Saga Magazine – August 2018

lady hovering near a pedestrian

crossing without grasping

her firmly by the elbow and

leading her across, often to find

she had no intention of crossing

and has been mildly

inconvenienced by the gesture.

Yet it can be very positive.

Last summer, the trees outside

my neighbours’ houses were

sprouting so many low-level

branches that they were

hanging over their fences and

becoming hazardous to get past,

especially if like 98% of

pedestrian traffic, your head

was bent to study your phone

instead of looking ahead. Not

wanting my patch of pavement

to be host to a serious incident,

I decided to lop a few of

the branches off – with their

OPINION

hen David Cameron

announced plans

for a ‘Big Society’ in

2010, it was an attempt to get

ordinary people to shoulder a bit

of responsibility for a change.

He didn’t put it quite that bluntly

• he was trying to win an
  election – but that was the gist.
  Roundly mocked at the time,
  as are all government initiatives
  that don’t involve free ice
  cream, it was quietly allowed to
  wither and die in the Rose
  Garden of Coalition.
  A shame, I think. No doubt
  Cameron was mainly hoping to
  cut funding for public services
  so he could deliver tax cuts. But
  I think he was onto something.
  It has long been a shibboleth
  of advancing age that other
  people, particularly the younger
  generations, fail to show
  initiative and expect everything
  to be handed to them on a plate.
  But just because we’re always
  going on about it doesn’t mean
  we’re wrong. Too many Britons
  now expect the authorities to
  protect them from threats that
  previous generations would
  have understood to be their
  affair and theirs alone. It is
  SHUTTERSTOCKgovernment’s responsibility to

defend our borders. It should

not be expected to defend

our food cupboards from an

onslaught of sugary snacks.

This inclination to shrug

personal burdens onto the

collective shoulders of the state

• to see ‘society’ as the default
  provider of everything from
  litter clearance to supervised
  playgrounds – grows more
  powerful every day. Eavesdrop
  in any café and you will hear
  countless conversations in
  which some vague ‘they’ have
  failed to paint over some graffiti
  or clear the pavement of
  obstacles. It is not an appealing
  characteristic to cultivate.
  I have perhaps, if anything,
  a little too much enthusiasm for
  direct action. I can’t see an old

Why don’t we

take responsibility

for ourselves?

Z

From obesity to messy streets, we should be looking after

ourselves and each other, not always relying on the

government or big business to step in, says Simon Evans

This

month...

W

(^2018) I SAGA.CO.UK/AUG-MAG 19
It is government’s
responsibility to defend our
borders. It should not be
expected to defend our
food cupboards from an
onslaught of sugary snacks
Doughnut go there
The nation’s sugar
overload is leading
to obesity