Nicholas Sagovsky - Together for the common good: towards a national conversation

Together for the Common Good: Towards a National Conversation

Edited by

Peter McGrail and Nicholas Sagovsky

The editors and contributors 2015

Published in 2015 by SCM Press

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Scripture quotations from the English Standard Version, Anglicized Edition Collins, London, 2003.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

978 0 334 05324 8

Typeset by Regent Typesetting, London

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon

Contents

Acknowledgements

The editors of this volume are both members of the steering group of the Together for the Common Good Project (http://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/). While not directly an activity of the project, this book would not have been written without the impetus provided by T4CG and the ongoing support of the steering group. The views expressed by the editors and the contributors do, nevertheless, remain entirely their own.

We must, first, acknowledge the consistent and generous support provided by Hymns Ancient & Modern and SCM Press for the T4CG Project and, specifically, for this book. We wish especially to thank Natalie Watson, Senior Commissioning Editor, for her encouragement and patience as we pursued our fascinating conversation with the contributors while keeping her waiting for action.

We also wish to thank CCLA Investment Management Ltd, and in particular Andrew Robinson, for hosting three study days at their extremely congenial office in the City of London. They provided an invaluable space in which the contributors to this volume could share ideas. It was remarkable that the things we were talking about related so closely to the ethical concerns of CCLA. Thank you, Andrew, for participating so fully in our discussions, making sure they were earthed in the realities of the financial and banking world which were all around us as we talked just five minutes walk from St Pauls Cathedral.

Finally, we must thank Liverpool Hope University, which also generously supported our meetings from their research budget.

Peter McGrail

Nicholas Sagovsky

Contributors

Philip Booth is Editorial and Programme Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs and Professor of Insurance and Risk Management at Cass Business School, City University, London. He is a fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and of the Royal Statistical Society. His publications include Catholic Social Teaching and the Market Economy (2nd edn, 2014, as editor and co-author), Catholic Education in the West: Roots, Reality, and Revival (2013, as co-author) and Christian Perspectives on the Financial Crash (2010, as editor). Philip was a school governor of a Catholic school for around 20 years.

Andrew Bradstock was during 200913 Howard Paterson Professor of Theology and Public Issues at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He is currently Secretary for Church and Society with the United Reformed Church and a member of the Joint Public Issues Team of the Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed Churches. He is a visiting professor at the University of Winchester and a member of the steering group of Together for the Common Good.

Malcolm Brown is Director of Mission and Public Affairs for the Archbishops Council of the Church of England. He has been a parish priest and an industrial chaplain and has taught Christian Ethics and Practical Theology in a number of universities. He was Executive Secretary of the William Temple Foundation in Manchester from 19912000. He is the author of Tensions in Christian Ethics (SPCK, 2010) and editor of Anglican Social Theology (Church House Publishing, 2014).

Samuel Burgess is currently completing his DPhil at the University of Oxford. His thesis offers a theological defence of Burkean conservatism and argues for the continued relevance of Burkes thought to contemporary political questions. He was brought up in Bath and educated at Monkton Combe School before studying as an undergraduate at Durham and as an MPhil student at Cambridge.

Jonathan Chaplin is Director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, Cambridge, a member of the Divinity Faculty of Cambridge University and Senior Fellow of Cardus, a Canadian Christian think-tank. He is a consultant researcher for the UK think-tank Theos and has written for Guardian CiF Belief. He has taught political theory and political theology in the UK, Canada and the Netherlands.

Maurice Glasman (Lord Glasman) is an English academic, social thinker and Labour life peer in the House of Lords. He is best known as the originator of Blue Labour, a term he coined in 2009. His research interests focus on the relationship between citizenship and faith and the limits of the state and the market. Author of Unnecessary Suffering (1996), he worked for ten years with London Citizens and through this developed an expertise in community organizing. He has a long-standing interest in Catholic Social Thought and was a speaker at the Together for the Common Good Conference in Liverpool.

Brian Griffiths (Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach) is a member of the boards of Goldman Sachs International and Goldman Sachs International Bank. He taught at the London School of Economics before becoming Professor of Banking and International Finance at the City University and Dean of the City University Business School. He was a director of the Bank of England from 19835. He left the Bank of England early to serve at 10 Downing Street as head of the Prime Ministers Policy Unit from 19851990. As special advisor to Margaret Thatcher, he was responsible for domestic policy-making and was a chief architect of the governments privatization and deregulation programmes. He is a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs. Lord Griffiths was chairman of the Archbishop of Canterburys Lambeth Fund and is chairman of Christian Responsibility in Public Affairs. He has written and lectured extensively on economic issues and the relationship of the Christian faith to economies and business and has published various books on monetary policy and Christian ethics.

Tehmina Kazi , Director of British Muslims for Secular Democracy since May 2009 and Executive Producer of the documentary film Hidden Heart , was also a freelance consultant for English PENs Faith and Free Speech in Schools project. She is a trustee of Hope Not Hate, an advisory board member of the Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks project, an Inclusive Mosque Initiative committee member, and was a judge for the Accord Coalitions Inclusive Schools Award, 2014. She was named as one of the BBCs 100 Women in October 2013 and 2014 and held the Eric Lane Fellowship at Clare College, Cambridge in JanuaryMarch 2014. She is a Centenary Young Fellow of the RSA.

Clifford Longley is the author of Just Money: How Catholic Social Teaching can Redeem Capitalism published by the think-tank Theos and available at www.theosthinktank.co.uk, where a printed version can also be ordered. He formerly wrote about religious affairs for The Times and the Daily Telegraph and is now editorial consultant, leader writer and columnist at The Tablet , the international Catholic weekly. He has written a number of books and contributed regularly to the BBC Radio 4s Thought for the Day and Moral Maze programmes. He was the principal author of The Common Good and the Catholic Churchs Social Teaching published by the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales in 1996. He was awarded a Lambeth Master of Letters in 2012.