The cerebral French have a saying about public policy. "It will work in practice, but will it work in theory?" David Cameron has the more familiar problem with his "big society" concept. Will it work in practice at a time when economic hardship is already putting pressure on voters' spare time and charitable impulses?
But he's also got the French problem. Even as a campaign slogan in 2010 it felt more like a fluffy add-on devised by his biking strategy guru, Steve Hilton, than something that would make people go, "Gosh, y'know, he's right", and sign on to help the Samaritans on a Saturday night.
Hence yesterday's relaunch, the fourth on most reckonings. As part of the Tory detox, Dave launched Big Society 1.0 well before polling day. Tory MPs were sniffy, but he persevered to show who was boss. Besides, his Witney constituency is so affluent it could almost work there. Liverpool, where he relaunched Big Society 2.0 with writer Phil Redmond, a year later, is a tougher call.
But Dave's a fast learner, and in February he had another try at grandiose Somerset House on the Thames. Inappropriate or what? It looks like a palace but is actually the first purpose-built civil-service building in England – the embodiment of the Georgian Big State and stuffed with quill-pen pushers.
Although he wheeled on a billionaire to write a charity cheque, the Daily Mirror dubbed Big Society 3.0 a "big con" in which hardly any Tory MPs were doing voluntary work. Undeterred, he rolled out Big Society 4.0, complete with its own white paper and the idea of using cash machines to solicit donations. But it's not all about money. Got that?
