The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, believes we are at a watershed moment in politics. The Big Society agenda is bringing to the fore the debate around how best to facilitate social good. For Williams, at the heart of this agenda is the conviction that for society to change the dominant individualistic narrative needs to be replaced. People must recognise how they depend on each other and realise what we owe each other. A Big Society is one where everyone is aware of the importance of interdependence.

The Archbishop was speaking at an event last Friday organised by the Charities Parliament, entitled “How should churches respond to Big Society?” The church’s interpretation and reaction to Cameron’s flagship policy is of great importance because, to use Big Society parlance, the church is a long-existing, large network of interconnected hubs, which are organised around social entrepreneurs who deliver enabling services to the community they live in. Or to use everyday language, the Church is made up of many active communities, consisting of good people, who are doing good things.

Big Society Values

The Church judges the Big Society idea against its values and spiritual beliefs. While politicians tend to tread nervously around the subject of collective values this is natural territory for religion. Rowan Williams explained how the New Testament tells Christians that the kind of society God is interested in is one where people have a keen understanding of others’ needs. The poverty of one person is an issue for everyone. Archbishop Williams used the analogy that if one part of the body is in pain the whole body suffers. For him common good in society is best developed in real empathy, so what is good for them is good for us and ultimately good for me.

Bob Reitemeier, Chief Executive of The Children’s Society, listed three fundamental values that will define the Church’s engagement with the Big Society agenda:

1) Love (or the obligation to care for others)

2) Justice/Fairness (or love in action through putting right wrongs)

3) Forgiveness (or casting aside the barriers, including prejudices, that impinge on doing good)

Whether you are religious or not you will only buy into the Big Society concept if you understand and support the values which underpin it. These values can be summed up in secular terms as broadly being personal responsibility on the one hand and caring for the disadvantaged on the other. A new political settlement based on these values is necessary because the former was undermined by the nanny state and the latter by free market capitalism.

Government’s Role in Society

Archbishop Williams took a swipe at both the statist side of Labour and the free-market obsession of some Conservatives. He described as poisonous the ideas that the only possible provider of good is Government, and that there is no such thing as society, just individuals. Labour’s over-controlling approach had disempowered and disconnected many people. Rowan Williams said: “If people are told that they have nothing to contribute to society then you won’t get very far. If you give people everything then there will be dependency.” Williams felt it was right for people to be cautious about the “Big Society” agenda until we are sure that it will not be used by the Coalition as an alibi for cost-cutting and to enable the Government to wash its hands of responsibility. He hopes that Big Society will be what its political proponents claim it to be and that the ideas behind it receive appropriate investment but – like many – the Archbishop still needs some reassurance.

The purpose of Government in the Big Society should be to sustain the vision that our society is a community of communities. For Rowan Williams: “Government is there to make the right connections and to ensure that these connections work”. This was an unknowing big thumbs-up for the type of work the government-promoted Big Society Network is engaged in. This suggests a certain symmetry in thinking between the Church and the Coalition on the Government’s role in fostering Big Society.

Getting the Best Out of People

Archbishop Williams believes that we need to have a clear sense of what sort of people we want to see in our society. The right characteristics and behaviours need to be nourished. For Big Society to become an ingrained part of the British way of life there needs to be investment in education and personal growth. Rowan Williams made it clear that he did not mean throwing money at education; instead he placed importance on policy-makers thinking laterally about how people learn within communities. He echoed the view of Phillip Blond by emphasising the supreme importance of giving people the capacity to shape their environment. The way Government encourages people to take control of the resources in their lives will be critical for growing further resources within society.

Natural Big Society-ers

The first step for anyone in embracing the Big Society agenda is to buy into its values. This is easy for the Church as it has been preaching the importance of giving for centuries and they are well experienced in promoting social justice. I left the event with the strong impression that Christians do not need an answer to the question “what does Big Society mean?” or to be convinced that it is important for them to help improve their community. What the Church needs to know is whether substantive actions will follow Cameron’s words and what part they will be expected to play in this new world.

As the Argentines rattle the sabre in the South Atlantic -  many of us recall again with pride how, in 1982 a large British task force set out on a 7500 mile journey risking life and limb in order to liberate a group of tiny windswept islands in the South Atlantic – a truly heroic chapter in our Imperial decline. Today there is no doubt that, if we could, we would do the same again and defend the rights of an island to call themselves British. Sadly however and as I have discovered our attitude to the rights of the citizens of our remaining island possessions is not entirely consistent and in another faraway ocean a rather different tale is told.

