The Guardian view on the Tories and civil society: a pattern of denial | Editorial

At local level Conservatives can see the harm wrought by austerity, but that insight has not reached the party's upper echelons

The Conservatives often seem unsure whether to present budget cuts as painful but necessary or painless and desirable. Tory ideologues see state spending as inimical to enterprise and corrosive of personal freedom, but pragmatists recognise that public service users do not feel austerity as a kind of liberation.

To reconcile the two positions, David Cameron invented the "big society" - the idea that voluntary work could fill gaps in government provision of services. But piecemeal good work done under the "big society" banner could never soften blows from the chancellor's axe.