Love People! – Part 2

Continue reading “Love People! – Part 2”

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Love People! – Part 1

I’m currently in the process of hosting 4 conversations across Morecambe Bay on the following themes: ‘Love People’, ‘Love Society’, ‘Love Economics’ and ‘Love Politics’. We have people from all walks of society coming together to give space to imagine what life might be like if we built together on the foundations of love and kindness.

We decided to start the conversations off by talking about ‘Love People’ – because the reality is that unless we learn to really love people – which is gritty and hard at times, especially when it comes to loving those who are really different to us or even our enemies, we can never infuse society, economics or politics with a love that really brings transformation. Love like this requires deep forgiveness and serious guts! However, even loving those we consider our brothers and sisters can prove nigh on impossible at times and can even involve betrayal – how do we love through that?

We had a really rich day together. This blog has the first two inputs of the day (which helped form much of our conversation together). The next one will also let you in on the wonderful input from Sue Mitchell and others. Obviously – most of the day was left open for creative space and discussion – but I hope that these videos can give you a flavour of what we’re exploring and provoke some good conversations wherever you may be.

 

This first video is the opening, incredible contribution that Jaz Ampaw-Farr made to the whole process. Jaz lives with such amazing bravery, vulnerability and passion. She invites us to consider what it might mean to be 10% braver in how we love people – this is beautiful! Make yourself some time to enjoy!

 

This second video is the panel discussion, with some wonderful friends (Roger Mitchell, Jaz Ampaw-Farr, Siobhan Collingwood, Dave Higham and Mike Winter) followed some reflective questions which Jaz stirred in the room:

 

 

 

 

 

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Wisdom From My Nanna

Last week, I was on the closing plenary panel at The Kings Fund, as we reflected on what we had learned together about ‘PopulationHealth’ across the UK. There were some really excellent contributions throughout the day.

 

Councillor Matthew Brown, leader of Preston City Council, talked powerfully about the new economic models they are using there and the incredible regeneration they are seeing. Councillor Becky Charlwood, spoke about the great work being done across the city of Leeds and how strong relationships enable them to flex around complex legislation. Mayor Andy Burnham spoke with humility and realism about the power of devolution and the challenges they face as a city in Manchester in giving kids a great start in life and ending homelessness. Liz Gaulton, Director of Public Health in Coventry, spoke about how the Marmot principles are radically shaping the future plans of the city in thinking about inequalities and how they face them together. Prof Kate Ardern, from Wigan, talked about how we need to change our relationship with power and work radically differently with our communities. Prof Dominic Harrison from Blackburn brought his wisdom on how we face up to multiple unhealthy risk factors. Perhaps the most important contributions from my perspective were from Carina Crawford-Khan, lead organiser of Citizens UK and Dr Charlotte Augst, CEO of National Voices who asked us to reflect on how “Powerlessness leads to ill health” – that’s a statement worthy of pause and much reflection. Power is the ability to act. Anger without power leads to rage. So, if we don’t radically change our relationship with power, we can never see true population health – rather we have disempowered people who feel angry and unable to be part of the change we need to see.

 

The reality is that all of the things we long to see in society will not happen unless we ourselves are willing to change. In all the uncertainties we face and admidst the brokenness of our political and economic models, how do we stand firm and find a new way through to a way of being together that is socially just for humanity and sustainable for the future? In reflecting on all of this in the final panel, I drew on the wisdom of my Nanna.

 

My Nanna, Joyce, who is 97 years old this year and who still wakes every morning to play Mozart and Chopin on her beloved piano, has always been one of the most important people in my life. In our family, we call her “Yoda”, because she is strong in the force and exceedingly wise! This 5ft tall lady, who taught me to bake, spent hours helping me with my music and can still whip my butt at scrabble and rummikub, is a truly remarkable woman.

