Over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, Nick Clegg contributes to the Citizen Ethics strand.
He recalls Margaret Thatcher’s economic aims in the 1980s, saying that he seeks a revolution as big as the one in the 1980s, but of a different quality: “I do not want to change things back; I want to change them forward.”
Here’s an excerpt:
I do not believe that society is broken. There are minor miracles done every day by parents, teachers, carers, total strangers: acts of kindness that are the overwhelming majority of human experience. For every banker justifying their grotesque bonus, there are hundreds of people who have chosen a life of public service. It is disaster politics to forget this. We have to nurture what is best in us, not lament what is flawed.
This isn’t about passing laws. You cannot make people good by decree. The challenge for the next government is to restructure society to create an environment that, once again, nurtures virtue. Government must act ethically to encourage and enable citizens to do the same.
Read the full article here.
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Oh dear. I really don’t think it’s a good idea for politicians to preach about how the rest of us need to be encouraged to be more virtuous.
I liked the article, but I’m not sure I agree with it, especially the rather wince-inducing first part : “I basically believe people are born good. How can you think anything else when you see the innocence of young children?” Yikes. Hurray for support of manufacturing and the desire to create a fairer Britain, but less of that silly stuff, please. And Nick has said that “A child born in a poor part of Sheffield will die 14 years before a child born up the road.” in every article I’ve seen by him – I know it bears repeating and hammering into people’s heads, but it makes his articles look rather cut-and-pasted.