Labour must back the Big Society to be credible

The Big Society has been ridiculed by Labour, the Lib Dems and even by Tory activists. Many of these criticisms are legitimate: the mish-mash of different policies is difficult to explain to the public; attempts to do more with less do look like cover for a reducing state; and parts of the Big Society are completely unrealistic - for example, the idea that 5,000 community organisers will be able to raise their own salaries by organising deprived communities.

But we shouldn't be hasty. The fundamental idea of a strong, politically engaged and giving society is simple and powerful. The contrast between "Big Society" and "Big Government" is a bad one for Labour. The public accept that the Big Society is vacuous; but they worry greatly about Labour being the party of an over-bearing state.

Labour's leadership candidates recognise the problem. Diane Abbott says that she wants to take back the civil liberties agenda from the Tories; David Miliband complains about an overly-large state stopping parents from taking children swimming in his constitueny; Ed Miliband wants to pass powers to individuals; Andy Burnham says that Labour didn't listen to people on these issues.

Its also worth noting that the Big Society is nothing new. Nearly all Big Society policies were adopted from the last years of Labour. Free-schools are a re-launch of academies, public sector procurement was already changing and a devolution of powers to communities and local government had already started. The ideas put forward by the Conservatives in their Big Society White and Green Papers are almost identically to those contained in Labour's 2008 Empowerment White Paper.

It isn't credible for Labour to oppose the Big Society. The rhetoric used by the leadership candidates is exactly the same as that used by Cameron and co. By adopting the Big Society as its own and presenting a credible set of policies based around the same ideas, Labour can immediately expose current ConDem plans as vacuous and decisively turn the page on the overly-statist approach of New Labour.