 

When I was a boy, we used to talk to each other whilst making ginger biscuits. My Nanna is a deeply spiritual woman and she used to tell me about her favourite bible verses, one of which is from the book of the Prophet Micah, Chapter 6 and verse 8. That verse says – “God has shown you the best way to live – act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God”. I think those three statements hold profound and ancient wisdom that we need to draw on in the complexities of what we face together now. What does that actually mean for us in practice, as we try and transform culture, relationships and behaviours? I suppose I think it’s pretty simple.

 

Firstly, as leaders and as people who want to see change, we must act with justice. We must care deeply about issues of injustice in our society and be willing to challenge it whenever we see it. But we must not just care, we must act. We have to be willing to put justice into practice in what we build. We’re beginning to see this, and it’s exciting!

 

Secondly, we must love mercy. I think that means we have to love the principle of mercy and therefore we have to love people with mercy, or as I put it at The Kings Fund, with real kindness. I love what Prof Micheal West says, when he talks about looking at people with kind and fascinated eyes. We did a lot of thinking about the need for a different kind of power. I think we need to unashamedly talk much more about love and the transformative power it holds. MLK said that love on it’s own is anaemic – it certainly can be. Power alone is destructive. But power and love together is a force to be reckoned with! We need this kind of love in the power that we hold to keep mercy at the fore and kindness as our way of being.

 

Thirdly, we need to walk in humility WITH our communities. I replace the word God here, with communities, not because I don’t believe in God (I do), but then Nanna and I used to talk, she would tell me that walking humbly with God means walking humbly with other people – with your community. It is worked out in the practice of every day life and being willing to interact with and be changed by the person you most look down on or despise. Nanna isn’t a fan of people getting too big for their boots. She sticks her tongue out at arrogance and blows raspberries at pride. She’s not into titles or pretensions. As a true elder, she knows humility and walks in it. I have learned so much from her and it has shaped so much of who I am and how I choose to spend my time. We must learn to sit with, be with, learn with and create the future with our communities. We don’t have the right to dream up plans and do them to people. Together with, is the kind of humble, mercy-loving, justice-acting way that we so badly need. Without those under-girding, foundational truths, we will never see true population health. Our guiding principles and undergirding culture will shape what we become together.

 

In a time of so much uncertainty and complexity, we do well to stop and draw on the wisdom of the elders. And so I offer that of my lovely Nanna – in all you do, make sure you act with justice, love with kindness and walk in humility with your community. 

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A Second Brexit Referendum Would be NO Failure of Democracy and is the Only Realistic Option Available

Sick of Brexit? Me too! But we are where we are, thanks to David Cameron asking us all a question, that most of us weren’t actually thinking about. If nothing else, the Brexit debacle has shown us that complicated issues cannot be dealt with by simple yes/no answers and our current political system is pretty defunct!

 

It seems the Prime Minister, Theresa May, unlikely to remain in her post for much longer, has

(Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

failed to find a way through the mine field of trying to please all sides. However had she been more collaborative and inclusive in her leadership style, reaching out across the house from the beginning of the negotiations, we might not be in quite such a mess.

 

We are now left with only 2 workable options. Realistically, there is no ‘deal’ that is going to make it through parliament. There is too much resistance from one faction or another to make that possible. Therefore, we EITHER leave the EU with no deal – something which would be potentially catastrophic for the people of Ireland (north and south) and indeed for the economy, at least in the short term, (which when you work in public services, including the NHS, after years of austerity, would be completely unacceptable ) OR we remain in the EU.

 

We certainly know far more now than we did when we voted a couple of years ago. When we voted last time, there were hyperbole and deception on both sides. We have proven that it is impossible to have a soft Brexit – it’s simply unworkable, due to the complexities and factions involved, and it basically means remaining in the EU but with far less influence. We are now much more clear about what the question actually is. So, we either leave with no deal and face the consequences, or we remain. The negotiations have failed, the options are now in front of us and there is no other way forward but to ask the people again.  We have now heard the arguments, we’ve participated in a much more detailed debate and so it is time to make sure that the British people really want to leave the EU, now that the terms are more clear. A General Election will offer us very little, especially as people seem overwhelmingly unsure of who to vote for! In my opinion, a 2nd referendum is now the only way we can clear up this mess. This is not a betrayal of democracy – it is democracy in action!

