Is Labour’s answer to the “Big Society” the shared society?

The incessant debate of the last week around Margaret Thatcher and her- largely baleful- legacy has perhaps  obscured the progressive collapse of the  mantra proclaimed by her latest  successor as Tory Leader and PM,  the notion of  the “Big Society”. Cameron’s transition from High Society to  proponent of the Big Society  was never very convincing, not least given the leading part he played in the Tories’ 2005 election campaign, the most vicious I’ve seen  in any of the elections I’ve followed since 1955. The vacuousness of this undefined phrase  is matched only by Cameron’s inability to explain its meaning or demonstrate how the policies of his government are supposed to reflect it.

Superficially playing up the notions of localism and an active  voluntary sector, in reality it has acted as a cover for the fundamentally Thatcherite  notion of  shrinking the state, local and  national, except where the Government wishes, as for example in education, to exercise control.  So  while they proclaim localism they savage local government,  and while they slash access to justice and drive through  draconian changes  in our social security system in the guise of Welfare Reform (Orwell would have loved the phrase)  they see the advice sector  increasingly struggling to offer a service at a time of  massively rising demand in the light of the cuts they have suffered.

Those siren voices from the years of the last Labour Government who have argued in recent days  that Labour must not become a Party of protest are  of course  right. We have to have both a narrative which describes and embodies our values, and the policies  which will translate them into action.  But while protest is not, of itself enough, it is nevertheless essential since it, too , reflects our concerns with the issues of democracy, social justice and equality.

Ed Miliband’s  adoption of the concept of One Nation has the potential  to shift the debate from the counter-factual story retailed by the Tories and their backers in the media.

On a recent visit to Israel with the UK Task Force on Issues Concerning Israeli Arabs I was struck by what emerged as the theme of many discussions with Israelis from both communities, namely the  notion of a shared society. In the very different context of the UK that seems to me  precisely  the object of  Ed Miliband’s One Nation approach, and also the means to achieve it.  It identifies the need for society, its institutions and its governance  to recognise both rights and responsibilities.

The rights include access to skills training and gainful employment backed by at least a rigorously enforced minimum wage and a steady move to the living wage ,and employee and trades union involvement in corporate governance. It means decent, accessible public services  – especially health and social care and education – a social security system which treats those in need with dignity rather than the reversion to 19^th Century Poor Law now in train, and ensures both that poverty in  childhood  and old age is tackled. It means good housing and a safe and pleasant environment.

But it also implies responsibilities – the need  for greater equality demonstrated by The Spirit Level, fair and progressive taxation both personal and corporate,  a recognition that we have to invest in job creation and combating climate change, and, yes, to avail oneself of opportunities to acquire skills and a job where the opportunity exists. It means respecting the law and other people, whatever the differences of gender, ethnicity, creed or class.

And it needs political leadership to strike the right balance between competing claims. That leadership is not just required at national level, but at local level too. The next Labour Government must do more to work with local government than it did for too much of its last period of its office. The shared society implies a sharing of political and governmental responsibility, as exemplified by the Total Place projects of Labour’s last two years in office when projects were piloted involving the pooling of national and local public expenditure. And it also implies involving the voluntary sector with its capacity for innovation and its less risk-averse character, mutuals, and yes, the private sector too.

The wholly discredited talk of us being “all in it together” while unemployment and underemployment rise, the poorest and weakest are disproportionately hit, and bankers and the richest count their gains creates an opening for us.  If we are looking to revive the Spirit of 45, albeit without the rationing and nationalisation, One Nation – A Shared Society might be just the way to do it.