If you want to rebuild Britain, the family is a good place to start - The gaps in the Big Society give Labour a chance to find out what people really want - Is God a Tory? David Cameron must hope so. Last week Eric Pickles invoked the wisdom of Wesley and Wilberforce in a sermon to faith communities. "Is it not the great end of religion… to smooth the asperities of man?" demanded Saint Eric. Alas, only up to a point.
The Community Secretary's wish "to tap into the secular side of your work" provoked some asperity, not to say outrage, among his hosts, the Cinnamon Network of 100 Christian charities. As one organiser says: "That sounds as if he's only after our expertise."
It is easy to see why Mr Pickles covets the 72 million hours devoted to the community by church volunteers each year. This social goldmine, worth over £1 billion in Britain, is even more lucrative in the States, where the policy prophet Robert Putnam claims in his book American Grace that believers are nicer people and better neighbours.
If Britons are more sceptical about the Lord's capacity for marvels – 84 per cent of Americans believe in miracles – they reserve even graver doubts for wonders wrought by government. Mr Cameron is as likely, in many voters' eyes, to conjure loaves and fishes from the ether as to get his Big Society off the ground.
Nothing daunted, the PM is about to share with ministers a much-delayed White Paper promising to give citizens cash budgets to buy health and social care and education. One trouble in a plan aimed at sidelining local authorities is that Mr Cameron's "Big Society Bill" relies on providing bespoke services at pound-store prices.
Any relief for parents of disabled children at being able to pick a school of their choice will be mitigated by cuts in welfare benefits that will, according to the Children's Society, cost some families £1,400 a year. Swimming with dolphins, or whatever Mr Cameron has in mind for gravely ill people seeking a range of options, won't beguile patients sinking with the NHS.
For once, however, the PM is not for U-turning. He has clung to his Big Society vision because he knows that no party can regain trust and rebuild Britain in hard times without the endorsement of family and community. Ed Miliband is equally convinced that the age of top-down politics is dead. Whichever leader more accurately reads the social signals will win the next election.
Mr Cameron has the harder job, with the Tory-supporting ResPublica think tank about to report that parks and Sure Start centres are shutting down, while Mr Miliband has time to engender what he calls "your neighbour is my neighbour" reciprocity. The Labour leader's admiration of Margaret Thatcher centres largely on the long-termism he hopes to emulate through a policy review whose workings, thus far, have been subject to the sort of omerta that makes Cosa Nostra look expansive.
Last week, however, I spent an afternoon with a citizens' jury of mothers convened to finalise the ideas on family that will now go forward for consultation. These women, from a political cross-spectrum, had been asked to bring an object symbolising their daily lives. The most popular were their children's games consoles, symbolising an atomised society, and stories about rising gas and energy prices they had clipped from newspapers.
All the women worked, but many thought they would be better off on benefits. Their yearning to belong to a wider community was shot through with resentment. As Tessa Jowell, who is leading the family policy review, says: "You can't pretend there's no issue about benefit cheats and immigration, when you hear people saying it. You can't disappear into a comfort zone that denies reality."
The reality, for many of the women, was a fraught life without much or any backing from the fathers of their children. Several spoke of unreliable, abusive or manipulative men who contributed money sporadically or not at all. None called for errant fathers to be made social pariahs, as Mr Cameron wishes. Their futures, and their children's, hinged not on headline-grabbing political fantasy but on practical remedies.
Of the ideas they discussed, including community centres for all ages and extra citizenship teaching, the most popular was a scheme to give grandparents the right to take paternity leave to cover for an absent father as well as pay and leave entitlements for those who care full-time for their grandchildren. A "kinship allowance" is now likely to be a key part of Labour's policy.
Family and "communityship", as one mother called it, were central to a wishlist based on an enabling state. These women, with no time or inclination to knit their own version of the Big Society, wanted to put the sprawling families of the 21st century at the heart of civic revival. BritainThinks, the company conducting the research, found that 78 per cent of people prize neighbourhood bonds, but only 28 per cent believe their children and grandchildren will grow up feeling part of their community.
