Juri Auel is 24 years old and lives near Frankfurt am Main and trained on a German local paper. Currently he is a student of politics and history and is with the Mid-Devon Advertiser series to help to improve his English and learn about British journalism.

THIS is my first time in the United Kingdom, so I don’t know how local life here was some years ago, but what I want to say is: you guys have a stunning community and public spirit you can really be proud of.

It seems to me that Mr Cameron’s political ideology, the Big Society, had an impact.

There is an article about a charity event in the mailbox of this newspaper almost every day. Many public happenings are connected with a good cause.

Bikers ride together to honour your soldiers or to collect money for people who suffer a bad illness. You can find a charity shop in every town. People say this wasn’t like this ten years ago. Something changed.

Of course, we do good things in my country, too. But you use more opportunities to make the world a better place. Your beer festivals, for instance.

Obviously, there are public dos in Germany as well. Nice parties, where the whole village gets drunk and enjoys itself. The difference: your festivals donate the income very often to a good cause.

In my region, the organisers of those events try to make as much money as they can, just to spend it afterwards on a boozy holiday in a resort on a sunny island.

According to research by the Charities Aid Foundation from 2013, which compared the willingness of 153 countries to donate, Germany was only ranked 27. Charitable Great Britain is on the winner’s rostrum second only to Burma.

The hidden agenda behind Mr Cameron’s appeal to increase the community was perhaps just the old Tory’s plan to cut the welfare state – which is a stupid idea.

A state has to care for its people. It has to provide a stable social safety net to protect its citizens against strokes of fate. This notion is one of Europe’s greatest inventions ever.

The best way of being for a state is to have both: a good welfare system and a strong community. At least Mr Cameron’s idea of a Big Society provided a boost to the latter.