Jon Bright (London, OK): CentreForum have released a pamphlet today by Jesse Norman (opens pdf), former director of Barclays bank and author of David Cameron's compassionate conservatism agenda (he also signed the Power petition). He writes on the theme of broken society and the thinning of the public sphere that is becoming a very familiar refrain - a 'social recession', he calls it, caused by excessive reliance on state intervention.
He argues for "social renewal through the devolution of power and responsibility to people and local institutions" (less statism and more voluntary sector). It buttresses Cameron's speech of last week in trying to set out the coherent principles behind compassionate conservatism, even if he is spinning furiously for Dave at the same time. And he fleshes out some of the big themes that will form policy proposals: 'Payment by Results', for instance, will transfer the job of getting people off benefits from the public to the private sector - with whoever finds the unemployed person a job receiving a portion of the benefits they would have otherwise claimed. Interesting read from a very coherent writer.
