, that will people will gain on merit, has been broken.

Conservatives, neoliberals, the purveyors of 'free' markets and small government - they sell privatisation with a promise: with no government restraining or filtering, there will be innovation, and the entrepreneurial will be allowed to get ahead, to take what they are merited.

But the 'Big Society' brand, the promises of liberty, conceal a darker reality. They neatly package selfish individualism for sale by disguising what it brings with it: disconnect, loneliness and isolation. Consider that, even as work is delivering poor rewards, the job centres are facing closures (BBC, 2016).

As a demonstration of how much it is being put upon any one person to carry the weight of their own obstacles, the closure of job centres is illuminating. People are being cut off from one another, with little power or means to change their situation. Merit, it seems, requires an inheritance to get started.

Conservatives and neoliberals want to package this as 'liberty' and 'individualism', but that's only half of the story. Their liberty is negative liberty, believing only in removing barriers. What that won't address is the crushing inequality that goes untouched, except by charitable disposition - something that itself comes under attack by the deeply conservative notion of neoliberal individualism. How can charity flourish amidst an a conception of the individual that is hierarchical and dependent upon competition, selfishness and greed?

The impact of the neoliberal and conservative ideologies is destructive. They're reducing society to a mad scramble that turns communities first against each other, and then inwards upon themselves, as individuals must put aside their social bonds to pursue their own interests.

But in fighting that destructive impact, in undoing the pain caused by the neoliberal ideology, that glorifies selfishness, we mustn't give up or suppress individuality. In fact, it would be a sore loss to give over individuality to an ideology that reduces it to little more than greedy consumption and extraction.

Individuality can be so much more. Instead, a social fabric needs to be woven in which individuals live ever with the support and cooperation of others. Where people realise the fullness of themselves in collaboration with others, rather than competition with them. A positive liberty, that raises people up as well as removes the obstacles from their path.

Conservatism, as it represents the establishment, has ever kept itself relevant by gobbling up the language of progressives, turning the words of hope into tools for their own designs. Individuality becomes selfishness, community becomes sectarianism, the balance and moderation of civic republicanism becomes a 'centre' captured and dragged ever to the Right.

We have to stop handing sheep's clothing to the wolves. We have to stop letting conservatism take our words and twist them. Ideals, art and culture are created by and belong to the 99% - the 1% just exploits them for profit. We must fight for every word.

References

Nick Triggle's 'Ministers consider council tax rise to cover social care funding'; on the BBC; 12 December 2016.

'In work poverty hits record high as the housing crisis fuels insecurity'; from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation; 7 December 2016.

''No consultation' over Glasgow job centre closures'; on the BBC; 8 December 2016.