Here’s a story that will cheer those Tory backbenchers fond of referring to the “big society” as “BS”. Lord (Nat) Wei of Shoreditch, the man hired by the government to launch its volunteering revolution, is to scale back his role after concluding that working for free three days a week is incompatible with “having a life”.
The Guardian reports that Wei is to reduce his hours on the project from three days a week to two, to allow him to see more of his family and to pay the bills. To adapt Wilde, the “big society”, like socialism, takes up too many spare evenings.
But the news also raises a serious point: is the big society really feasible in a country that works some of the longest hours in Europe? We’ve yet to hear a convincing answer from David Cameron.