A town hall (the very one where I once gave a talk to 12 people)

What was to be a ‘town hall tour’ to launch the government’s Big Society, is no longer going ahead. Was it such a good idea in the first place? The tour, that is. At its most pared-down, Big Society embodied a shift away from a centralized, nationwide approach to community. So why not get things going with a nationwide tour directed from, er, the capital..?

In the book I go on a bit about the relationship between the state and the third sector, exactly where one ends and the other begins. In a similar vein, I liked this piece by Stephanie Smith, that touches on what happens when the state is forced to retreat.

If you need more of a Big Society fix, here’s a report by the Young Foundation, again, looking at the reality of Big Society.

I’m a fan of the RSA’s Connected Communities programme, mainly for the talks they organize, also their blog. Here’s a write-up of its eponymous publication. Lots of common ground here with Together in terms of the spurious emphasis on communities of place. Here’s the report itself.

Here’s something from modern-day Tolpuddle, where the spirit of ’34 seems to have gone a little astray. At one point Together had a whole chapter on these legendary scions of Tolpuddle, but it wasn’t to be.