The State Withdraws: The volunteers move in.

We're often told by the left that we require the overwhelming state to provide nearly every public service in society on these fair shores. We simply can not live without the Government - it is impossible and every retreat of that state, in all its mighty glory, will automatically equal yet another child in poverty.

I'm not seeking to suggest the private and charity sectors provides every single answer, to every single problem. There are some things that quite frankly never should have been privatised or even part privatised and if I were in Government, I would nationalise for the good of the country without doubt. One example being prisons - terrible idea and awful decision to have privatised. Prisons are there to look after our most dangerous and often vulnerable people, theoretically helping to rehabilitate them back into society. Financial targets should not go anywhere near them, nor the prison they are inhabiting.

However, there are some examples where the private sector actually excels at. One example, a very small example, I have encountered on my village bike rides across, over, and under the East Sussex countryside is the library service.

Library services, much like a lot of local council funded services, have been stripped back to the bone and many centres of population have had these services entirely removed. This seems awful at first glance - how will local children take out books you might ask?

However, something of a phenomena has been encroaching into the British countryside. The telephone box, once a busy centre of community gossip, now lays empty and underused - if it is even serviced in this age of the smartphone by BT. I've been cycling past this red box for a while now and recently it's come to change slightly.

No longer is the cast iron box empty of soul or purpose, other than to provide cheap photographs for Chinese tourists who've walked out of London for 3 hours by accident...

The box has been converted into a small library - which I have been frequenting every week for the past seven weeks. This box is run, not by central government, local government, or even the parish council, or the many faith organisations. The box is entirely run by local people, local volunteers, who have kindly donated 100 books to this micro library which appears to be flourishing.

What this small example should show and represent to us is that the British Public are actually capable of coming together, as a parish or even as a group of friends, forming a committee and providing what was once deemed only providable by Government with its great iron fists, and doing something about a problem.

It's amazing what even three people can do over a pot of coffee, some biscuits, a little hope, and some volunteering (obviously over a Zoom call or over a walkie talkie if you live within 2km of each other).

As someone who set up a society at university which met twice a week at its peak, providing a range of services from debates to pure socialising, I can tell you - there are people in the community just like you who can identify 1st: a problem. 2nd: A solution. and 3rd: have actually got a lot of free time they could be using to help with that very problem.

Your 'society' might not be a university society - but it could be a book club to tackle loneliness, a scout group to take kids off their parents hands for a few hours a week, or a small library in a disused telephone box.

Message: Identify problem, Get friends together over coffee (or tea in my case), and find a solution.

Again, I'm not suggesting that there aren't some services the Government MUST have a monopoly over, but a lot could be run by local volunteers like us.