Mutualising Public Services

Mutualising Public Services

Of course, if you want to run the public service that you work for, you will not be handed it for free. Don't be silly.

No, it will be a business and like any business you will be expected to buy it. Yes, I know that you personally do not have the money to buy it, so instead you are expected to go to the City.

No, not the big town near you, I mean the City of London, where (in the words of Vince Cable) the "spivs and gamblers" hang out.

Those spivs have money, lots of it. The odd thing is they do not like spending it. I mean, if you or I had a billion or two we would just say "sod it" and buy a Caribbean island and live the rest of our lives in the sun ignoring that there was a world out there. (Admit it, you would, wouldn't you.)

No, these spivs believe that if they have some money, the only thing to do with it is make more money with it. The Bible calls it Onanism. No it doesn't, it calls it usury and calls it a sin, but the spivs are Onanists too. (Oh look it up, if you don't know what the word means, but pleases don't do it at work. The looking up, or the Onanism.)

So now you are amongst the spivs asking for some money for your mutual, your "social enterprise". Now the spivs have just one thing in mind (please, think only about usury), they want to get the largest return on the money they have. Thus, the money they lend you will be at a cost.

Remember, it is YOU who has the social purpose, not the spivs. But your mutual must make a profit, because otherwise it will not be able to pay the interest on the money the spivs lend you. That means that you will have to provide proportionally less of that social purpose. Think of it being a little bit of that goodness that you want to provide has to go into the pockets of the spiv in the City.

Does that sound good to you? I did say that they are Onanists, didn't I?

Anyway, this supposes that the spivs will actually lend the cash to you, which is very unlikely. Why? well, since (understandably) you will want to pay the spivs as little as possible, and they know fully well that they will get far more lending their money to the government, they really don't want to lend the money to you. So that means that your mutual, your social enterprise just cannot start, so why are you bothering?

I wished the Labour party had my logic, but at the moment they are confused as to why the Tories have stolen their big idea, the Third Sector.