 

 

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Knife Attacks – Whose Crime Is It?

I find myself staring at the screen, unable to comprehend how utterly devastating it must be as a parent, to have a police officer knock on your door in the early hours of the morning, to be told that your darling child has been stabbed to death. My heart weeps for the senseless loss of life, young lives stolen away in this rising tide of violence. I know what it is like to break truly awful news to people and their families and my heart goes out to the police officers on the beat or the clinicians in the Emergency Department, who have to break the terrible news to the parents and the siblings, that so suddenly, a bright shining light in their lives, has been extinguished.

 

Knife attacks are a crime, there is no denying that, but the burden of guilt is not so easily apportioned. We are seeing an exponential rise of it in our streets, with a 93% increase in recent years across England, whilst in Scotland, they have seen a 64% decrease over a similar timeframe. We need to examine what has gone on in that time and ask some very uncomfortable questions. We also need to call people to account for decisions which have been made, despite knowing the evidence, and  we desperately need a ‘whole systems’ approach to tackling this epidemic.

 

The Primeminister has stated that “knife crime” is not linked to a decrease in policing numbers. The police chiefs disagree. The truth is, that it’s not only the police who have disappeared off our streets (and these are community police officers, who knew their communities well and were respected and trusted – it takes years to build up those kind of relationships) – we’ve had a perfect cocktail of cuts right across the board which is directly attributable to the mess we are now in. Ongoing austerity, which is a political choice, has also led to the closure of youth centres, more young people than ever excluded from school, (who then have a 200 times higher chance of being groomed into violent gangs) and massive cuts to public health and local government, meaning many preventative schemes have disappeared. When policy fails, it has to be called out and challenged. Everyone with a brain knows that prevention is better than cure. And for those who have lost loved ones, there is now no comfort – this could have been prevented, but has been allowed to escalate at such an alarming rate because we do not have a form of politics or leadership that listens to what is really going on in our communities, but continues to drive through ideological changes without thinking through the consequences. This is unacceptable.

 

When Heidi Allen MP came to Morecambe, she heard the testimony of my friend, Daniel, who grew up in some really tough circumstances, forced into a gang culture in order to help put food on the table and prevent harm coming to his family. Tears streamed down her face as she heard his powerful account of what it meant for him as a young person, to have his youth centre closed, his local high school closed and being told he was not a priority when he was street homeless. She told us that she had not realised the layers to the poverty that many are experiencing across England. And this is how the (perhaps) unintended consequences of remote policy decisions affect ordinary people in droves across the UK. When school budgets are cut and mental health teams are cut and social care provision is cut and youth centres are cut, children and young people from home environments which are already struggling to make ends meet, already processing significant trauma and adversity, fall prey to gangs and criminal networks who use them and abuse them for their gains across county lines.

 

And yet in Scotland, we are seeing an altogether different picture emerging, because they saw this problem 10 years ago and decided to make a difference by dealing with complex living systems, rather than tinkering clumsily with mechanistic thinking. So it is high time that England ate some humble pie and learnt from our Celtic friends.

 

Scotland, unlike the English, are not delaying on taking a serious approach to Adverse Childhood Experiences, hoping to become the first fully trauma informed nation in the world. They have taken a public health, holistic approach to the knife crime problems in Glasgow and then spread the learning across the nation, rather than making devastating cuts to their PH budgets. What they have done isn’t rocket science – it’s plain, public health common sense. They have chosen not to criminalise, label and stigmatise young people (something the hostile environment rhetoric seems to do). They have refused to see it as a race problem – because it isn’t (but some in our press in particular, and some members of the government have stirred up this nonsense anyway) and they have invested in early and effective youth intervention programmes, amongst other things.

