The Politics of Decency

Hennessy reflects on what decency looks like today with voices from politics and public life.

Decency needs to be replaced at the heart of public life and public discourse. Hennessy discusses what decency looks like today with voices from politics and public life, and reflects on what they’ve shared with him.

Surveying eighty years of his country’s political and constitutional journey, Peter Hennessy is left with one abiding thought: that the essential quality of decency needs to be placed – once again – at the heart of public discourse.

In a series of conversations with old friends and those he has long admired – along with younger voices from politics and public life – Hennessy asks what decency means to them. His interest in this question springs from a concern about constitutional proprieties, but these conversations range further afield: from community projects to service delivery, from schooling to social media.

What he hears is both worrying and uplifting: an acknowledgement of the problem, a commitment to tackling it, ideas for how that might be done; and a sense that we all have a role to play in re-centring decency in public life.