In August 2010, Nichols expressed support for the echoes of Catholic social teaching emerging in the language of the new Coalition Government. In particular, he supported Prime Minister David Cameron's call for a "Big Society". Nichols said that "It gives us an experience of being together in a place that turns things on their head a bit". He expressed excitement at the potential for the Coalition and wrote that he had become disillusioned with the previous Labour government: "The last government was too overarching. In attempting to create a state that provided everything, it ended up losing touch with the people it was trying to serve." In April 2011, however, he was critical about the effectiveness of the Big Society, saying, "It is all very well to deliver speeches about the need for greater voluntary activity, but there needs to be some practical solutions. The Big Society [...] has no teeth [...] and should not be used as a cloak for masking central cuts"