 

One of things my work has taught me to do, is suspend my judgements of those who we would automatically and ordinarily point the finger at, the supposed perpetrators of a crime, and really listen to the truth. The truth here is complex and I’m not saying that people who commit violent acts do not need to face the consequences of their actions. They do. But what I am saying is that we need restorative justice in our communities that breaks this horrendous cycle. We also need to recognise that there has been terrible violence done to our most vulnerable children and young people across England by a series of political decisions. The government has failed those it should have protected. In my line of work, those kind of errors would lead to massive learning events and the dismissal of those who had failed in their leadership. Perhaps people have such little faith in the political system we have because there is seemingly such little accountability. Now is not the time for silly political defence of failure. Now is the time for humility, repentance and a genuine turning of the hearts of the fathers and mothers in the nation to the rising generation, far too many of whom are no longer with us.

 

 

 

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Adam Smith Was Wrong!

I have recently been at a brilliant gathering of people, down in Sussex, called ‘Sparks’. I always find it to be one of the more helpful imaginariums which I spend time at and love the diversity of the people who come. What follows is some learning I’ve taken from my good friend, Mark Sampson and his fabulous PhD thesis.

 

Adam Smith famously stated: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

 

Like Mark, I disagree with him! I do not believe that self-interest is the basis for individual interaction and whatever we are told, the unrestrained free market is not benevolent!

 

We have allowed economic language not only to inform reality, but to create it. The language and vocabulary of economics is performative – it creates the world around us. Why would we think that self-interested economics will lead to goodness in society when we do not believe that in other parts of society or our own lives? It is not true of our relationships in our families nor in our friendships, so why do we allow a split mindset in how we think about work?

 

Some economists (Robertson and Summers) have argued that we should promote self-interest in policies and act out of this same motive in business, but altruism in other areas of our life, like our family and charitable work. This is ludicrous!

 

As Kate Raworth has so eloquently demonstrated, this current model of economics is dividing us, isolating us and slowly destroying us. It may, in some ways have gotten us to where we are, but it is neither capable nor kind enough to give us the future that will lead to a more connected and healed society and a more sustainable planet. Enlightenment thinking holds very little light for us now. And so, it is time to let it go, to lament its failure and discover together a new language and a more sustainable model for a reimagined future. Some of this requires exchanging the language of scarcity to one of abundance, renouncing the doctrine of growth for one of equilibrium, repenting of our obsession with competition and embracing relationship and collaboration and replacing self-interest with the notion of gift, reciprocity and mutuality.

 

This requires us to dig deeper into a spirituality and a paradigm shift in our thinking which embraces incongruity! The beauty of mutuality is that it recognises that there is personal benefit to the giver as well as the receiver in any gift-exchange interaction and it strengthens the bond of relationship. Since I watched the Christopher Robin movie, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about upsidedown triangles. Our current economies are built in pyramids, with those at the top “earning” and holding absolutely vast sums of money. What if we gave our most and prioritised those considered at the bottom as the most important? In the NHS we think a lot about ‘equality and diversity’ but often do little about it. For example, most of our waiting rooms and clinical environments are incredible unfriendly for people who have an autistic spectrum condition (ASC). What if, when designing these spaces, we didn’t tag on some kind of tick-box exercise afterwards to show we’ve considered people with ‘disability’ in a vague sense, but actually put them at the forefront of our thinking and planning? What if people living with ASC were at the very forefront of our planning decisions? Incongruous, perhaps, but a different kind of economy, which feels to me to be altogether kinder.

 

In my last blog, I explored how it is isolation (and competition caused by our need to try and overcome our human limitations) which cases poverty. What might we imagine together of an economy in which we prioritise relationships first, and worked together WITH those often left at the bottom of the pile or tagged on as an after thought? What might our planning cycles be like, if we slowed things down and really collaborated WITH our communities and truly considered all the benefits of mutuality? I believe we are at a moment in which the facades are well and truly down. We can see more clearly than ever just how broken our current economic system is, the true effects of putting our faith in the ‘free market’ to create a fair society and a sustainable planet and the realities of allowing our policies to be shaped on the notion of self-interest. It would be insane for us to continue with such a broken model, but it will take ongoing bravery to undo it’s myth in our minds, breakdown the strongholds of the many vested interests and to be part of a corporate reimagining of something based on mutuality and even incongruity!

