Obviously, the true cause of the riots is a mixture of many things. However more important than the cause, although the cause is vitally important, is what do we do now?

All seem to agree that something needs to be done, but no one personally wants to do anything. The simple truth is that the British “moral middle” has long gone, badly wounded by commercialism of the Thatcher years and disillusioned by Blair years. People are concerned about the disaffected young unemployed working class, but they ask “What is in it for me, why should I bother?”

They already feel over taxed, having handed over their pay under the Blair/Brown years to pay for massive social spending and they still don’t feel that they are getting anything for all that spending. Either because of Murdoch or the Guardian (depending on your political persuasions) the country is going to the dogs. Why should they bother, what do they owe society, haven’t they given enough already?

The 500 people who cleaned up Clapham should be appalled, but the fact that 500 was all that could be mustered is a sign of the scale of the problem, not a cause for celebration. It is not only that those that rioted do not feel part of society, increasingly middle England doesn’t feel part of society either.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his work “The Social Contract” made clear that the basis of a modern society must be a “civil religion”. This religion would provide the glue that would bind society together, unifying communities around a common purpose.

The destruction of Christianity as a unifying force under the weight of scientific advance in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, coupled with the self-destruction of belief in the “nation” during two world wars has left our modern societies with no glue to hold them together.

Few feel that they are part of something that they are obliged to sacrifice for, even fewer feels that they have a duty to contribute beyond merely paying taxes in return for services. So how can we expect to reverse the breakdown that we have seen, if people do not feel that they owe an obligation to wider society?

The idea of a “civil religion” is not new, and the Big Society is in itself an attempt to find a new way of binding society together through common values and a sense of creating something bigger them ourselves. Steve Hilton even briefly (in the patriotic haze post-Royal Wedding) thought about running a campaign about putting the “Great” back into “Great Britain”.

While that is not enough, it is at least an effort to try and create a new sense of patriotism which could bind the country together. Human rights, liberal values and the rule of law are simply not enough – the past thirteen years have proved that people need something much more emotional and personal than that.

And this is where politicians need to focus their attention. What is going to bind our country together? What is going to create the sense of shared endeavour? This is what should be keeping the Prime Minister and the Cabinet up at night, not the deficit.

Because for all the talk about the deficit, even if we are successful in rebalancing our economy, what good is it if society has broken down?

The rebuilding of a “moral middle” is the key to the future – and an area which politicians have ignored because it forces them to confront their key electorate. However this is where we can really see change.

David Cameron has the political capital at present to lead, to ask the hard questions and to give his Government and the country a new sense of purpose. I hope that he takes this opportunity – as Iain Duncan Smith said, we really are in the last chance saloon.

David Cameron has an unexpected opportunity to use the impetus provided by the riots last week to make an enormous leap forward in the policies he has been promoting since before he was elected leader. Schools, welfare reform, sentencing reform, understanding of both rights and responsibilities, fairness, aspiration, community cohesion – all of these things can and must change.

It is however deeply deeply disappointing that amongst the first responses to last week was to suggest closing down various social networks,  banning face-coverings, and making retrospective changes to both the benefit system and sentencing policy.

These things – the freedoms we have, the liberty we enjoy, and the certainty of knowing what the rules are – are what makes Britain British. They are what make Britain a great place to live. Of course the government needs to paint Ed Miliband as ‘just talking’ and themselves as ‘taking action’, but it would be far better if they enforced the current laws properly and even-handedly, and realised that they have this chance to explain, once and for all, why and how Broken Britain can be fixed by the Big Society.

Our free, democratic society is what makes us better than extremists. We do neither ourselves nor our values any favours by pretending that that freedom extends to tolerating – indeed, welcoming – people in our society who wish to destroy it. We all have a duty to make sure that we nurture and promote our British values wherever we can.

Nor do we do our values and society any favours by blurring the lines between what is and isn’t acceptable. That’s why I am against the death penalty, against control orders, and against torture. It is not by saying those things are ok sometimes that we stamp out their use around the world.

That is why the decision to stop funding and making excuses for extremist views is so important. It is in no way acceptable for anyone to excuse, let alone encourage, attacks on British troops. It is a key driver of our society that we all have opportunities – so education for girls is for all girls not just some.

One area where I do, however, differ is on engaging with the arguments put forward by extremists. I think there is a fine line to be trod between ensuring effective rebuttal and giving credibility but I think it should at least be attempted (for the same reasons I believe that the policy of No Platform to the BNP is ultimately counter-productive).

