The Big Society in 1997

Titter ye might. The Big Society? In 1997? If the idea was of, erm, limited electoral worth in our last general election, then it was certainly of little use when Tony Blair hurtled into power all those years ago. Yet there is was, mostly speaking, in the “Civic Conservatism” espoused chiefly by David Willetts. Danny Finkelstein, writing for the pre-paywall incarnation of Comment Central, has already alluded to the intellectual debt that Steve Hilton et al owe to Willetts’ thinking back in the 1990s. Fraser did likewise in an interview with Willetts from four-and-a-half years ago.

I mention this now for two conjoined reasons. First, the source texts of Civic Conservatism – including Willetts’ original pamphlet for the Social Market Foundation in 1994 – are a little difficult to come by. Second, I came across one of them recently when flicking through the book that Willetts wrote in anticipation of the 1997 election, called Why Vote Conservative? (which is worth picking up secondhand