Community spirit

Almost unbelievably, there's a Tory policy I can get behind: a new strategy aimed at tackling loneliness, something that in recent years has become a problem of epidemic proportions.

Affecting both young and old alike, loneliness has been identified as a major cause of ill health and disease - so funding measures to combat it through the NHS suggests an acknowledgement of the severity of the issue and a political will to seek prevention rather than merely cure.

Does this strategy also perhaps signal a hint of recognition that cuts in public spending can have the sort of devastating effects I was writing about only yesterday, and that David Cameron's so-called Big Society cannot be left to pick up the pieces? I'm not holding my breath.