I have friends who work for quangos. Not managers or bosses, but down on the street frontline people offering help to some very, very vulnerable people many of whom slip through the welfare and healthcare nets. These small organisations are being cut because their managers are being paid too much - the people who are at the pointy end do this because they want to help, there's no big money or ladder to climb for them.

This is the perennial problem with the Tories. They can't seem to understand that some people choose a vocation because they believe in public service, in working for a common good in unglamorous and often quite harrowing jobs. My wife worked for 14 years in the NHS and the people she worked with were dedicated and caring; I know social workers, teachers, drug outreach workers, nurses and policemen and women who will never be rich in their chose professions but are committed to making society a better place. A friend I bumped into this morning has worked for many years for our local authority, and I asked her about the mood amongst the staff and she said it was grim; they felt like the clock was about to be turned back 10 years.

This isn't the big society - those people are out there doing that and Cameron knows this (if he doesn't he needs to take his head out of his arse). This is the systematic destruction on idealogical grounds of the state funded apparatus that was established to make society better, to engage and reach out to those in need and encourage those who make their living serving their fellow citizens.

Somewhere in a swanky private hospital in SW5, closeted from the filth and grime of ordinary working people who fall ill, an ailing old lady hears the news of the spending cuts, allows herself a wry smile and begins to feel a little bit better; after 30 years her plan is finally coming together . . .