Creating a 'good society' needs collaboration and the “work of many hands”, Labour policy guru Lord Glasman said at an event hosted by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) this week.
The Peer, an ally of leader Ed Miliband, told the audience that the “decimation of regional banking” has resulted in a concentration of power and that decentralisation is now essential.
Lord Glasman, one of the founders of Blue Labour, said the politics of the 'common good' must be "pro-business and pro-worker".
Defining a ‘good society’, he said: “It is based upon a balance of interests rather than the domination of any single interest. It is underpinned by a sense that your own interests are served if there is a sense that it is tied up with the well-being of others. A sense of shared fate that can generate sacrifice and solidarity.”
The speech was part of the CSJ’s 'good society' lecture series, where Labour politicians outline the direction social policy should be taking.
Lord Glasman said that for too long there has been a lack of political collaboration. He said: “The Labour, Conservative, Catholic, evangelical and civic republican traditions have not found a decent way of talking to each other, or even themselves, for quite a time but are the sources of nutrition out of which a new political consensus will be formed. A transcript of the speech is available here.
Tuesday’s speech was the second in the series, following a lecture last month by former Home Secretary David Blunkett MP. The Sheffield Brightside MP, Chairman of the CSJ Advisory Council, spoke about the rise of political apathy in the UK. Both events have been attended by a number of high-profile Conservative MPs, including Tim Loughton and David Davis.
This is the second time the CSJ has held a series of 'good society' Labour lectures. The first was in 2012 where speeches were given by manifesto supremo Jon Cruddas MP, former Government Minister David Lammy MP and Graham Allen MP, who has spearheaded much of the current Government’s work on early intervention.