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Is the future Conservative?
THINKPIECE
#39 Understanding ‘leveraging' and the financial meltdown
Compass has launched a narrative on How to live in the 21st Century. It builds on the groundbreaking work of our Programme for Renewal.
We need to start talking to many more people beyond a narrow band of activists and academics. The New Right and New Labour became powerful, in part, because they developed a narrative and a set of phrases which spoke to people’s everyday hopes and fears about their lives and that of the country.
Based on our principles of equality, democracy, liberty, sustainability, solidarity and well-being we need to do the same. This is the first stage in that popularisation process.
The statement takes the pulse of the nation and identifies the hopes and fears of the people before outlining some of the policy ideas to build a better Britain.
In the statement Compass argues that politics is failing to address the big issues in people’s lives because of the cross-party consensus around the needs of the market. This is causing the social recession which affects all voters from Reading to Rotherham except a rich elite at the top.
The statement celebrates all that is good about modern Britain; not least the abiding spirit of engagement in communities and heartfelt beliefs, bur rarely in formal party politics. The overall trend is towards the individualisation of risk rather than collective solutions to the anxieties and insecurities we all face.
We would really welcome your comments on how the statement can be improved. What have we got right, missed out or got wrong? Can you use the statement for a debate in your local party, union meeting, charity or community group? Please feed anything back to us. We will look to produce a revised version in the autumn alongside the results of the policy competition we’ll be announcing shortly.