Moral Heart of Public Service

Claire Foster-Gilbert has published four books and numerous articles, and has extensive media experience. She was formerly an expert in medical ethics, environmental ethics, on learning ethics through storytelling, and she created an Institute at St Paul's Cathedral for ethics in finance before founding the Westminster Abbey Institute for ethics in public life. She has been called a 'quiet public intellectual'.

We live in an age when noisy moralism is everywhere, and the news and social media have invaded the pulpit. Quiet reflection on moral truth, however, and the noble sobriety of public administration, have become under-valued virtues. All power to a book like this in redressing that imbalance.

• Foreword - The Dean of Westminster. Introduction - Claire Foster-Gilbert. 1. Humanising hell: our restless conscience and the search for peace - William Hague. 2. Strengthening Moral Courage in Public Life - Claire Foster-Gilbert. 3. Building Communities - Mary McAleese and John Hall. 4. Idealism and Compromise - Vernon White. 5. The Staying Power of Benedict in Parliament Square - Rowan Williams. 6. Benedictine Values in Public Life - Vernon White, Andrew Tremlett, Claire Foster-Gilbert. 7. Reflections: timeliness and timelessness - Peter Hennessy and Claire Foster-Gilbert. Afterword - Stephen Lamport. References.