Empowering Communitisation, Communitising Empowerability

The Government has announced a new community empowermentisation package to put a stop to all the nasty cynicism about politics. "There is a lot of cynicism about politics but it is through politics that we bring about change for the better", blathered the Minister for Britishness Enforcement; the we is rather fine, particularly as it emerges from the very same cloaca that dropped this little treasure seven months ago. The Government white paper, titled with vintage Blairite bleareality Communities in Control, Real People, Real Power, proposes "civic champions" - council staff or former councillors who have nothing better to do - who will "go out into the community and work with residents and community groups" to lift the pall of ignorance and raise people's awareness of their civic responsibilities, "whether that's volunteering, standing as a governor, a councillor or becoming a magistrate". It appears that the cure for our cynicism is to provide unpaid labour or else work to enforce the laws which have done so much to keep the cynicism going. There will also be a "Community Builders Fund" which will not have an apostrophe but which will help "strong community groups" to run local services such as street markets which haven't been bought up by Tesco, swimming pools which leisure companies find unprofitable, or community centres which nobody wants to turn into office blocks. The Community Builders Fund will run to seventy million pounds, or slightly less than New New Labour considers necessary to rectify the errors of the free market. I trust the Minister for Britishness Enforcement will forgive me if my cynicism doesn't crumble all at once.