As Julian Astle wrote in his Telegraph blog yesterday afternoon, and as I have seen while working on various pro-democracy projects,  simply saying “You’re wrong” is not the answer. You do need to point out the absurdities, the contradictions, the inanities of extremism (why else do you think so much was made of the supposed attempt by Usama Bin Laden to use his wife as a human shield, or the stash of porn found in his hideout?) otherwise it remains a credible creed.

But all this detail is masking a really important question. Why is it necessary for a government report to ask, to legislate, for responsible members of society to work together to counter extremism? I find it extraordinary that such a request has to be made. We all shape our own environment – and as the Big Society, localism and social mobility grow and empower us all, we will all have greater opportunities to do so. We all have a responsibility to think about what we want our society to be; it’s not the government’s job to do that for us.

The Big Society is important in two ways. Firstly – and least interestingly, to most people – because it really is important to David Cameron. Secondly, and much more importantly, because it is a radical idea with huge potential to transform our lives.

I was veering towards agreeing with Nick on his point that we should simply stop talking about The Big Society and just get on and enable it, and talk again nearer an election. But this afternoon I’ve changed my mind. I spent the afternoon at the Big Society Network’s reception for Nexters – a programme to support the best innovations in social enterprise and technology that enables people to make the best of their lives.

I’ll come back to some of the ideas they featured – there are some amazing things.

I’ve written before about the need for – in shorthand – a sort of Google Map of big society ideas, so that people with an urge to get involved can see what is going on in their area, and can see where people who’ve done something similar have learnt lessons.

Every time I go to any Big Society event, I meet a number of people who are essentially doing the same thing. Now if all you’re interested in is making a name for yourself, having lots of the same project running is fine but not really scalable and probably involves a lot of duplicated effort and wasted funding and goodwill, and probably isn’t making the most of whatever their idea is.

As a dedicated localiser, I am reluctant to say this, but I think the time has come for some serious thinking to be done about how to encourage small enterprises to merge to maximise their effectiveness. Not everyone can set up the next big thing, and having lots of people chasing the same resources is a recipe for inefficiency. I have worked with a few charities and foundations, and one thing that has struck me over and over again is that at some point, the funders need to acknowledge that an organisation is too small to have any real impact, or that their model simply doesn’t achieve what it’s supposed to, or that the outcomes are not sufficient to justify funding.

Additionally, there has to be an acknowledgement that, yes, some ideas fail but it’s worth trying something that isn’t yet tested. Someone I talked to today said that in his corporate life, he asks his Board to keep an eye on his failure rate, and if fewer than about 30 per cent of his decisions aren’t successful, he considers that he’s not being brave enough – which I thought was an innovative and very different approach to the way we tend to do things in politics.

The other key thing that needs to happen – and it’s started – is that people need to be inspired and encouraged to do things. Not talking about the Big Society as a concept for the next three years is not going to encourage greater involvement – quite the reverse in fact. So the Big Society Network and Number 10 are absolutely doing the right thing in identifying great ideas and great people and spreading the word to people who don’t yet know, because if something becomes a cultural norm, it becomes entirely natural and second nature and we (nearly) all end up doing it without thinking about it too hard.

I repeat – again – what I’ve always said about the Big Society. It’s not just about volunteering, it’s not just about public services, it’s not just about nudging people into better behaviour. It is all of those things, but most importantly, it is about enabling all of us to live the best lives we can. And that is absolutely the most important mission of any government.

After all, there is still a lot of work to be done. In the last year, the Coalition and particularly the Conservatives have begun the process of getting some radical Bills through parliament – the Localism Bill, the NHS reforms, the Welfare Bill, the Education Bill and the Police Bill are the best known examples.

All of these Bills propose radical changes to their respective systems, and they are integral to David Cameron’s vision for his time in government. It is important that the attention of the Party and the wider Coalition now turns to these Bills, and the work that needs to be done to them to tweak them and make them as good as they can be.

This is important for two reasons. Firstly, it is important as the Bills have already been placed in the public domain, and any backtracking of them will look like the Conservatives are not able to push their own proposals through. Once something is suggested in politics, it is extremely difficult – and embarrassing – to retract it. The nightmare the Party had over the proposed selling off of forests is a perfect example, and an all too recent reminder for Mr Cameron of the fallout when things go wrong.

