ABSTRACT
The need for strong, responsible communities is one of the main themes of New Labour's programme for reforming the British welfare state, and remodelling British society. Commentators seeking to define the essence of Tony Blair's political philosophy are agreed that communitarianism is one of its central features (Driver and Martell 1997; Smith 1997; Marquand 1998). After all, in a key essay, published in 1996, he had written of the need to promote a society 'where the community works for the good of every individual, and every individual works for the good of the community' (Blair 1996a: preface).
