Much of the media frenzy about Ed Miliband’s ‘One Nation’ speech has centred around immigration – an important issue but one that nonetheless falls wide of the bigger problems Britain faces today. A divided society of haves and have-nots, institutionalised social exclusion, and limited opportunity for many are all part of the reality of our politically disengaged and economically fragmented nation.
These are brass tacks that our politicians have thus far failed to come to terms with. David Cameron has done more than most and Ed Miliband is certainly striking the right notes, but it’s not clear that either one has fully addressed the problem.
Britain may be facing one of its greatest economic crises, but it is also in the thick of a social crisis. As our economy has become more complex we have failed to recognise the needs of our most vulnerable. Of course, welfare dependency is a significant concern and the government is right to identify it as a cause of social exclusion, but it is not the only cause. That one half of those in poverty are from working households shows this, while the fact that in the 21st century a quarter of children in the UK are affected by poverty at some point further demonstrates the fact that British governments have been getting something badly wrong.
Such economic deprivation has created a social underclass. The distance between the advantaged and disadvantaged in Britain is arguably greater than ever. Ethnic minorities, single-parent families and those born in social housing are all examples of groups in society that have been isolated by the strengthening of social barriers. We are a country where 47% of black children are in poverty. One Nation has been abandoned for ‘little platoons’ that are Burkean in nothing but name; we are weaker alone, instead of being stronger together.
This crusade for individualism in Britain and for free markets for free markets’ sake has meant that our elite no longer embodies the values of duty, unity and compassion that it once did. The new aristocracy is of the super rich, of hedge fund managers, investment bankers and financial tycoons. Our new order has detached itself from society altogether, rejecting any sense of duty to those less privileged and seeing government through the narrow, anti-statist eyes of self-interest and tax thresholds. Money may equal power but for the new upper classes power certainly does not equal responsibility.
Changes at the top have had an impact at all levels of society. Just as our new aristocracy rejects anything remotely akin to noblesse oblige, so values of social unity and patriotism have disappeared from many of our daily lives. How many of us now know our neighbours or see where we live as a community in the proper sense? David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ at least attempted to pose an answer to this problem: it is a shame that it has now turned into a kind of national running joke.
Britain’s problem is not that it is incapable of embodying such values, but rather that they are seen as extraordinary rather than ordinary. The Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee were One Nation in action –that such togetherness could be created by an hereditary (but truly popular) institution is food for thought indeed.
Our political parties triggered this social destruction. Margaret Thatcher ensured the downfall of liberal conservatism and her successors have only made things worst. Ideology has been supplanted by pragmatism, whilst compassion has been dismissed in favour of skewed individualism. Meanwhile New Labour, by professing to be “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich” only served to extend this idolatry of the wealthy.
David Cameron has gone some way towards repairing the void. It is fair to say that he and his government are motivated by a core sense of public duty – no ideology rules the way for Cameron and this can be seen as a good thing. The Prime Minister is however (ironically) dogged by the past; he may have re-embraced traditional Conservative values of duty, compassion and national unity but the recklessness of past Tory governments lingers nearby.
It is funny that it has taken a Labour politician to recognise that One Nation is the way to repair Britain’s divisions and promote integration. Our economic problems are to a large extent a result of our social ones – at least that has now been properly recognised. But the idea of our political masters translating this belief into action remains, for now, the stuff of dreams.
