LORD Glasman, an eminent academic and community activist, credited with having a significant influence on the thinking of current Labour leader Ed Miliband will deliver a talk in Stroud next week.

Organised by Stroud Communiversity, a collaboration between Stroud Common Wealth and Transition Stroud, the event will see the Labour Peer give a speech entitled Rebuilding Society: What is to be done?

Maurice Glasman has become renowned in political circles as the architect of Blue Labour, a strand of thinking which has been embraced by a number of leading lights in the Labour Party and which has also been described as the left's intellectual response to David Cameron's Big Society.

At the heart of Blue Labour is the idea that both the state and the market have failed to serve the public good and that a mix of radical and traditionalist politics is now needed to create a more prosperous society and stable economy.

The 2008 global financial crisis is proof that free markets should be tightly regulated, while increasing welfare dependency shows that the role of the state needs to be rethought, Lord Glasman says.

Addressing issues of social inequality and poverty will require a return to a more community-orientated politics, he argues.

Maurice Glasman will speak at The Sub Rooms in Stroud on Thursday, February 23 at 7.30pm. Tickets are £6 (£5 for concessions) and can be purchased from the ticket office or by calling 01453 760999.