Cabinet Office green paper to put forward series of ideas to define the elusive 'big society' in Britain

The Big Society now wants your money from your cash point now being proposed by the coalition all those in favour say Yay Or Nay. Lets see it looks like the to the right has it in the form of Green paper, drafted by Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, is designed to encourautge philanthropy.

I am convince it is a Big con to make money just look around in today's economic climate public sector funding is being halved three times the rate under this coalition than a Labour Gov would have proposed.


The way how I read into it at the moment is people don't mind knowing what needs to be cut but when you look at the wider implications for the nation the Tories will let their partner in crime to happy to take the fall for it. Nice one Cleggy your the man.

Cash machines should automatically give customers an option of donating to charity, the coalition proposes tomorrow in a green paper designed to define the elusive "big society" in Britain.

The proposal is one of a series of ideas put forward by the Cabinet Office to shift what the coalition sees as the stubborn British refusal to be philanthropic with time or money. Prompts to give to charitable causes might also be developed whenever someone fills in a tax return or applies for a driving licence or passport.

Other ideas aired in the innovative green paper include a thank-you letter from ministers for giving large sums, a national day to celebrate donors, and a televised weekly thank-you to national lottery winners who have donated.

The green paper also considers whether the government should try to set as a social norm that everyone should give 1% of their income to charity, or a fixed proportion of their time. Overall, the green paper, drafted by Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, argues that the internet and apps are now "providing an unparalleled opportunity to access information on how to make a difference".

Other ideas include developing an app so that retailers automatically send very small donations to charity every time a customer uses a particular search engine to look at the retailer's website.

At present 8% of the UK population contribute 47% of total donations, and with income tax now rising to 50% for those earning more than £150,000 a year, the government faces an uphill task in creating a new culture of giving. Charities also complain that their national funding is being cut by the government.

Following objections from the Treasury, the green paper is noncommittal about fresh tax breaks for giving, but says many of the existing incentives are poorly understood by UK corporations. Payroll giving is perceived as too time consuming by many small businesses, while big corporate donors tend to give to a narrow range of causes likely to be uncontroversial with shareholders.

The green paper, drawing on the analytical work of the so-called nudge unit in No 10, takes a strong view that social action is not something the coalition can or should compel people to take.

The paper says that "it has to be built from the bottom up on the back of free decisions by individuals to give to causes around them". Maude said last night: "We are arguing for new social attitudes that celebrate giving.

"Talking about what we are doing for good causes is often seen as vulgar, but sharing experiences can often inspire others."

The coalition claims there is evidence, for instance, that people will give time if approached properly. The London 2012 Olympics organisers have attracted 240,000 applications to be stewards.

The green paper also suggests it is vital that giving is more visible: "The more people see that their peers are giving, and how much they give, the more likely they are to give, or give more, themselves."

The green paper quotes David Halpern, one of the advisers to the nudge unit, who argues: "Our behaviour is generally far more influenced by what we see other people doing than what we think we should be doing."

He also draws on the pioneering work of the sociologist Richard Titmuss to argue that there is a gift relationship, claiming: "Evolution has endowed us with a social brain that predisposes us to reciprocate acts of kindness, not just blindly to follow anyone and everyone, regardless of how they treat anyone."

As a result there has been a growth in peer-to-peer lending and financing platforms such as Zopa that allow people to give money to individuals or projects that post requests for funding online.

The paper argues that social media such as Facebook "offer enormous potential to normalise giving with developments such as Twibbons that allow people to share their support for a cause in the online environment."

"Transparency should make it possible to tell whether charities are good value through sites such as New Philanthropy Capital's ratings and comparison websites."

Clegg aims to calm Lib Dem fears

How many of us in the Labour Party remember the good old days when we continued to fight among ourselves while we were in opposition and in government. While on the other the Tories had there fair share they were in opposition for 13 yrs and yes they too have their fair share with in house fighting too when they were deciding who they wanted for their leader of the party. What do we all have in common the is most the leaders of the three main political parties are fairly new leaders they all have to go through what Blair, Cameron, and Clegg all had to learn the lessons.

Now some of us may agree or disagree the fact is two of the main three political parties have been voted by the Citizens of the United Kingdom whilst the third the Lib Dem's have come in third. Now we have learnt that that the Lib Dems have turned their backs on the students most of them who publicly signed a Student Pledge that they will not support the rise of tuition fees.

Give credit where it is due the leader of the Student Union did nothing wrong by holding those who signed the pledge to account publicly and because he he condemed the few went out of their way to smash the Troy HQ for this his leadership is on the line. I know which side I will be.

Now here comes the most interesting part of this story which the media has not been quite honest about Nick Clegg in current opinion polls may be bad for the Liberal Democrats - however some specific polling has emerged today that suggests the electoral impact of the coalition agreement could be even worse for the Lib Dems than the headline figures suggest. Polling on behalf of former Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft, published today on ConservativeHome, suggests that there has been a 17.5% swing from the Lib Dems to Labour in Nick Clegg's Sheffield Hallam constituency. Labour have now moved ahead of the Tories into second place in the seat, and are only two points behind Clegg on current polling - making the seat a potential three-way marginal (33/31/28).

Hence Nick Clegg says his party has faced "testing times" in a message aimed at calming grassroots Lib Dem concerns. In his New Year message to members, the deputy prime minister pledged to start 2011 with action on social mobility, civil liberties and the environment.

He also launched a renewed defence of the decision to break a pledge to oppose rises in student tuition fees.

And he insists he had delivered on "every single one and more" of the party's general election priorities.

In the message, sent from Spain, where he is celebrating Christmas with his wife Miriam's family, he told the Liberal Democrat membership: "Well, what a year! A white-knuckle election; a new coalition government; Liberals in power for the first time in 70 years.

"Just eight months ago we were campaigning on our four big manifesto priorities - fairer taxes; extra money for disadvantaged children in schools; a green, rebalanced economy; a new, open politics. And now we are delivering on every single one, and more."

'Difficult decisions'

He went on: "I don't want to pretend it has all been easy. These are testing times for the country and for our party too. Action to tackle the deficit, and the need to reform higher education, have forced us to take some incredibly difficult decisions.

"But that is government. And when we promised people that we were ready to govern, that is the commitment we made. I genuinely believe that the choices we are making will stand the test of time."

He says the decision to almost treble tuition fees, which saw the party break a pre-election pledge, was needed to retain "world-class" universities and protect poorer students.

And he says backing the Conservatives' package of public spending cuts would "make sure future generations are not saddled with the burden of our debt".

"And by showing people that [the] coalition can work, we can prove that plural, liberal politics is best for Britain," he told them.

He says he will start the year by concentrating on "three big changes" in addition to campaigning for a "yes" vote in May's referendum on changing the Westminster voting system to AV - a key concession won in the coalition negotiations.

He set out his priorities for 2011: "Radical reform of our political system and restoring our hard-won civil liberties; boosting social mobility so that no child is held back by the circumstances of his or her birth; and making sure the economic recovery is green and balanced, with opportunities spread across the whole country."

He concluded: "All of us are going to hear some people predict the worst for our party. The same people who have been underestimating the Liberal Democrats for as long as we have existed.

"But we prove them wrong at every single turn. The next 12 months will be no different, because we will continue to build the Liberal, fairer, greener Britain that we all believe in."