Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

The 2010 Aneurin Bevan Society Lecture, “Taking Back ‘The Big Society’ Debate”, chaired by Geoffrey Goodman, chair, the Aneurin Bevan Society, will now be taking place in room 12, rather than room 10, of the House of Commons.

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“We can solve the poverty trap”, the Prime Minister claims. The coalition aims to do this by “simplifying” benefits – which seems to mean reducing them – and ensuring people are better off in work than on welfare. One way to accomplish the latter might be to double the national minimum wage – or even treble it. However, it is still not entirely clear what these jobs people are going to be made to do actually are, as the private sector allegedly picks up the slack as thousands of public sector staff are forcibly returned to the market place.

Paul Carter, Conservative leader of Kent County Council, is a card. He says: “Our ambition is about putting you, the citizen, in control – a bigger society and a smaller state delivering stronger more self-reliant residents and communities.” We’re all in it together? Pull the other one. The sub-text of that speech – Mr Carter cheerfully admits: “We are anticipating having to save at least 25 per cent of our budget over the next three or four years” – is that you’re on your own, pal. He hails the new coalition Government’s “massive legislative change programme which will radically affect the delivery of our every day services”. But not for the better.

Republicans? Don’t you love ’em? Maybe not, but it is funny how often right-wing Republicans get caught not just with their pants down or their fingers in the till but employing domestic staff who can’t work legally in the United States. Republicans love to bang on about illegals – usually racist code for Hispanics or, as they disparagingly call them, “wetbacks” crossing the Mexican border. Meg Whitman, the Republican running to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor in California, employed Nicky Diaz Santillan as her housekeeper for nine years, despite her legal status – or lack of it – being drawn to her attention by the authorities in 2003. In her campaign Whitman has repeatedly called – apparently with a straight face – for tougher sanctions against employers who hire illegal workers.