The issues surrounding the NHS reforms have also shown that there is a need for Cameron to steer the Conservative ship through some rough waters at the moment. The Prime Minister needs to show authority, leadership and a desire to achieve over the next few weeks, to ensure that not only his party but the public see he is a leader willing to reform and reshape British politics.

Last night’s Police Bill defeat in the Lords is undoubtedly a setback for Cameron, and is not the start to the Coalition’s second year that he would have wanted. It is another situation from which the Conservatives must dust themselves off and move on.

Secondly, it is important because the Conservative Party needs a boost – a piece of legislation or a policy that speaks strongly of traditional Tory principles and reminds the Party of what they believe in and why they are in government. Entering into Coalition has been difficult for many Conservatives, and whilst many have accepted that it is a necessary concession to being in power, it still does not sit comfortably. If Cameron can claim some victories on his key policies, it will reassure his party and the public.

The Coalition has had a tricky first year, and has come out well overall. As George Osborne said on Sunday, it’s a sign of how well they have done that the conversation at the moment isn’t all about the deficit crisis Britain finds itself in. A financial crisis has been avoided, and the plans that the Conservatives have put forward have a real and genuine chance of changing a lot of the broken systems that are a legacy of Labour’s thirteen years in power.

Now is the time for the Coalition, the Conservatives in general and David Cameron specifically, to reassess their situation and to make a concerted push to get policies through and Bills passed. If they can do so, public perception will continue to improve and the Coalition will be regarded as a genuine success. If they fail, then the rough waters will continue to get worse, and it will be Cameron who has to answer the questions as to what went wrong.

Prince Charles intends to be the “Defender of Faith” when he becomes King, rather than the “Defender of the Faith”. David Cameron wants to change the law to allow Catholics to sit on the throne. It is likely that House of Lords reform will either remove or dilute the bishops’ privileged place in the legislature.

All of those ideas have their pros and cons. But all would undeniably weaken the position of the established Church.

Having a monarch as “Defender of Faith” would be a small change, but one that would send a clear message: that the Church of England is no longer as central to the monarchy as it has been in the past (and, therefore, that it is no longer as central to England).

Allowing Catholics to become King or Queen would also erode the position of the Church. It isn’t likely to happen any time soon, of course, but changing the law would indicate one of two things: that the government doesn’t oppose the idea of a non-Anglican being Head of the Church (a bizarre position), or that the government is ambivalent about the traditional link between being Head of State and Head of the Church of England. Either way, it cannot be construed as an endorsement of the Church’s current position.

Removing the bishops from the House of Lords would tangibly decrease both the influence and stature of the Church, while retaining them alongside representatives of other religious groups would eliminate their unique position under the current constitutional settlement.

If all of those things happen, we risk disestablishing the Church by the back door: slowly eroding its position until actual disestablishment is just a formality.

I believe that the Church is worth more than that. Instead of chipping away at its position bit by bit, let’s have a full and open debate.

Does the Conservative Party support the establishment of the Church? How about the Liberal Democrats? If establishment is supported, what should it look like? Should the status quo be preserved, or should modern establishment mean something different? Can establishment exist simultaneously with recognition of other faiths? If so, how?

They are not simple questions, but it isn’t a simple topic. The relationship between religion, the state and society is increasingly complex – both as attitudes to religion change, and as England becomes more multicultural.

Having this debate now, at a time when the coalition is undertaking widespread constitutional reform, will allow us to determine the future of the Church. It seems like established religion has been on the retreat for a long time: changing the succession rules and Lords reform provide us with an opportunity to discuss it, rather than turning a blind eye and letting it whither away.

Should we retain the established Church as it is? Should the current settlement be modified to better reflect modern England? Or should we just do away with it altogether?

Over to you…

Conservative women are almost invisible, hidden from view. Even when they are public figures they tend to be silent. The “Conservative woman” who appears most in the press is Samantha Cameron, and yet few members of the public could pick her voice out of crowd. The media ignore high-profile politicians such as Theresa May, and instead portray the Prime Minister’s wife as being seen but not heard. Why?

Politics hides women because culture silences them. Firstly, there are not enough female role models, so the general public does not tend to associate women with power. The stereotype of an MP remains a white, middle-aged, middle-class male. Secondly, because women are not associated with power, women often don’t see themselves as capable. Like anyone told over and over again that they have a fixed gender role, many women absorb the stereotype and think that they can’t be politicians because they’re women.

