Citizens Summit

Alexandra Runswick (Unlock Democracy): I have been more than a little sceptical about the government’s plans for a citizen’s summit on the proposed British Statement of Values. I was worried it might be like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where Arthur Dent discovers that the plans for the demolition of his house had been on display for nine months; it’s just that they were on display in a cellar without any lights, at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard." So yes, you can be engaged in the policy making process just as long as you are and-picked by a polling company, the government then determines the subject matter, how long the conversation will last and whether the conversation will be followed up by any action. 

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): IPPR hosted Michael Wills, Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, this morning for a seminar on the politics of national identity as background to the Citizens Summit he is the lead for on a British Statement of Values. His talk will be published tomorrow. He produced some polling data published today by IPSOS MORI on the question of what identities give people a sense of belonging. I haven’t been able to find the data online yet but will provide the link as soon as it becomes available. From my notes: 80% of people polled have a “strong” sense of belonging to Britain, 82% of the English have a strong sense of belonging to England, 91% of the Scots to Scotland, and 95% of the Welsh to Wales. The conclusions that Wills drew from the data won’t surprise anyone: Britishness still matters. People still feel a shared sense of identity, he said, and there is a need, fuelled by globalisation and rapid social change, to belong to a “moral community”. The nation state is still the primary focus for this “yearning to belong”. What gives Britishness its strength according to Wills is that it is very much a pluralistic identity: it is compatible with Scotishness, Welshness, and – whisper it quietly – Englishness.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): David Wilcox over at Designing for Civil Society picks up from Guy's recent OK post on Michael Wills Citizens Summit speech and adds: