Big Society - an apology for Maggie?

"There's no such thing as society" said Thatcher.

Ah, the irony that her successor is bigging up society - and giving it capital letters.

The Big Society is an attractive proposition, and I was quite taken aback when Cameron started using the phrase before the election.

Society is already a lot bigger and of greater significance than politicians, of all colours, seem to believe. Encased in the inward looking worlds of politics and government, it is all to easy for them to adopt a world-view which assumes that government is the main driving force in people's lives.

In practice, when we think about the lives we lead, we all know that the things that make us happiest, give us greatest fulfilment and generally enrich our lives are the relationships and interactions that we have with family, friends and the wider community. Government hardly comes into play, except perhaps to provide some necessary underpinning services.

Society is already big, and government is really relatively small. Maybe Cameron is simply recognising something that most other citizens always knew.

But there is more to the rhetoric than an apology for Maggie. Cameron bases his argument on the premise that Britain is broken. At one time that kind of talk was code for an attack on single mothers, working mothers, inadequate parents (usually mothers) and the high levels of divorce (again, usually blamed on mothers feeling dissatisfied with their lot). Women's liberation had damaged society and a man in shining armour was needed to mend it again. I'm not suggesting that Cameron shares those views but their faint echo can be heard in the language he chooses to use.

Britain is not broken in any meaningful way. So the Big Society does not need that kind of justification - even though Cameron may feel he needs to use it in order to win round Middle England, and his own right wing.

Of course, the question that is being asked is whether the Conservatives would have adopted the concept of Big Society if there were no pressing need to cut public services and expand the voluntary sector. I do get the impression that he genuinely wants to support and endorse those unselfish acts of kindness that make our communities work. It's a view that grows out of a centrist liberal tradition, which he shares, to a certain extent, with Liberal Democrats. With the coalition constraining the wilder elements in his party, he may now be grasping the opportunity to develop a strand of Conservatism that has been rather muted in the past.

From my position, as a social liberal, I do welcome the focus on the voluntary sector, and even more on something that doesn't really fit into a sector at all - good neighbourliness. I am not averse to some services being taken away from government, local or national, and given back to communities. I have always supported the idea of community management of local resources (Dinton Fields, for example, for which I can claim some credit).

In principle - John Stuart Mill's in fact - a person's liberty to behave as they wish should only be restricted by government if there is danger of harm to others, and the restrictions should always be proportionate to the risk.

The 'but' in all this - and I expect you could see it coming - is that we always need to temper liberty with equality. Liberty on its own does not ensure that everyone's needs will be met, whatever the free-marketeers may say. A society founded on the principles of liberty and community must also protect the weak and vulnerable. Equality is essentially about empowering every citizen with the skills and confidence they need to exercise their liberty and take advantage of what society has to offer.

That is why, for me, Big Society has to be coupled with compassionate government, led by strong elected representatives, particularly in local government, who have a specific duty to support the weak and speak for the silent. That is, in fact, why I am a Liberal Democrat and not a Conservative.