 A few years ago, I picked up and read a copy of Ben Fogle’s book, ‘The Teatime Islands’. The book is a light hearted, engaging and personal account of Fogle’s visits to the last flag-flying outposts of what remains of the British Empire – largely a collection of islands too remote or strategically vital to be allowed to go it alone. It was Fogle in this book who alerted me to one of the most shameful episodes in our retreat from Empire – the plight of the Chagos islanders exiled from their homeland by the British over 40 years ago. The shame is compounded because rather than the join the list of post colonial apologies made or “wrongs righted” – our government continues to perpetrate a profound injustice and use the might of the British state’s legal armoury to crush the right of a people to live in their homeland. In its treatment of the citizens of this island paradise, New Labour has lost the right to lecture the world about the ‘rule of law’ and respect for property rights.

 The plight of the Chagos islanders which has been the subject of legal wrangling for forty years is now reaching its final stages at the European Court of Human Rights. Harold Wilson’s government in the late sixties drove the entire population of Chagos islands into exile and impoverishment. The present Labour government, which once talked of an ‘ethical foreign policy’, stands by this injustice today.

 The high politics of the Chagos affair is extraordinary. In order to prevent the geographically important Chagos islands (a group of 55 islands about 2,000 miles east of Africa and west of Singapore) from falling into the hands of Mauritius on independence, the British government in 1964 created the “British Indian Ocean Territory” the only colony to be formed since decolonization began. The islands were given a flag, a detachment of Royal Marines to defend them and even produced a few stamps.

 In the midst of the Cold War, the United States, however, decided it wanted a military base in the Indian Ocean to keep the USSR and China from threatening the Arabian Gulf. Suddenly the Chagos archipelago was more than just an insignificant speck on the map. The US’ first choice location for a new base was the uninhabited Aldabra Atoll, but Harold Wilson feared antagonism from ecologists, as Aldabra is home to a rare breed of turtle! So, he offered Diego Garcia instead, even though it was inhabited. Harold Wilson’s government agreed in secret to loan Diego Garcia (the largest of the islands) to the U.S military for fifty years (with a twenty year extension option) in exchange for a discount on Polaris nuclear submarines. It was agreed that the islands would be ‘fully swept’ – in layman’s language – ‘emptied’. The deal was not disclosed to the United Nations, the US senate, or Parliament. Diego Garcia of course recently hit the headlines again as our Government was forced to admit that this last corner of Empire was one of the preferred stopover destinations for the notorious CIA rendition flights.

Despite the fact that many Chagossians were fifth generation inhabitants, the Foreign Office claimed that they were only itinerant labourers with no right of abode on the islands. The islanders were deported, often tricked and intimidated into leaving on temporary excursions as their homes were destroyed. They were loaded onto boats, allowed to take only one bag with them, and deposited in Mauritius and the Seychelles where a life of poverty awaited them – many also ended up in Crawley simply waiting to return home. Some committed suicide, their plight was shrouded in secrecy – a duped, dumped and ruined people. In 1973 the British government transferred £650,000 to the Mauritian government for the aid of the Chagossian exiles. Some of this money was intended to be used to resettle the exiles on farm land but there was much disagreement and the exiles were so desperate for money that the resettlement plan was abandoned and, eventually, in 1978 the money was disbursed. Although this money helped some of the exiles to obtain better housing, most of them were left no better off. It was not until 1982 that any more money came from the British government. A sum of £4 million was allotted as a ‘full and final settlement’ – but in order to obtain a share the exiles had to sign away their right to ever return to their homeland.

In 1997 the newly elected Labour government made great play of promising an ‘ethical foreign policy’ and in 2000 the High Court ruled that the exile was unlawful, a verdict which the then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook accepted. However, Diego Garcia assumed renewed strategic importance after 9/11 and the government tried to block returning islanders through the use of two executive orders or royal “decrees”. In 2006 the Court of Appeal over-ruled the use of the orders describing their use as “repugnant”, and in 2007 the Court once again affirmed the right of islanders to return home. The following year the government successfully (and sadly) over-turned the verdict in the House of Lords by a majority of just one. The case is now under consideration at the European Court of Human Rights.

Meanwhile the islanders face opposition from another direction. The archipelago is an outstanding example of marine bio-diversity with over a million square miles of pristine wildlife.   In 1992 the Chagos Conservation Trust was launched to protect the archipelago from commercial exploitation. They stress the need for the islands to remain “uninhabited”, and their proposal for a ‘marine protection zone’ has unsurprisingly (!) been warmly received by the government.  If the protection zone is agreed before Strasbourg reach a verdict, then any favourable verdict could lead to another legal row. While the islands are of course an outstanding natural habitat that need protection, the human rights of native inhabitants have to be accommodated – the Government must not be allowed to use conservation as a fig leaf for the abuse of human rights.

