DAVID Cameron might have called it 'the Big Society'.

Some 40,000 vulnerable people across our county are currently relying on countless unseen and unpaid volunteers just to be able to get through this horrible lockdown.

Our councils are helping where they can by redirecting people's requests for help to the volunteers, but with Government funding to local authorities they can't be expected to do much more.

Is this what our erstwhile Prime Minister had in mind when coined his famous phrase? Was this his vision for a better world, where the most vulnerable rely on those who happen to be willing and able to help them?

Of course it is an inspiring and wonderful thought that across our country, average citizens will drop their personal concerns to help their neighbours.

The other way of looking at it is that it is an indictment of our Government that when lives are our risk, people are left to fend for themselves.

Would we want to live in a country where neighbours weren't willing to help? And if they are willing to help anyway, do we want public money spent on the same work?