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Phillip Blond's localism is radical and exciting   

I was chatting to the boss of one of the super-charities the other day.  For the best and most generous of reasons, that person warned me to be careful with this blog. It is crucial that I don’t get branded as "angry" or "flaky".

Angry I can sort of live with; one woman’s anger is another’s idealism. But flaky? I just can't get past the word. The dictionary definition is “eccentric, wacky, dizzy”. Taking this to its natural conclusion, my career in the sector - if indeed I have one - is imperilled by my dizziness.

So in an attempt to prove or disprove my dizzy credentials, I am going to tussle bravely with my ambivalent yet wide-eyed appreciation of the brilliant Phillip Blond. I heard him speak again last week at an Action For Children event to promote its Find Emily campaign. As usual, he was all foppish, floppy-haired and humbled by his superstar biog as it was read out to (I imagine) a less than enthusiastic audience, which on so many levels included me.  

However, in my opinion, Blond’s platform on localism and connectivity is radical, probably prophetic and genuinely exciting. It could democratise access to services, ignite participation and fundamentally transfer power to the many from the few, if adopted pragmatically by the third sector.

Localism isn’t new - it’s been the very thing for some time, both on the left and the right. It concerns itself with fortifying social relationships, devolving decisions and resources in absolute terms to citizens, thereby engaging the socially and politically estranged among us. Glueing society back together by empowering an army of Burke’s “little platoons”.

But localism is so on-message as to be suffering from the putrefying whiff of statism. At the moment it’s being choreographed by the centre via the provincial and is devolving power, budgets and design to citizens in appearance only.

In reality, localism is dominated by the petty officialdom of town halls, single-issue politicos and locals who have enough time on their hands to sit on Neighbourhood Watch committees.  By that, I mean our “little platoons” are braving the weather to campaign against a bypass, assembling to watch over their communities and by implication judge their standards, or devolving mostly minute budgets -  under strict guidance, of course - to local citizen projects.

Blond’s vision of localism is uncompromising and the antithesis of federal. He believes it is not right wing, and I agree with him. Blond proposes we hand over hard cash, service design and decision making to "micro-communities" within a framework of rights and responsibilities. The state, then acting only as an enabler, facilitates the local ownership of social capital. This, he propositions, will restore community.

Blond’s thesis has demanded for me an uncertain, Nigel-esque tussle with what this could mean if localism was applied to the voluntary sector. Could or should small and large charities facilitate a total immersion in the communities we serve by applying localism? In other words, should we hand over our social capital to our service users?
 
Should Sure Start or family centres run by the voluntary sector be defined, managed and governed only by service users and members of the micro-communities they serve? Would they then allocate resources democratically, provide bespoke services, manage budgets and take collective, platoon-like responsibility?

Perhaps every new or defeated social housing project needs to be envisioned, planned or renovated by its resident micro-community within a fair and negotiated budget. Everything including the street lights, window frames, gardens, interiors, allocated policing, healthcare and rent tariffs could be decided upon by those who will live and work there.

Should a charity such as Beatbullying merely provide an infrastructure for young people, unencumbered by a practice model, to originate, devise, implement and embed anti-violence interventions in youth clubs and community groups?  We could hand over the cash, stand back, speak when we are spoken to and trust young people to find solutions and an activism relevant to them.

Is this localism? I am not sure. But it feels beyond membership, ahead of cooperatism or mutualism and a good deal closer to genuinely devolved rights, access and responsibilities and, therefore, a meaningful transference of power to the many from the few.

Could it glue us together, re-invent participation, and re-engage the disenfranchised, the ignored or the just plain bored? Could it make a profound and durable contribution to a good society? I want my answers to be yes. At the moment its maybe...but it feels like a damned exciting, inspiring, thought-provoking maybe, which could very soon turn into a yes.
 
Crikey! All this seriousness is exhausting so I am now off to listen to my trusty iPhonium to lift my spirits and relieve my overwrought brain. First on my playlist, as ever, Liquid Gold’s...Dance Yourself Dizzy. Fab-u-lous!