News
The BIG Con
By Dr Henry Benedict Tam, Director, Forum for Youth Participation & Democracy, University of Cambridge; and Visiting Professor, Lifelong Learning, Birkbeck, University of London. He blogs at Question the Powerful: www.henry-tam.blogspot.com
[This is a shortened version of H B Tam's article, 'The Big Con: reframing the state-society debate', published in PPR, the journal of the thinktank, IPPR, Volume 18, Issue 1, pages 30–40, March-May 2011. For the full version, go to http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-540X.2011.00638.x/abstract, and download the pdf for free]
Although there has been an increase in the number of studies which suggest that politicians on the right tend to be more adept at framing public policy debates to suit their agendai, there is still relatively little recognition in the UK that the fundamental issue of the proper relation between state and society has been placed under an ideological filter, through which policies relating to the role of the state are misleadingly refracted. This filter is used consistently by the Conservative-led Coalition Government to present the interaction of state and society as a zero sum game. The latter can only grow and flourish as the 'Big Society' if the former - which is caricatured as 'Big Government' - is shrunk. To engage in policy debates framed around how to move towards a smaller state/bigger society is to tacitly accept this filter, and forego the alternative of a strong supportive state acting as the key enabler of a good thriving society.
Two Chinese for Labour members selected as Labour candidates
We are very pleased that two of our members have been selected as Labour candidates, Sarah Owen was selected as Labour's Parliamentary Candidate for Hastings & Rye, and Cecilia Love as Labour's candidate for in the Riverside Ward in Cardiff for next year's Council election, see below for full story.
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Sarah Owen |
Cecilia Love |