That is where Arnie Graf comes in. Mr Graf, an American who is said to be one of the three best community organisers in the world, has just finished meeting civic leaders and banging on doors on Mr Miliband's behalf. At first, Mr Graf was reluctant to take the assignment suggested by the Labour leader's adviser, Lord Glasman, not least because of a haziness shared by many voters over Mr Miliband. "I had no idea who the guy was," he says.
Mr Graf, briefly a mentor to Barack Obama, was sufficiently impressed by his first meeting to take up an assignment for which he declined a consultant's fee, visiting 14 towns in 17 days and staying in Premier Inns. His instructions from Mr Miliband were, he says: "Take the pulse of the country and be absolutely honest about what you found."
In an hour-long private meeting last Wednesday, Mr Graf reported back. Britain, he told Mr Miliband, felt that Gordon Brown had not done enough to tackle immigration. People were mostly not racist, but they were resentful as well as worried about manufacturing, education and "kids running amok". So far, so obvious. But Mr Graf, whose work including transforming parts of the Baltimore estate where The Wire was filmed, had another message that Mr Cameron might usefully heed.
Graf's law, a political variant of Through the Looking Glass, involves reversing all truisms. Listen to people, not to think tanks. Send special advisers away from Westminster to tap into what's happening on the ground. Heed citizens instead of hectoring them. Forget party interests and trickle-down politics and, most counter-intuitively, stop trying to win votes. As Mr Graf told Mr Miliband at their debriefing: "If you only think about the election treadmill, you're lost."
Mr Cameron's attempt to bombard families with empty powers they do not want is doomed. Whether Mr Miliband can do better remains to be seen, but he at least understands that anyone hoping to lead a country through austerity must speak not only for the people and to the people but with the people. Tomorrow's society will not be made in Whitehall or, as Mr Pickles's foray demonstrated, in heaven. Policy, like charity, begins at home. ( telegraph.co.uk )
Blog : Concentrate On One Man | If you want to rebuild Britain, the family is a good place to start | Concentrate On One Man
The Community Secretary's wish "to tap into the secular side of your work" provoked some asperity, not to say outrage, among his hosts, the Cinnamon Network of 100 Christian charities. As one organiser says: "That sounds as if he's only after our expertise."
It is easy to see why Mr Pickles covets the 72 million hours devoted to the community by church volunteers each year. This social goldmine, worth over £1 billion in Britain, is even more lucrative in the States, where the policy prophet Robert Putnam claims in his book American Grace that believers are nicer people and better neighbours.
If Britons are more sceptical about the Lord's capacity for marvels – 84 per cent of Americans believe in miracles – they reserve even graver doubts for wonders wrought by government. Mr Cameron is as likely, in many voters' eyes, to conjure loaves and fishes from the ether as to get his Big Society off the ground.
Nothing daunted, the PM is about to share with ministers a much-delayed White Paper promising to give citizens cash budgets to buy health and social care and education. One trouble in a plan aimed at sidelining local authorities is that Mr Cameron's "Big Society Bill" relies on providing bespoke services at pound-store prices.
Any relief for parents of disabled children at being able to pick a school of their choice will be mitigated by cuts in welfare benefits that will, according to the Children's Society, cost some families £1,400 a year. Swimming with dolphins, or whatever Mr Cameron has in mind for gravely ill people seeking a range of options, won't beguile patients sinking with the NHS.
For once, however, the PM is not for U-turning. He has clung to his Big Society vision because he knows that no party can regain trust and rebuild Britain in hard times without the endorsement of family and community. Ed Miliband is equally convinced that the age of top-down politics is dead. Whichever leader more accurately reads the social signals will win the next election.
