“Social cohesion” must be one of the most overused phrases in British political language. From terrorism to anti-social behaviour, the proposed solution always involves initiatives that promise to improve cohesion within communities. However, if that’s made you sceptical about the whole idea, watch this video (via Nick at the Podnosh blog) to renew your enthusiasm:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TuosrFkNhQ]

It’s an encouraging story, but what’s really fascinating is how well the problem of social cohesion fits into what is becoming the broader question dominating British politics. There seems to be a consensus among the main parties that we ought to spend a large proportion of our national wealth on public services. The debate now is about how we should spend it. Since 1997, we have invested much larger sums of money than previously in schools, hospitals and other projects, but while there have been improvements, there should have been more given the amount of money involved. What’s happening - and working - in Dudley suggests a possible answer: if the money we agree we should devote to social goods is not being spent well by central government, perhaps we need to give it directly to the communities.

The question is whether our politicians dare to do so. David Cameron occasionally talks about localism, but so did Blair before he entered Number 10. No one seems to love the levels of central power much until they’re the ones operating them. But unless we abandon top-down politics, we’re not going to replicate the kind of success we’re seeing in Dudley nationwide.

Filed under: localism, socialcohesion, ukpolitics on March 30th, 2007