Very cool, if true

The article on the Swedish model has I think helped me name a large part of my discomfort with the idea of the Big Society.

It shifts the power to decide who gets what assistance from the community from a disinterested civil service controlled by democratically elected politicians to self appointed and self regulated private actors. These private actors are not necessarily neutral.

When I was about 13 my family and I spent some time living in a small rural town in Austalia. We were, for a short time, significantly unrich.

One of the local priests would drop round with food parcels on the condition that he was allowed to hit us children when we swore. So food in exchange for a certain narrow view of morality and the acceptance of someone else’s right to control you through violence.