Your online vote on the letters page at oxfordmail.co.uk offers two alternatives to the question, ‘Is the Big Society just a big con?’: either ‘yes – it is just a slick title to cover up the cuts’, or ‘no – David Cameron is trying to really change society’.

The sad thing is that both are true.

I’m sure Mr Cameron really believes he’s trying to change society. Unfortunately, every level of government below him is using the phrase to paper over cuts.

I’m sorry to say that Mr Cameron has his head in the clouds if he thinks that people with jobs to go to, or children to bring up, elderly relatives to look after, houses to maintain, and all the rest, really have time to take over the jobs of librarians, teachers and social workers, and that they can do it better than those trained professionals.

Get real, Mr Cameron, there is already an army of volunteers in our society (the Citizen’s Advice Bureau is a great example), but we can only stretch so far.

He must take note of, and stamp out, what the rest of his government is doing with his big idea.

It seems the fate of prime ministers is to be disconnected from reality.

In years to come, we’ll look back on the Big Society with the same degree of affection we currently hold for Tony Blair’s Iraq war.

David Watson, Goring Heath