 

In the end, I believe that when we deal with our root issues and become more healed, we are far more motivated by love than self-interest – and I see this every day! We are made in the image of God but allow ourselves to believe much less of ourselves. To quote Charles Eisenstein, “it is time for us to tell a more ancient and far more beautiful story which our hearts tell us is possible.” What if Milton Friedman was wrong and the business of business is not business? I know that may seem ridiculous, but what if the business of business is to ensure that every life matters, that we are more connected and living in a more sustainable way? What if it was the business of business to make real what really matters to us all? What else might a reimagined business of business be? And what effect might that have on how we think about economics and how we collaborate for a more mutually beneficial society and planet? I think we see this in many models and forms of business already. There are some wonderfully ethical and gentle businesses – I think this is especially true of smaller businesses where relationships are both vital and strong. It is the impersonal banking sector in particular, built on an economy of debt, with multi-lateral corporate giants that holds us prisoner.

 

The reason I am writing about this on this blog is that so much of our health and wellbeing is governed by our philosophy of economics and it is the language of economics which shapes so much of our thinking and reality. So, be careful how you speak about it, find some better words and let’s begin to shape a new future together for the sake of the wellbeing of humanity and the planet!

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Truth about Poverty

One of the best things I have been involved in over the last few years, is the Poverty Truth Commission and it has helped me to learn just how utterly complex and wicked poverty is as an issue. I’m currently reading an absolutely brilliant book by the theologian Samuel Wells, called ‘The Nazareth Manifesto’. In it, he makes the most accurate diagnosis of poverty that I have ever seen and it rings true of my work in clinical practice, my years of helping out in homeless projects in Manchester, my time spent in Sub-Saharan Africa, the poverty truth commission and my involvement in projects around food poverty.

 

Wells recognises the biggest issues in our society right now are caused by our massive obsession with mortality and our drive to overcome our human limitations. Using poverty as an example, he goes on to demonstrate that none of our current under-girding political or economic philosophies will get us even close to addressing the real issue. Our real issue is that we are isolated and dislocated and our breakdown in relationship leads to the deep sickness that we have in society right now. I don’t think I have ever seen this United Kingdom so utterly divided and truthfully, none of our current available options will bring us the unity we need to heal, forgive and find an altogether kinder and more sustainable future, together. It is our division which leads to the stark contrasts in life expectancy of people who live just six miles apart in Morecambe Bay. It is our dislocation that leads to such different life stories in Chelsea from the people who so tragically lost their lives in Grenfell. It is the disconnection between the City of London and Tower Hamlets that allows such gulf between the rich and poor.

 

When we look at the NHS 10 year plan, (apart from the fact that there isn’t the workforce around to deliver it and our local government budgets have been so utterly decimated that the gaping hole in public health and social care will ensure the plan fails), it is based on a defunct philosophy of needing to overcome our limitations. The NHS cannot save us from our current sickness of separation and isolation and nor can we expect it to.

 

Taking the example of poverty, Wells examines our current motifs for explaining this very complex issue and what it shows us about society. Poverty is currently explained through either Deficit or Dislocation. The ‘deficit metaphor’ can be illustrated in three ways:

  1. The desert narrative explains that people are poor because the do not have enough (of whatever) and so this can be ‘fixed’ by transferring resources. However, he shows this is deeply flawed as a parable because it dehumanises those who live in poverty, creating an ‘us and them’ mentality in which the rich/powerful try and fix the issue via ‘quasi-colonial’ approaches or use things like food aid to effectively control local populations in abusive ways.
  2. The defeat narrative focuses more on winners and losers and takes quite an unhealthy emphasis on the role of ‘personal responsiblity’ without really considering the other very complex factors like public policy and housing prices….
  3. The dragnet narrative is what the Millenium Development Goals are actually based on (see ‘The End of Poverty’ by Jeffrey Sachs) and considers poverty to be a dragnet/trap which makes it impossible for the poorest to even get onto the bottom rung of the ladder so people can climb out. It focuses on redistribution of wealth via 0.7% of GDP but is very paternalistic and is about doing to or working for, rather than a collaborative ‘together with’ approach.