 The case of the Chagos islanders remains a shameful blight on the UK’s reputation. In 2009 Gordon Brown argued that world peace depends upon “freedom, democracy and fairness.” These are virtues that all of us can agree with, yet in Chagos – Labour has failed to live-up to them. What is more, it is hypocritical of Britain to lecture on freedom and democracy while this display of arrogance continues. As David Cameron promises our country change, a new Conservative government could make a profoundly important gesture of change and facilitate the return of the Chagos islanders to their homeland. For a new Conservative government to over-turn this injustice would be a clear and welcome break from Labour’s forty years of deceit on this issue and would send a message that we take the rights of humans in Britain’s care as seriously as the rights of turtles – this would truly be a change that we can believe in.

 Marcus Booth FRSA is Vice Chair of the UK Chagos Support Association

Most political news is about personality and politics rather than policy.  At the moment that’s particularly true – the big stories of recent weeks have been about Brown’s behaviour, Lord Ashcroft, what the polls say.  Next week promises more of the same – a Channel 4 programme on Cameron, and the court appearance of some of the people charged as part of the expenses scandal.

I’ve often wondered how much difference all this news makes.  Sit through a focus group, or speak to your least political friends and you will hear one thing time and time again: “they are all the same”.  So much of this bad political news is just reinforcing what people think anyway – it is “already in the share price” as they say in the City.

Danny Finkelstein made the point nicely in an article last week:

The cynicism about politics is so pervasive that it embraces almost all political activity. Use a statistic? It’s a lie. Cry on television about your dead child? It’s an election gimmick. Attack your opponents’ policy? You would say that, wouldn’t you.   And this cynicism extends to the media and our coverage.  So not only politics, but news about politics, is seen as a fiction inside an untruth wrapped in a piece of spin… Most of politics and most political coverage proceeds as if there was still a reasonable degree of trust. As if the messages were still getting through, still being listened to, still being weighed up.

For the government of the day the clear implication is that what really matters is not their spin but whether they can deliver better results on the ground (a point grasped by Tony Blair some time in his second term).  It is rather more difficult for the opposition to act on this insight.  However, at the start of his time as Conservative leader David Cameron did emphasise that he would always aim to “show, not tell” people that the party had changed.  And there was something of this in Cameron’s initial reaction to the expenses scandal – when he was prepared to take a stand unpopular among some of his MPs.

The big problem for Cameron is that the Government has managed to shift so much the real-world pain the public will feel until after the election by running up huge debts.  So right now the public services are still hiring away. On the ground, things don’t look so bad.  At least, not yet.

We know more or less what the Budget is going to say already.

The Government is thinking not about how to reduce the soaring deficit – but how to spend the receipts from the super-tax in a pre-election giveaway.  We will see mock “surprise” at how much the bonus tax has raised, and condemnation of those who “said it wouldn’t raise any money”.  We will see big figures for savings based around finally officially scrapping the disastrous NHS IT programme and merging a few Primary Care Trusts.  If Liam Byrne has his way (and he probably won’t) the government may even nod to the markets by stressing how “tough” it is planning to be on public sector pay post election (nominal rises less than 1%, meaning small real-terms cuts).  The one thing it won’t do is make any meaningful effort to control the vast deficit.  Instead the Government will try to keep the debate narrowly focused around the timing of cuts – not the content.

Ironically, this is where public cynicism might ride to the rescue of the Conservatives. The idea that politicians will spend now and cut after the election is highly plausible for most world-weary voters. In the 1974 election Willy Whitelaw accused Harold Wilson of going “round and round the country stirring up apathy”.  The Tories won’t need to go round “stirring up” cynicism about the budget.  But they will need to try and be in a position to exploit it.

Neil O’Brien is the Director of Policy Exchange

I haven’t really got much to say on the specifics of Abdelbasset al–Megrahi’s compassionate release from his Scottish jail. I think it was a fudge; if the man was guilty he should have stayed in jail, while if people seriously believed him to be innocent his appeal should have gone ahead.

But the terrible thing is this: our automatic assumption is that someone, somewhere, is lying about what was said to who, and when.

I talked briefly to someone about this during the week, and suggested that CCHQ must have had some concrete knowledge of something dodgy going on – they are a cautious bunch, and rightly ensure that they have as much information as possible before going in hard on an issue.  My friend (while not knowing for sure) was of the opposite view – given who was involved, and that the handling of the release of both Megrahi and the information surrounding his release has been so messy, CCHQ took a punt and gambled that there was something else happening behind the scenes.

I don’t know. And I doubt we will ever know for sure.  But it is hugely disappointing that we have so little trust in this government that the automatic assumption is that they have done a dodgy deal.