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Whatever Happened to Community?: The Debate

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18/12/2013

BBC Radio 4 - Whatever Happened to Community?: The Debate

Rev Dr Giles Fraser hosts a debate about community. Is it something we have lost?

Rev Dr Giles Fraser hosts a debate about the nature of community. Is it something we have lost? Can government help to rebuild it? From St Mary's Church, Newington in South London.

Giles Fraser, former Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, is now the priest of a run-down parish in Elephant and Castle. This has set him thinking about the nature of community, which he's been exploring in Radio 4's three-part series Whatever Happened to Community?

Now, he now brings together four key players to debate the nature of community and what's happening to it in 21st century Britain. Baroness Warsi is Minister for Faith and Communities and Hilary Benn is Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Jane Wills, Professor of Human Geography at Queen Mary, University of London, and writer and philosopher Roger Scruton complete the panel.

In front of an audience of local people at his church in South London, Giles askes whether communities are in crisis. What should the Government do to strengthen community bonds - or must change come from grass roots and local organisers? The audience will also put their own questions to the panel.

Polemical, refreshingly candid, and unafraid to ask uncomfortable questions, Giles and his guests will get to the heart of how we live now. Do we really want to live together like this?

Recorded on location at St Mary's Church, Newington, South London.

Produced by Jane Greenwood and Jo Coombs
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

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