The ‘dislocation metaphor’ likewise can be understood in triplicate:

1. The dungeon narrative explains poverty not as scarcity but as sin. It is either due to the sin of people who unjustly lock up the poor through their own greed and unfair policies. Or it is understood as the sin of people through making bad choices and therefore ending up trapped in their own prison. However, it still relies on external factors to fix it and so generally remains highly paternalistic.

2. The disease narrative explains poverty as a sickness which lives in our relationships, communities and societies. It recognises that, just like disease, poverty is extremely complex and multifactoral and so does not focus on apportioning blame.

3. The desolation narrative focusses on symptoms>causes, for example how the reality of poverty has a far greater effect globally on women than men – leading to major injustice, oppression and abuse of women across the globe.

 

Wells argues that the reality of poverty, whether local or global is primarily due to isolation and our obsession with mortality and overcoming human limitation is actually making our isolation even worse and therefore making us more sick. And for Wells, poverty is not fundamentally about the absence of money or the lack of conventional forms of power (although this is a part of it), but it is far more about the impoverishment, the industrialisation, the manipulation, the breakdown or the perversion of relationship. It is our isolation from one another that leads to exasperation, impatience, the pointing of fingers, blame and the villifation of ‘the other’. Just look at the polarisation on twitter between the right and left and the appalling name calling and slinging of mud and you see exactly what I mean.

 

The reality is that neither of our increasingly polarised political options is going to heal us or help us find a future that will be good for humanity or the planet. Our political ideologies are so opposed between liberty (right wing) and equality (left wing) but neither is equipped to help us break through this curse of isolation and find a new way forward together. I believe that we have reached a critical point in which we need to find an altogether kinder, more compassionate and collaborative politics and economics that is based first of all on humble listening and genuine democratic conversation to help us find a way forward together, rather than this current division and hatred. I believe as we find each other and build relationships (something which social media can so easily rob us of), we come to appreciate our different perspectives, learn from each other and find that we actually care about each other. I know, for sure, that by learning to BE WITH rather than DO TO or even WORK FOR has really changed how I see others and how I believe we can build a fairer and kinder society for everyone. It demands humility and forgiveness, based on a self-giving, others-empowering love as we build positive peace and requires of us, personal change and the dealing with our own self-centredness as we discover the beauty of connectedness to all people and all things. Theology shapes a great deal more of our philosophy and life together than many of us would care to accept! Well’s thesis is that the character of God is first and foremost discovered in these four words: ‘God is with us’. So often we think of people having a ‘God-complex’ who are people who think they know everything and do things to people because they know how to fix things. It smacks of arrogance. What if God isn’t like that at all? What if the most important thing to God is being with people? What if ‘being with’ is where it’s at and ‘doing to’ and ‘working for’ is to miss the point of what it means for us to be human and whole?

 

I wonder if we are brave enough to let go of that which is actually killing us and the planet and begin to find an altogether different way forward, together. Isolated, we die. Together we live.

 

 

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Health and Society

Every year I get to give a guest lecture at UCLAN medical school on health and society. Here is my lecture from this year – always a moving feast and next year it will be different. It’s about an hour long, so makes good as a podcast, if you’re interested! Mainly aimed at doctors in training, but I hope is interesting for all! I cover the wider issues like: why we’re currently losing, social determinants of health, poverty, choice and responsiblity, social movement, new power, humility, kindness and various other things! UCLAN is a new medical school and I love their approach to teaching. You’ll need to copy and paste the link below into a new browser to hear the lecture and view the slides.

 

https://vls.uclan.ac.uk/Play/34633

 

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To Hull and Back

Last week I had the complete joy (except for the awfulness that is the M6 and M62!) of heading over to Hull to speak at a gathering of Public Health and Public Sector people from across Yorkshire, The Humber and The East Riding, called “Minding the Gap”, hosted by the amazing Ian Copley. In my next blog, I will give the podcast of what I said and written piece, for those who prefer that format, about Population Health and the realities we are currently facing.