Mr Cameron has the harder job, with the Tory-supporting ResPublica think tank about to report that parks and Sure Start centres are shutting down, while Mr Miliband has time to engender what he calls "your neighbour is my neighbour" reciprocity. The Labour leader's admiration of Margaret Thatcher centres largely on the long-termism he hopes to emulate through a policy review whose workings, thus far, have been subject to the sort of omerta that makes Cosa Nostra look expansive.
Last week, however, I spent an afternoon with a citizens' jury of mothers convened to finalise the ideas on family that will now go forward for consultation. These women, from a political cross-spectrum, had been asked to bring an object symbolising their daily lives. The most popular were their children's games consoles, symbolising an atomised society, and stories about rising gas and energy prices they had clipped from newspapers.
All the women worked, but many thought they would be better off on benefits. Their yearning to belong to a wider community was shot through with resentment. As Tessa Jowell, who is leading the family policy review, says: "You can't pretend there's no issue about benefit cheats and immigration, when you hear people saying it. You can't disappear into a comfort zone that denies reality."
The reality, for many of the women, was a fraught life without much or any backing from the fathers of their children. Several spoke of unreliable, abusive or manipulative men who contributed money sporadically or not at all. None called for errant fathers to be made social pariahs, as Mr Cameron wishes. Their futures, and their children's, hinged not on headline-grabbing political fantasy but on practical remedies.
Of the ideas they discussed, including community centres for all ages and extra citizenship teaching, the most popular was a scheme to give grandparents the right to take paternity leave to cover for an absent father as well as pay and leave entitlements for those who care full-time for their grandchildren. A "kinship allowance" is now likely to be a key part of Labour's policy.
Family and "communityship", as one mother called it, were central to a wishlist based on an enabling state. These women, with no time or inclination to knit their own version of the Big Society, wanted to put the sprawling families of the 21st century at the heart of civic revival. BritainThinks, the company conducting the research, found that 78 per cent of people prize neighbourhood bonds, but only 28 per cent believe their children and grandchildren will grow up feeling part of their community.
That is where Arnie Graf comes in. Mr Graf, an American who is said to be one of the three best community organisers in the world, has just finished meeting civic leaders and banging on doors on Mr Miliband's behalf. At first, Mr Graf was reluctant to take the assignment suggested by the Labour leader's adviser, Lord Glasman, not least because of a haziness shared by many voters over Mr Miliband. "I had no idea who the guy was," he says.
Mr Graf, briefly a mentor to Barack Obama, was sufficiently impressed by his first meeting to take up an assignment for which he declined a consultant's fee, visiting 14 towns in 17 days and staying in Premier Inns. His instructions from Mr Miliband were, he says: "Take the pulse of the country and be absolutely honest about what you found."
In an hour-long private meeting last Wednesday, Mr Graf reported back. Britain, he told Mr Miliband, felt that Gordon Brown had not done enough to tackle immigration. People were mostly not racist, but they were resentful as well as worried about manufacturing, education and "kids running amok". So far, so obvious. But Mr Graf, whose work including transforming parts of the Baltimore estate where The Wire was filmed, had another message that Mr Cameron might usefully heed.
Graf's law, a political variant of Through the Looking Glass, involves reversing all truisms. Listen to people, not to think tanks. Send special advisers away from Westminster to tap into what's happening on the ground. Heed citizens instead of hectoring them. Forget party interests and trickle-down politics and, most counter-intuitively, stop trying to win votes. As Mr Graf told Mr Miliband at their debriefing: "If you only think about the election treadmill, you're lost."
Mr Cameron's attempt to bombard families with empty powers they do not want is doomed. Whether Mr Miliband can do better remains to be seen, but he at least understands that anyone hoping to lead a country through austerity must speak not only for the people and to the people but with the people. Tomorrow's society will not be made in Whitehall or, as Mr Pickles's foray demonstrated, in heaven. Policy, like charity, begins at home. ( telegraph.co.uk )
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