Tessa Jowell and Stephen Twigg argued convincingly that there was little new in the good bits of the Tory flagship policy: that under Labour community assets had been transferred to communities, parents had forced new schools to be created, foundation trusts had given folk a say in how key parts of the NHS were run. Even the Big Society Bank is built on Labour legislation. They could have added that new legal mechanisms for social enterprise had been created, the science of commissioning from the third sector had been developed and that in Total Place a real tool for assessing and addressing community needs had been devised. (Too late, and with insufficient enthusiasm, but it had been devised).
Francis Maude argued that the era of post-1945 big statism was now over; it had all been too rigid and inflexible to meet society’s needs. He was clearly in conciliatory mode (if not a time warp), with none of his earlier ‘If I had a plan it would be the wrong one’ platitudes. He said that volunteering, localism and public service reform were good things (hear, hear).
Phillip Blond’s view was that ‘malign statism’ produced uniformity, which prompted extreme individualism, which led to people needing more protection from the state… and as ‘big society’ was under attack from both left and right it must be worth supporting.
Where the debate scored highly was in distinguishing between the politics and philosophy of BS on the one hand and its practicality against a background of severe cuts on the other: ‘We’re all in favour but we wouldn’t choose to start from here.’
Maude’s case that ‘75 per cent of all voluntary organisations don’t receive government funding so won’t be damaged by the cuts’ missed the point. These are the smallest charities, they are not service providers. Their loss, should it ever happen, could not compare to the threatened loss of half our Citizens Advice Bureaux. He has yet to explain how emasculated local authorities (or anybody else) can ensure comprehensive coverage of services for the most vulnerable when the charity market alone cannot.
Cuts aside, the title of the debate invited us to distinguish between the ‘big society’ and the Good Society. I don’t think anyone left the meeting thinking there was an ounce of difference between the two.
For more on the ‘big society’…
Tessa Jowell MP says the ‘big society’ has failed as a political message: it’s time for Labour to try a ‘good society’
If the government is willing to be bold a ‘big philanthropy’ could fill the gaps in the ‘big society’ says Hazel Blears MP
A ‘good society’ would see social pressure exerted to make Britain a fairer place argues Richard Angell
Anas Sarwar MP on Labour’s answer to the ‘big society’
Dave Roberts says the ‘big society’ could, with some changes, be a Labour idea
People overwhelmingly prefer to be consulted, rather than involved, in community decisions says Alan Middleton
Richard Darlington says even if the ‘big society’ isn’t the right answer Labour shouldn’t cede the ground it’s built on to the Tories
As an example of Labour’s ‘good society’ in action David Miliband and Tessa Jowell suggest that the BBC is turned into a co-operative
Paul Harvey thinks parts of the ‘big society’ can find roots in Labour revisionist thinking from the mid-twentieth century
If those leaving the meeting thought that there was not an ounce of difference between the big society and the good society then we aren’t doing our job properly. Although Progress members may not like to hear this, the best analysis of the good society was done in the Compass publication of the same name. Here’s an extract from it which encapsulates the issues we should be concentrating on if we wish to put some clear water between ourselves and the Tories. “Material prosperity has not brought with it increased satisfaction with life. Our pursuit of fulfilment has stalled. The relationship between economic growth and well-being has broken down in the rich countries of the world. The measures of subjective well-being which assess the happiness of the population have shown little movement in thirty years. We have become a more unequal and divided society. Levels of personal debt are unprecedented, and we are time-poor, working long hours either to make ends meet or to buy the ever changing trappings of success. Alongside the economic insecurity a new set of social problems has emerged –widespread mental ill health, systemic loneliness, growing numbers of psychologically damaged children, eating disorders, obesity, growing alcoholism and drug addiction. The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health has calculated that the total cost of mental illness to the economy is £77 billion. Stress, anxiety and depression account for a third of all working days lost. We are living in a social recession. Its symptoms and its pain are often concealed inside our homes, where we experience them privately as our own shameful and personal failings. Without a wider political understanding of this social recession, we have no means of understanding its causes, let alone the ability to deal with its consequences.” The good society should be about addressing all these problems not just about dispersing more power to a people crippled by them