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The Archbishop of Canterbury has dismissed David Cameron's Big Society as a ploy to conceal a "deeply damaging withdrawal of the state from its responsibilities to the most vulnerable".

Dr Rowan Williams, who will stand down in December, denounces the concept as "aspirational waffle" in a new book being prepared ahead of his retirement.

In further criticism of the government, he suggests ministers have fuelled doubts over the prime minister's flagship policy by failing to clearly set out the role of British citizens within the Big Society.

In one passage, obtained by The Observer, he writes: "Introduced in the run up to the last election as a major political idea for the coming generation, (it) has suffered from a lack of definition about the means by which such ideals can be realised.

"Big society rhetoric is all too often heard by many therefore as aspirational waffle designed to conceal a deeply damaging withdrawal of the state from its responsibilities to the most vulnerable."

I agree wholeheartedly with everything the retiring Archbishop said.

IT IS ALL TORY RHETORIC.