It’s a vicious and subtle cycle. The lack of powerful women feeds the culture of women’s unsuitability. Where there are powerful women, they tend to be viewed as exceptions, oddities, and un-newsworthy. The French First Lady Carla Bruni is pictured in the UK papers more often than our own Home Secretary.

The answer lies in challenging cultural expectations. Society is made up of individuals, with different genders, ages and backgrounds. In order to represent the whole country, in order to understand the whole country, political parties must look within their membership for different experiences, different backgrounds and different approaches.

Women make an invaluable contribution to politics because they have often lived different lives to men. A variety of difference experiences widens the ability of politics to create effective and pragmatic policy by increasing the breadth of knowledge. The best decisions are those crafted by a group diverse in class, occupation, race and belief.

In hiding its female MPs and activists, the Conservative Party conforms to the outdated stereotype of what an MP looks like, and risks alienating future Conservative women.

Clara X blogs at http://feminismfortories.wordpress.com and is on Twitter @feminism4tories

If you only believed the lazy and sensationalistic reporting about Barwell, by the London-based media, following a couple of tragic incidents in the village over the past few years, your view of it and us might be bleak.

These incidents, and the (mis)reporting of them, understandably led to a great loss of morale in the village that I love.

We mourned for those whose lives were lost in those incidents and then, to honour their memory, we turned anew to the business of rebuilding our shattered sense of ourselves and of the place where we live, work, go to Church, and enjoy our free time.

I recently did a live interview on BBC Radio Leicester, in one of our beautiful local parks, talking about life in the village now and how we’re beginning to turn things around.

I was able to talk about our fantastic new £2million George Ward (Community) Centre.

I was able to talk about our always excellent annual Carnival, which people travel from far and wide to watch and enjoy.

I was able to talk about the brilliant ‘Pride in Barwell’ initiative which is working, in a host of different ways, to help people of all ages and to help make life in Barwell better.

A short time after that interview, and having had some time to reflect upon it, I wrote a piece for the local Church magazine in which I called Barwell a ‘village-wide example of the “Big Society”’-and I still believe that is the case.

Now, I must be honest; when I first heard about the Big Society I was concerned it was just a cover for big cuts in State-run services.

I still believe we need to be careful to ensure that isn’t the case; there will always be a need for public servants, to run schools, hospitals, or public transport network and so on.

But I’ve always believed in a strong civil society, in social enterprise, in the benefits of volunteering.

I see it day in and day out in Barwell and I want to see opportunities extended to many more people and local groups.

I have a number of ideas which I hope to/am taking forward.

These include Barwell’s own version of a ‘Walk of Fame,’ recognising the achievements of a number of people, past and present, in the village.

Also, we’re hoping to set up a Village Events Committee, which will look to run fairly large-scale events.

This will take the commitment of volunteers, start-up capital and, more important than anything else, passion and ideas.

Barwell is a great village with, overwhelmingly, decent, law-abiding, hard-working, fun-loving residents.

I pay tribute to them and to the people, too numerous to name, who are working to make Barwell Better.

Together we can create a Bigger and Better Society.

Mathew Hulbert is a Liberal Democrat Borough Council Candidate for Barwell, Hinckley and Bosworth. He works as Centre Co-Ordinator at the George Ward Centre, Barwell, and is Press Officer for Barwell Carnival.

David Cameron answers questions at the Big Society Network

A few things that struck me during the event, however, which give me concerns.  

The first is that it has taken the government so long to pull its finger out on this. The complaints and the attacks have been coming to a crescendo for a while, yet it’s taken until now to address them. I have no quibble with the way it was done, but it’s taken them too long to do it. As I’ve written before, it seems like something has to be in crisis before it gets addressed, which is not really sustainable in the long-term. They need to build a narrative about how this one big unifying idea ties together all the individual things that they are doing as a government.  

The second is that there has been too much acceptance of the whole ‘government spending is, by definition, good’ argument. I keep hearing ministers saying, I didn’t come into politics to cut spending. That’s putting it the wrong way round, and it misses the point of the Big Society project. This was something that David Cameron has been talking about since the 2005 leadership election; it’s not just about money, it’s about the opportunity to retake control and ensure that the state serves us, not controls us.  

