[jaysay]

Originally Posted by cmonstanley

Son of a stockbroker Prime Minister David Cameron pulled off one of his most spectacular sleights-of-hand on Wednesday when he used his vague Big Society idea to get his City mates involved.

Under the guise of giving a helping hand to charities and social enterprises he launched a £600 million fund claiming the City was going to help tackle our deepest social problems.

But two-thirds of the money - £400m - comes from unclaimed cash from bank accounts dormant for more than 15 years and the rest comes from Barclays, HSBC and state-backed banks Lloyds and RBS - forcing the taxpayers to fork out.

The amount of money that will apparently be available as investments must also be put in the context of billions which the government has stopped giving to charities.

The new fund, called Big Society Capital, will "invest in organisations that provide affordable finance to social projects, which will then repay the money from the income they generate."

Mr Cameron said: "Just as finance from the City has been essential to help businesses grow and take on the world, so finance from the City is going to be essential to helping tackle our deepest social problems."

The money made from these investments will be reinvested in new projects in turn, apparently generating new cash.

But it was confirmed that the banks also have a right to any "surplus."

Chairman of the new institution is venture capital pioneer Sir Ronald Cohen,

Many observers have called the Big Society idea just a smokescreen for the massive cuts which the government has swung into action.

The latest move follows a blow when a county council's decision that 10 libraries should be run by volunteers was ruled procedurally flawed and unlawful.

Surrey County Council had "failed to have due regard to equality issues," a High Court judge said.

Mr Cohen admitted last year the fund would not be able to replace government funding.

No-one was available to answer the question: "Why is this fund needed rather than the government directly giving money?"

Cut and Paste job must be, too many capital letters and punctuation and not one spelling mistake