TUC: PM must prefer Somalia to Sweden

Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, said in response to the prime minister’s speech on the ‘big society’:

“The most worrying thing about the ‘big society’ is that the prime minister truly believes that polices of slash, burn and sack will make all our lives better, and not just for those for whom he is planning tax cuts.

“The logic of this is that his ideal society is Somalia where the state barely exists, and his hell the Scandinavian societies that the rest of us admire for combining quality services, equality and dynamic economies.”