Not for the first time the Westminster week seemed a long way away from the frontline election campaign – at least in the constituency where I’m standing.
On Friday David Cameron cited the appalling case of the two young brothers who tortured a pair of boys in Edlington, south Yorkshire, as an example of what’s wrong with Britain today. He used the case to suggest the country has slumped into “social recession”, accused Labour of a “moral failure” in tackling crime and family breakdown, and claimed only the Tories could mend the “irresponsible society” created by 10 years of Labour government.
The same day I went to two inspirational events which provided the strongest possible contrast to the bleak scenario of ‘Broken Britain’ painted by Cameron. My day started with the annual LeicestHER day launch, where women from public, private and community organisations across the city came together to discuss how to open more doors for women and girls, particularly in employment and enterprise.
In the evening I went to the 10th birthday party for Leicestershire Cares, a charity that works with employers who encourage their staff to do voluntary work in the community. Every year, hundreds of employees help improve literacy in primary schools by reading to children, give advice on job interview skills so young people can find work, and support local voluntary groups, for example, by painting and refurbishing community centres for older people.
Both these events clearly demonstrate that many people – from all communities, and all walks of life – have a very strong sense of responsibility towards their fellow man, and understand that our society will be better and stronger if we work together to achieve common goals.
This isn’t to deny that very real problems exist – far from it. Despite the huge sums Labour has invested in improving public services and supporting families, some extremely disturbed and disadvantaged families remain cut off from the mainstream. David Miliband put it best yesterday when he said that our society isn’t broken, but there are broken families.
His analysis is right. So too is Labour’s critique of Conservative policy. Cameron’s belief that the state undermines society and should be dramatically rolled back, and that the priority for future public spending on families should be to give tax breaks to married couples, flies in the face of all the evidence about what works in supporting family life.
Labour’s challenge, however, is to clearly spell out what more we will do to help break the cycle of violence, abuse and deprivation experienced by pockets of our society. This won’t be easy: there’s no simple solution, no one policy that could ever guarantee terrible cases like Edlington won’t happen again.
But some priorities for the future are clear. Firstly, we know that early and intense intervention can make a big difference in shaping later outcomes for children and families. So developing and extending Sure Start and Children’s Centres will be critical. Conservative proposals to restrict these services to low income families would be hugely damaging: not only because we know that services for the poor end up being poor services, but because ensuring families from different backgrounds can use services like Sure Start helps bind our society together.
Secondly, we need to make sure our support for public services includes issues like housing and social work. Pledging to improve these services might not win over as many swing votes in marginal seats as would our commitments to the NHS and education, but they have a vital role to play on our most deprived estates, and have so far received too little attention from the national campaign.
At the same time, Labour must avoid giving the impression that public services are the only way to strengthen society and improve family life. The voluntary sector already makes a huge contribution – providing drug and alcohol services, helping to tackle domestic violence, and reaching out to young people who often don’t trust state-led provision. These services should be actively supported and promoted by a future Labour government.
The difficulty, of course, is that pledging to protect future spending on areas like health and education limits our ability to invest in other, equally important, public and voluntary services. The political rationale for making these commitments is understandable, particularly during the heat of the campaign. The post-election reality may be somewhat less appealing.