If David Cameron wants us all to get volunteering for his big society, it looks as if he may have miscalculated.
Most people in Britain are unwilling to get involved in their community despite wanting to engage more with local issues, research suggests.
Only one in ten definitely intended to do voluntary work in the next two years, Hansard Society’s post-general election poll of 1,200 people found.
I am not surprised by this. It is all very well for politicians sitting in parliament to make pronouncements about how we should be involved, but for most of us, the daily drudge leaves us with little time and enthusiasm – assuming we have the capacity for such enthusiasm in the first place.
Ultimately, it’s nothing to do with government. People will either volunteer or they won’t. No amount of government initiatives, nagging or cajoling will alter that. You either want to, or you don’t. I don’t. Nothing is going to change that. I will not be volunteering – even if it is manipulated into being compulsory. Indeed, the more they go on about it, the firmer becomes my resolve to stay well away. I suspect that I am not alone.
The survey brought us another statement of the obvious, too:
A further 26% classified themselves as “apathetic” or “alienated” from the political process.
Well, blow me down…
ONLY 26% are apathetic or alienated? Presumably another 60% can’t even be bothered to be apathetic? And another 10% are so alienated they punched the survey-taker…
I’d fall within that 60% – I don’t do surveys, it only encourages them.
If I ever had any desire to do voluntary work (I didn’t), there’s no way I would now, in case people think I approve of Cameron and his socialist ways.
Is it any surprise when all the bodies you’d be volunteering for are all bog standard PC infested fake charities or bodies at (very short) arms length from local authorities?
If people were able to set up voluntary groups that were completely independent of the State, able to impose their own rules and regulations on how they are run and how they provide their services, then you might find a bit more enthusiasm.
I’m involved in something locally. It’s not voluntary work, but an action group relating to our on-going battle with the Labour Mafia-run council, so purely self-interest. Even so, the vast majority affected will not lift a finger to help themselves or fight back. On the basis of this experience, I conclude:
2% of population are prepared to do something about something;
a further 4% will do so, if someone else takes the lead; the rest will moan but not get off their arses unless their house is burning down.
Here in BC, Canada, I volunteer up to twelve hours a week (Usually eight) for a couple of charities. When I was in the UK I’d do something like two or three hours a week voluntary work, mostly on local residents Street Committees, stuff like that.
Yet if some one had told me I ‘had to’ I might not have ended up volunteering at all.
As for being alienated by the political process, of course; especially when the current crop of UK political time pleasers are so unrepresentative.