The good society is marked by solidarity

Cardinal Vincent Nichols inserted a subtle dig at the Tory Party’s “One Nation” conscience in his congratulatory message to the Prime Minister after last week’s general election victory. Not least of the challenges he faced, the cardinal told David Cameron, was that of “encouraging and sustaining economic growth and, at the same time, giving particular attention to the needs of the poorest people in our society.” The right balance between promoting prosperity and looking after the most vulnerable was not adequately achieved by the last government, and incurred strong criticism, not least from Cardinal Nichols. Reforms to the benefits system designed to reduce public spending and hasten the repaying of the national deficit had increased poverty and weakened the safety net on which poor people relied. Now the Government proposes to go further in the same direction, to save another £12 billion from the welfare budget. This looks like a transfer of wealth from the poor to the better-off.

“Aspiration” has become a key word in the post-election conversation. This is something that Labour MPs are blaming themselves and each other for neglecting, and as the reason they lost. In other words they concentrated too much on transferring wealth from the better-off to the poor, implicitly ignoring the question: “Why then would the better-off vote for them?” Labour is now racking its soul and the souls of its possible future leaders, to find an answer. It must be to do with the quality of the society people desire to belong to, based on principles of the common good.

Aspiration is also built into the programme Mr Cameron has outlined for this new Government. His ambition, he said, was to give “everyone in our country the chance to live a good and fulfilled life and make the most of their talents”. This meant “the chance to get on, with the dignity of a job, the pride of a pay cheque, a home of their own and the security and peace of mind that comes from being able to support a family”. The fall in unemployment and the rise in numbers of those in work announced this week will strengthen his belief. Admirable as far as it goes, however, this is still a materialistic and individualistic definition of the good life. It does not mention any aspiration to belong to a decent society marked by solidarity. Not off the spectrum of what a Christian could regard as a laudable programme, it is towards the Thatcherite end of it.

There seems to be little room in Mr Cameron’s world view for those who do not succeed. Do they not also have a right to human dignity? These are the questions by which Mr Cameron’s Government needs to be measured, for its own good as much as for the good of the country.