Family and State – what constitutes the common good here?

Thursday night at St Mary’s Church in Putney saw the second of two debates hosted by Together for the Common Good (T4CG), Theos and the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at St Mary’s University. The “debate” (actually, there was such common ground between the speakers and the audience – except for one unfortunate chap from the Conservative Christian Fellowship, that “debate” is too strong a term for the event) was centred on the subject of Family and the State, and how we might move forward to the common good as individuals, churches and through our influence on local and national government. It was attended by about 80 people, and the level of questioning and discussion was strong enough to take the topics forward a long way. I could have done with it lasting another hour, but then we would not have had the great discussions afterwards (to say nothing of the canapes and wine).

Jenny Sinclair from T4CG introduced the evening, reminding us that in this very church the Putney debates of 1647 were held. There, I think, the similarities pretty much ended, except that the original debates were trying to find a constitutional settlement for England and Wales after the Civil War.

Speaking from the panel were Professor Philip Booth (Professor of Finance, Public Policy and Ethics at St Mary’s University),  Mark Molden (Chief Executive of Marriage Care), Professor Sir Aynsley Green who was the first Children’s Commissioner for England 2005 to 2010 and Cathy Corcoran OBE (Chief Executive of the Cardinal Hume Centre from 2003-2018) and a passionate advocate for the poor and homeless. It had a strong Catholic composition, this panel, and the whole debate will appear on the Together for the Common Good website fairly shortly.  For me, and I don’t have a big public policy understanding, the most interesting thing was the contrast between public policy, especially taxation policy in the UK, with the central tenets of Catholic Social Teaching toward the poor. There is much more on this on the T4CG website, especially here, but suffice it to say that on Friday I saw more clearly than I have before that the whole intention of government policy for the last 10-15 years, has been to undermine marriage and family through the tax system, with its emphasis on the individual rather than the family as the basic taxable unit, and to ensure that the poor and the marginalised pay for the continued wealth of the nation through the way that the previous and current chancellors of the exchequer structured their austerity program. Cathy Corcoran in particular was scathing about the impact of this, while Philip Booth explained, more clearly than I have ever heard, the shape and individualistic focus of the tax system, and how it has been conflated with the welfare system by governments since Blair as an instrument of social policy. This was not a bunch of lefties banging on against the government, but a clear description of the pain that this government and the two (at least) previous ones, have wrought upon the poor. It made me think again, as I have often thought, that what we regarded as normal social democracy in the 1970s, and what Corbyn et al are arguing for in the Labour movement, are really not that far from each other. Thatcher has just messed with our brains so much that we have forgotten that “normal” meant a level of social security that many simply cannot today imagine.

There will be better comment than this on the content of the evening, and I look forward to seeing the videos when they come out. In the meantime, explore (as I will be doing) the T4CG website.

This was the second in a series of debates on the common good today – the first one was on migration and the state back in the summer. The final one, on State, Church and Community, will be held next year on 7 March. I will be there!