The PM Has Asked Me To Say How Jolly Interested He Almost Was

The founder of a women's centre in County Durham has written to Daveybloke asking for yet another explanation of his Big Society thingy. Linda Kirk has put £5000 of her own money into the centre, but thanks to the coalition's concern for front-line services it is now in danger of closure. We can only hope Kirk's letter was electronic; the price of a stamp would almost certainly mean throwing good money after bad.

Unfortunately, the centre has a number of disadvantages from the Cuddly Conservative point of view, quite aside from the obvious faux pas of being in the north of England. For one thing, Daveybloke does not believe in splitting up families, and his first response to Kirk's plea will most likely be to urge her to vote Conservative next time so he can push through his pet project to give couples who stay together an extra pound a week in tax breaks. For another thing, the centre shows little interest in maintaining an appropriate prole-incentivising workhouse atmosphere, and users occupy their time making rugs, cushions and jewellery rather than anything Daveybloke might be able to shill for Britain's arms dealers. And for a third and probably fatal thing, the centre is a non-profit enterprise; "the difficulty is getting that across to people", according to the founder. Since all three of Britain's neoliberal parties have some small difficulty countenancing a non-profit ethic in the utilities, the police, the Post Office or the National Health Service, it might take a bit of getting across to Daveybloke, too.

Doubtless for that reason, Kirk's letter has been "referred to the relevant department", which at the last relaunch consisted of Nick Hurd, the Minister for Being the Son of a Former Minister, and Francis Maude, who probably thinks Kirk should save the rent money by running the centre from her husband's garage.