I walked around the neon warrens of the West End – through the theatre-throngs, and past the fancy fashion stores – with two volunteers from the charity the Simon Community.
….
I couldn’t find a single person in the field who believes Cameron’s claim that volunteers will make up the difference – or even get a tenth of the way there.
That\’s pretty good, using the evidence of volunteers to prove that volunteers don\’t exist.
He did not say he does not believe they exist. He said those he found did not believe Commyron’s claims.
“There’s Greg, who believes he has discovered a cure for malaria, but the UN has stolen and destroyed it. There’s Andrew, shivering with heroin-withdrawal. There’s the Chinese man who can’t speak English but smiles with gratitude as he shovels five sugars into his tea.”
So, a nutcase, a junkie and an immigrant (illegal? Who knows). Not exactly a good cross-section of ‘this could happen to you under the eeeeeeevil coalition!’ is it?
And I did like his interview with the construction worker who couldn’t find work because ‘the recession is so bad’.
I’m looking out of my window at a plethora of construction projects, and if I look out of the train windows on my ride home, I’ll see cranes like giraffe necks on the Serengetti.
In fact, it’s hard to find a bit of London and the South East they aren’t digging up or building on!
Tim.
Hari finds volunteers from the Simon Community on the ground.
Volunteers says that the voluntary sector will not be able to make up the shortfall imposed by the cuts.
These statements are not mutually exclusive. Again hopefully without sounding too crapulous, I fear that in this case you might have been seized by one of those fits of over-enthusiasm to make a point that Owen Barder once suggested you might be prone to.