David Lammy: Modern Political Parties Wrestling with 'Hyper-Individualism'

Modern politics is wrestling with "hyper-individualism" and it has been very difficult to bring people "back together" because of the phenomenon, according to David Lammy.

The Labour London Mayoral candidate, who spoke at the If Everything is Dead, What Comes Next? event at Cass Business School, also said people should be more conscience of their responsibilities – not just their rights.

"We've lived through two revolutions. But they have been quiet revolutions. The first was the social/liberal revolution of the 1960s," the Tottenham MP said.

"At its best, it's the revolution that brings as many women to this room, broadly, as men. It brings ethnic minorities to this room.

"It's the revolution we associate with Mandela, Martin Luther King and Gandhi.

"But somehow by 2014, if we are just conscience of our rights and not of our responsibilities, we are in trouble.

"We emphasise the liberal of the social liberal and we end up in a place where we are terribly atomised as conscience of ourselves but struggle to come back together.

"That's one phenomenon. The second phenomenon is the economic liberal revolution, obviously of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and, to some extent, continued by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.

"A liberal revolution – the freedom to make as much money as you want, however you want with very little regulation.

"There's a place where the Guardian, with its rights agenda, meets The Times.

"We end up in a hyper-individualised place – that is what modern politics is wrestling with.

"That hyper-individualism in this country, and in many developed democracies, gets us to a place where it is very, very difficult to come back together again.

"If you put that alongside that automation and technology, that has even accelerated that hyper-individualism."

Watch the full speech below.