Big Society or Big Con? That was the Big Argument at Westminster last week after David Cameron once again urged  volunteers to take responsibility for running some community services, writes John Hipwood.

This week the biggest example of the Big Society in action gets under way with the launch of a huge exercise to get the British people directly involved in the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

London 2012 organisers are looking for as many as 70,000 unpaid volunteers from doctors and nurses to translators and stewards to make sure that the biggest sporting event in the United Kingdom’s history is in Seb Coe’s words “an unforgettable experience”.

The former Tory MP and chairman of the London 2012 Organising Committee said on Sunday that there could be no better example of the Big Society than the search – and guaranteed rush – to become, in the 2012 jargon, Games Makers.

Today, with exactly two years to go to the opening ceremony, the search begins for specialist volunteers, such as interpreters and medical staff, and disabled volunteers.  Applications will be made online.  In September, tens of thousands more will apply for general roles such as stewarding and ticket checking.

Volunteers will be needed not just in London but in Weymouth for the sailing events, for the rowing at Eton Dorney in Buckinghamshire, and for all the other events, including the football stadiums chosen, which include Coventry.

If you live in the West Midlands or anywhere else in the country away from the venues and fancy a shot at getting involved, there is a snag – you will have to find and pay for your own accommodation, but Games organisers are convinced that the “I was part of it” lure will attract applications from far and wide.

In fact, the 70,000 volunteer target is likely to be hugely oversubscribed despite the detailed checks candidates will have to undergo, not least to head off security and crime problems.

One of the big questions about Mr Cameron’s Big Society is where the money is going to come from to train the army of volunteers he wants to recruit.

In the case of London 2012, that issue has already been taken care of. Big Mac (McDonald’s) is footing the bill for this particular serving of the Big Society.

Games Makers will, by the way, be supplied with food and drink during their period.
I wonder what the staple diet will be…

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Former chancellor Alistair Darling confirmed on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that, not only did he want to increase VAT rather than raise National Insurance in his last budget, but that he also lost the pre-election battle with Gordon Brown on being more specific about what spending cuts would have to be made.

But would he have done  any better with the individuals who are now vying to succeed Mr Brown as Labour leader?

Each of them is more than happy to condemn the cuts being made by the Coalition Government, but none seems ready to say what cuts – and cuts there would certainly have been – they would be taking if still in government.

Black Country MP Margot James highlighted this ill-judged stance in the Commons last week.

“The people whom I represent in Stourbridge have had to make cutbacks in their personal expenditure as families and individuals for a long time,” she said.

“They have had to prioritise the paying off of their own debt as individuals. The small businesses for which they work have had to pull their horns in. In the past two years, companies in my constituency have seen their order books fall by 50 per cent,” added the Tory MP.

That, unfortunately, is the real world.

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Union leader-turned Birmingham Labour MP Jack Dromey twice let the forbidden word “chairman” slip from his lips at a Commons committee meeting last week.

Forbidden, that is, by his wife Harriet Harman, who prefers the inanimate “chair” and who was dubbed Harriet Harperson for her politically correct efforts to eliminate allegedly sexist vocabulary.