The fact is that central government is (mostly) either giving extra support to voluntary and civic society organisations, or it’s trying to maintain spending on things that work; whether local councils understand the value of the various things they fund is – really – up to them. There is a place for the government to exhort, to encourage and to lead by example, but we elect councils for a reason and if we are serious about devolving power then they must, ultimately, answer to their residents for their actions.  

Similarly, we need to understand the nature of what we’re working to achieve – it’s not just about volunteering and about donating time and money. It is, however, about being involved in decisions that affect our lives. It’s about taking control of the things that matter to us. It’s about taking responsibility for the outcomes that we want to see.  

My final thought for now is that there is an enormous hunger out there for this to work. I’ve had numerous comments, direct emails and tweets over our Big Society week last week, saying that people had tried to sign up, had offered to help, had engaged with ideas but that they’d had no response. There’s a place for patience, but this government really needs the Big Society to work: people want to help them but the government has to let them.

Since its Second Reading in November, many issues have taken centre stage such as tuition fees, the future of the National Health Service, civil liberties and the government’s proposals regarding forestry.

Now, in a piece of serendipity, as my Bill returns to the Commons, the ‘Big Society’ has once again come to the fore.

We should not be surprised that the ‘Big Society’ as a concept has come under so much scrutiny in recent months. Now that we have set out our economic plans, people are rightly asking “What kind of Britain do we want to see?”

The ‘Big Society’ is important because it gives people a light at the end of the tunnel, it shows that despite the challenges that we face economically, that we can create a stronger and better Britain, where everyone feels part of a wider society.

Any political idea is difficult to define. Despite thirteen years of Labour Government, we are still debating what “New Labour” actually meant or was seeking to achieve. The same can be said of “Thatcherism”.

That does not mean that we should not seek to define it and indeed, the danger is that if we do not define it, the public will come to perceive the ‘Big Society’ as nothing more than a cover for reductions in public spending.

So what is the ‘Big Society’? Baroness Warsi recently said that it could be defined as volunteering, social action, a philanthropic approach to life, opening up of public services and devolving powers.

I think that this is a good start, but I think that in some ways we are being too narrow and it gives those that wish to criticise the ‘Big Society’ as a concept, the opportunity to dismiss it as woolly and harking back to church fetes and warm beer.

Ultimately the ‘Big Society’ is, I believe, seeking to redefine the relationship between the citizen and the state.

It recognises that in this new world that we live in, people need to take more responsibility for their families, their local community and for society as a whole. It means that things such as volunteering, helping to set priorities through local referenda and assisting the running of local public services should not be seen as an ‘optional extra’. Rather they should be viewed as a duty, incumbent upon every citizen.

We have seen what happens when people decide to give up on participating in society, when people decide to live isolated lives and choose to leave it up to others to keep our communities together.

It is not sustainable and not fair, and the ‘Big Society’ is about changing people’s perceptions of what it means to be part of a society and to embrace a more positive, a more empowering and more democratic view of citizenship.

However the Government also has a role in this, and the ‘Big Society’ recognises that.

In some ways its role is positive, providing power to people and communities with the incentives and the funding that they need to take on bigger roles.

My Bill falls very much into this category.

However it is also permissive, giving up power in order to provide the opportunity for people and communities to decide how they wish to organise their local services or to set the priorities for their area.

It is also much wider than even this. Part of the reason why there is such an imperative on reducing the deficit, is the intergenerational unfairness which it personifies. The ‘Big Society’ is not limited to one generation, so why should subsequent generations be saddled with the debt incurred over the past decade? We have a duty to ensure that we take responsibility for the profligacy of the previous Government, so that future generations are not forced to pay for mistakes that they had no hand in making.

So the ‘Big Society’ is a multifaceted political idea.

But political ideas only become reality when practical measures are put in place to achieve them. This is why things like the Localism Bill, the Education Bill, the Health and Social Care Bill, the Big Society Bank, the National Citizens’ Service and my Public Services Bill are important. They are the stepping stones towards achieving the kind of society that we want to see.

My Bill still has to go through Committee Stage, Report Stage and Third Reading before it must then enter the House of Lords. Like the ‘Big Society’, it still has a long way to go.

And like my Bill, we have to continue to articulate why it is important, why it is necessary and how it will create the kind of future that we want to see. It is not going to be easy, but the most worthwhile projects never are. To borrow a phrase from JFK, we choose the ‘Big Society’ not because it is easy, but because it is hard.