The Big Society and Blue Labour are movements in crisis. Unable to inspire their relative political parties or the public, they are now seen more as the outlandish, often inflammatory, musings of academics from their ivory towers.
The decline in standing is highlighted and reinforced by recent events. Maurice Glasman, Blue Labour's father, has published an apology over the weekend after controversial comments made about immigration . In the face of increasing opposition from within his own party, he went on to announce a self-imposed exile from public debate over the summer.
Across the party-political border, the Big Society faced another onslaught of criticism, this time from a report that highlighted the immense challenges for charities in an era of government spending cuts. In the bars of Westminster, many Tory MPs still blame what they call the 'BS' preventing their much-longed for parliamentary majority.
The most striking aspect of both is their inability, so far at least, to communicate their ideas across their parties, let alone the public. Where did it all go wrong for Blue Labour and the Big Society and are they likely to make waves once again?
A major problem is our media. In an age of soundbites and slogans, there is an unwillingness to give attention to the details of both movements. Academic political intellectualism has rarely made an entertaining three-minute clip on Newsnight. It is easier for a reporter to file a piece from a third sector organization with financial difficulties than study the government's attempts to deal with issues like well-being, the future of the workplace and consumer empowerment.
There is also an obsession with the characters of the Big Society, such as Phillip Blond, and Blue Labour, like Maurice Glasman. Both are vivacious, charismatic and intelligent, with much to offer public life. But neither are the disciplined media performers that are necessary for political movements to succeed in the modern era. The media is also impatient. Blue Labour is an embryonic movement, so far based on one man's intellectual curiosity and a few seminars in Oxford. It is unfair to expect Blue Labour to save us all from the ills of globalization tomorrow.
More generally, the failing of Blue Labour and the Big Society owes much to the unattractive air of nostalgia that has been prominent in the portrayal of both. The problem of bringing history into contemporary political narrative is that history is rarely an objective subject. Blue Labour has often been seen as a romantic reminiscence of the 1950s and like any era, the 1950's bring out mixed emotions. In relation to a perceived anti-feminism, Labour MP Helen Goodman, in her readable 26-page dossier criticizing Blue Labour, felt it 'harked back to a Janet and John 1950's era which didn't really exist for most women'. Other aspects of Blue Labour look further back, beyond Labour's seemingly sacred 1945 landslide victory, before the welfare state and learn from the spirit of the co-operative movements in the 1890s. Tony Blair, during a brief re-emergence in British politics, said Labour wouldn't win with 'warm beer and maids bicycling' - a pointed mark which reflected his (a three-time election winning
Labour leader) wariness of political ideas that rely on looking to the past and not the future.
The Big Society has also been accused as an attempt to re-energise Victorian values. These suspicions are not based on thin air. Michael Gove, in a remarkable blog , wrote of the Victorian era, 'I don't think there has been a better time in our history'. The prominence of volunteerism in coverage of the Big Society has led to an unfair suspicion that the Big Society is simply a ploy in which the Conservatives can cut the state and implement the age of philanthropic welfare that they longs for. It is more than that. Statistics about charities and volunteerism are a red herring. As Phillip Blond has said, 'it's not really about volunteering and philanthropy' . The real goal is a wider reform of the relationship between citizen and state, to empower the local and reduce central government - not simply to extend a W.I culture.
As Andrew Rawnsley wrote , our politics would soon become stale without innovative ideas. Both Blue Labour and the Big Society are powerful, important movements, that I believe historians will cite as evidence of the shifting political agenda away from state schemes and mechanisms to the power of democratic values. But our political climate is hostile towards vague ideas and academic murmurings and instead looks for immediate practical policy. By their nature, radical ideas anger people from the outset. Aspects of the ideas are extrapolated to define the whole ideology. The leaders of movements are profiled incessantly, to the extent they become similar to mildly annoying c-list celebrities within the political sphere.
This scenario offers differing challenges and opportunities for both party leaders. For Ed Miliband, whilst Blue Labour can be a friendly depository for ailing Blairites, there remains a useful, potentially popular, value-led agenda which escapes the Tory attempts to portray Labour as a state-reliant party of over-spending. For David Cameron, the opportunity from opposition is now gone. However, he keeps telling us he isn't in politics to cut - he should use his conference speech to tell us why he is. The Big Society can still play a pivotal role in Cameron becoming a Prime Minister for all times, not just a Prime Minister for crisis. For the likes of Mr. Blond and Mr. Glasman, it may be time to take a backseat. For Mr. Cameron and Mr. Miliband, the challenge has just begun - to turn good ideas into an appealing political narrative. The story of Blue Labour and the Big Society is not over yet.