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Good evening. The diagnosis is dire. We're living in a deeply unhealthy society, says the Prime Minister,

riven by division and decline. The cure? A grand-sounding independent commission on community and

cohesion, which has just started work, warning Britain is a

tinderbox of disconnection and division that threatens democracy itself. An existential problem then,

if not an obviously urgent one. The Commission is a response to the riots after the Southport

stabbing's very nearly a year ago. It has another year to come up with ways to make

us get on better with each other, to develop what it calls a greater sense of belonging.

Lots of questions here. First, is it really that much of a problem? There are those who say

summer riots are not exactly new, and surveys of social attitudes suggest we're getting

steadily less prejudiced,

one of the most tolerant countries in the world, in fact.

Second, is social cohesion really a moral imperative?

Canadians, for instance, prefer to see their society as a mosaic rather than a melting pot,

and the scandal over Pakistani grooming gangs seems to some as a consequence

of prioritising community relations over justice. Lastly, is the objective, community at a local

level, camaraderie at a national level, a shared vision of how we want to live together,

achievable by government action? What prize social cohesion?

The moral maze tonight.

The panel, Mona Siddiqui, professor of Islamic and inter-religious studies at Edinburgh University,

the columnist and broadcaster Sonia Soda, the commentator and campaigner,

Inaya Fularena, and the former Supreme Court judge, Lord Sumption, Jonathan Sumpion, Sonia Soda.

...