 

However, I thought it just worth reflecting on a really interesting lecture I heard by Prof Franco Bianchini from Hull University (https://www.hull.ac.uk/work-with-us/research/institutes/culture-place-and-policy-institute/culture-place-and-policy-institute.aspx) on the impact of Hull being European City of Culture 2017. It was amazing to see this little video, presented by the excellent Director of Public Health, Julia Weldon (https://www.yhphnetwork.co.uk/about-us/julia-weldon/), and to hear of so many wonderful, creative, life-giving, community-building initiatives that happened all over the City and the beautiful stories of people celebrating the history and many facets of this place. 

 

The sense of wellbeing and happiness in the City increased significantly during that year (not much of a surprise) and the injection of finance into Hull gave opportunity for some creative regeneration and fantastic projects. Unfortunately, since 2017, the overall sense of Wellbeing and happiness has now fallen to below what it was in the years preceding Hull as the City of Culture. What a shame! And interestingly, if you study other Cities that host Olympics, Commonwealth Games, or have other similar initiatives, you see the same pattern over and over. The hype wanes, the carnival moves on and what is left?

 

There is so much we can learn from this, if we want to. Firstly, if we only plan for an event and do not think about it as an agent of transformation for the future, then we risk sowing huge promise and then once the event finishes, things just go back to being the same old, breeding disappointment and disillusionment. This must be taken into account in the planning. Becoming a City of Culture gives the opportunity for a City to come together, not only for an event, but to turn the future of the city, releasing dreams of what it can become. This requires much wider ownership and community conversations about keeping the momentum and building on it. Secondly, leaders across the city need to own the future and hold true to the principles, especially once the funding is withdrawn. It’s really sad that the vast majority of schools have not felt able to continue the great initiatives in the creative arts or sports, which began and were having a great effect on children and young people’s physical and mental health, due to the pressures they feel around delivery of the curriculum. Surely there was an opportunity to reimagine the whole realm of what education might look like in the City of Hull, aligned to the values of the City and its hope for the future?

 

In the Jewish tradition, at certain points along their journey from Egypt to Israel, the people would build an ‘Ebenezer’. It was a pile of stones to mark a certain point on their journey that would help them remember what was past and what they were looking forward to. It was more than a monument. It was a stake in the ground which called to memory where they had come from, what they had been through but also opened up an altogether different future. My hope for Hull, is that 2017 City of Culture becomes an Ebenezer for the city, something they can look back on and say – “that’s when things really began to change, that’s when we celebrated our past but began to build a new future together, a city that really works for everyone and the environment we live in!” I fear, however, that the opposite will be true….a temporary flash in the pan and then back to the same old, same old……

 

I hope with all my heart that it isn’t too late for Hull to regain this momentum and despite the lack of funding (although this begs whole new questions about devolution) for the city to take hold of the promise of what could be. I also really hope that Coventry (the city of my birth) really hears and learns from the lessons of Hull and begins now to think of being the City of Culture 2021 to springboard into a new future for the city, rather than have yet another event that feels good in the moment, but does not bring the transformation of the City that is so desperately needed. Now is the time for Coventry to dream and to think creatively about what this opportunity really might become. 

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How Do We Build a City That Works For Everyone?

I recently hosted a couple of conversations for people in the city of Lancaster, UK, in which we explored this question together: “How Do We Build a City that Works for Everyone?” We framed the conversation (which we had using a ‘World Café’)from two current and important concepts. Firstly, the great work of Kate Raworth in ‘Doughnut Economics’ – how do we create a city that is socially just for the people who live here and that is environmentally sustainable for the future? In other words, how do we ensure we have an economy that is distributive and regenerative by design? Secondly, we drew on the important work of Sandro Galea (Professor of Epidemiology at Boston State) and his concept of the Goldfish bowl as a way of thinking about ‘Population Health’ or Epidemiology (see my last blog). Politics IS health, according to Galea.

