Truth must be not only discovered,
but perennially rediscovered and redefined.

The more I learn about our broken society, the more heartbreaking the situation appears. We are not self-reliant pioneers conquering a new continent: we are the heirs to generations of ineffective government intervention. We have broken our society and the problem is growing:

[T]he size of the dysfunctional base in society is unacceptable and expanding, despite concerted and genuine efforts at local and national government level to reduce the numbers of those facing severe disadvantage. There is evidence that people in the dysfunctional base have their children earlier and faster than average, building up a massive social and financial problem unless it is addressed soon. Bruce Perry, Senior Fellow at the Child Trauma Institute in Houston, believes that US figures show the target group expanding from 10 per cent to 25 per cent of the population over four generations. If left unchecked, not only could we face a feral future on our streets but the public policy consequences will be massive and will come with a tax bill to bankrupt every taxpayer.

For those who are instinctively wary of intervention, or indeed, instinctively wary of the market, I thoroughly recommend the report Early Intervention from The Centre for Social Justice and the Smith Institute:

Our parents are the chief sculptors of our futures. As the academic Ray Arthur’s research found, ‘Children from deprived backgrounds who avoided a criminal record had tended to enjoy good parental care and supervision in a less crowded home. The statistical connection between socioeconomic status and children’s early offending behaviour was entirely mediated by family management practices.’ This is not a new conclusion: it emerged as far back as 1815 from the first public body to investigate youth offending, ‘The Committee for Investigating the Causes of the Alarming Increase of Juvenile Delinquency in the Metropolis’. The Committee’s evidence was taken from interviews of children who were already imprisoned, and it concluded that among the main causes of juvenile offending in a rapidly expanding London were ‘the improper conduct of parents and the want of education’. The causes of crime were found to be firmly rooted in both the quality of care provided by the parents and in educational failure.

Believers in compulsion and the state; believers in freedom and responsibility: all have a generation of work ahead to secure a bright future for anyone and everyone. Better answers are emerging to our social problems and we must see them through.

If anyone still doubts whether British society is broken, they should read the reports of the Centre for Social Justice. When we consider family breakdown, educational failure, economic dependence, indebtedness and addictions, the human and financial cost of decades of top-down bureaucratic control becomes heart-breaking. And let’s not forget that, these days, the poor pay tax to support the very services which fail them.

The sheer scale and quality of the work of the Centre shines through their reports and there can be no doubt that those on the centre right have the best interests of the poorest in our country close to their hearts. As Iain Duncan Smith writes:

Our interim report Breakdown Britain charted the extent of the problem in extensive detail. Britain tops the ‘league tables’ when it comes to spiraling levels of drug addiction, single parenting, poor education and debt. Many people told us that the quality of their communities had deteriorated, maintaining that the crime levels were much higher than those reported to the police. The recent rise in gang warfare, which resulted in a spate of teenage stabbings and shootings in our cities, is a savage illustration of the deep fractures in so many of our inner city communities. A recent UNICEF Report concluded that we have the lowest levels of child well being in Europe. A further report has shown how young people in Britain are more likely to be unemployed and out of education than in almost any other country in Europe.

IDS names some of the inspirational people who have personally set out to serve their fellows, and goes on:

These inspirational people showed me that things could be much better if politicians learnt from them ‘what worked’ and ‘what didn’t work’. Government action, though filled with good intentions, can often exacerbate existing problems or create new ones. I was reminded that communities need strong families to bind them together and that families were vulnerable to a society that no longer valued the institution of marriage. I was shown by them what happens when family life breaks down and when the only male role model for a boy is the drug dealer or the gang leader. I saw first hand how drug addiction is destroying families and how parental addiction is too often repeated by their children. Too many of our children are growing up in sad communities where failed education is hereditary and worklessness is a way of life.

And so the Centre sets out to provide practical policies to mend our broken society. Thankfully, the Conservatives are heading in this direction together. As David Cameron has said:

We know we have a shared responsibility; that we’re all in this together; that there is such a thing as society – it’s just not the same as the State.

I have been canvassing in Aylesbury – rather preemptively, as there is no election this year – and Milton Keynes. I’ll be out for Boris several times in the next few weeks and we’re back in Aylesbury on Monday.

A few things have really stood out:

• People are swinging to the Conservatives. Labour’s big, bureaucratic, controlling state is becoming obviously expensive, clumsy and ineffective and people seem to be finding the LibDems rather ineffective.
• People think society is in real trouble. Ian Duncan Smith’s Breakthrough Britain seems to be right on the mark.
• People feel there is now no effective social safety net. They feel they will not be protected from abject poverty in old age and that care for the chronically ill is ineffective. Apparently ironic under a social democratic goverment, but wholly predictable.
• Getting out and asking people what matters to them is much appreciated when there is no imminent election.

I have thoroughly enjoyed talking with people about what bothers them in society and in government today and I am ever more determined that the right answer is the Conservatives’ post-bureaucratic age.