How do the words ‘mutual’ and ‘co-operative’ make you feel? For many, they conjure up positive feelings of togetherness and community. Everyone loves John Lewis and we can all understand how giving people a direct stake in an organisation they work for, or are served by, is a good idea.

Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist reportedly said that “anyone who isn’t shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” And so it is with the Big Society.