 

One of my favourite quotes is from Einstein, when he said that “If I had 60 minutes to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes trying to find the right question and then I could solve the problem in 5 minutes.” It turns out that the question we used itself is problematic at a few levels! Here are some of the questions we found ourselves wrestling with: Do we need to build the city, when it is already here?! What do we really mean by ‘the city’ – is it people and communities or more than that? What do we mean by ‘works for’? That felt to some like we were settling for something that was just enough, maybe scraping by, rather than thriving! And who do we mean by everyone?! This didn’t stop us having a a great discussion, but highlights how powerful the perspectives and biases we bring into the room can be!

 

Despite not having a perfect question, (and hopefully, by the time we host 3 much bigger conversations across the city during 2019, we may have honed something more helpful!), some key themes emerged, through our generative conversation. 

 

  1. Relationships are vital! We want to live in a city which really does “work” for everyone. So, we want to give value to the currently unheard voices and we want to value diversity and inclusivity. Taking time to get to know neighbours and colleagues grows a richness of community. We want to live in a city that values love and kindness in how we treat ourselves and other people.
  2. We need to build on the amazing assets and skills that we already have in the city. If we made space and time to discover and share these skills with each other more, we would develop a richer life experience within our communities. This is an expression of ‘gift economy’ and ‘reciprocity’, which Charles Eisenstein writes powerfully about in his book ‘Sacred Economics’). It builds on voluntary power, and may require a reimagining of how we work and what we value in how we invest our time, energy and resources. We also have so many incredible physical assets in this area, which we don’t tap into enough or perhaps make fully accessible for all who live in the city.
  3. People want to be part of the change, not have change happen to them! This requires much better engagement and democratic discussion about how budgets are spent, for example or how land is developed. Somehow, there needs to be a better safeguarding against ‘invested interests’ and ‘dodgy deals’ with far more transparency about how decisions are made. Such a process, it is believed, would enable far better personal and corporate responsibility when it comes to caring for the fabric of the city and the people who live here, similar to what has been developed in Wigan. There was a recognition that when we talk about personal choice and responsibility that this is much more possible for some people and communities than others. However, it was felt that increasing self-esteem and a sense of belonging would enable more personal responsibility and choice.
  4. Housing really matters. The physical environment is actually causing fragmentation and silos. There were many more questions than answers here – but that’s ok – this is an iterative process, and we don’t have to solve everything in one go. So…how do we create really good social housing? How could we redesign the spaces of the city to encourage togetherness and community? How do protect green spaces in the process and take care of the city’s drainage (strong memories of the recent floods)? How could we ensure that everyone has a home to live in, and what might that mean for both the homeless and also for single people?
  5. We want an education system that really values the unique beauty of each child, treats each one with compassion, mindful of what traumas they may be experiencing and values creativity and activity in education just as much as academic outcomes. We care about who our children become, not just about what exams they pass. So we recognise that we have a measurement problem but we’re not quite sure yet what to do about it! 
  6. We need to invest in our children and young people by providing physical spaces in which our young people can feel safe and not bored! Many have been affected by the closure of children’s and youth centres. If we are to really invest in our children and young people, there was a sense that we also need to provide parenting classes across the board to pregnant couples and through ‘family centres’ and schools across the district.
  7. We want to create a greater sense of value for our older citizens. There were many people present who felt they have things to offer, but don’t have an obvious outlet. Involving those retired from paid work more in the life of the city would break isolation and feed the gift economy. 
  8. Business needs to thrive in a way that really values entrepreneurial gift and allows it to flourish, whilst holding it true to the ideas and principles of the doughnut and the goldfish! How could the business community serve the needs of the city and how can the city enable business to really thrive, creating jobs, whilst caring for the environment and the needs of the people who live here? Kate Raworth’s work could really help us!
  9. Transport systems need to be redesigned to encourage more cycling and walking or the use of green public transport alternatives. Transport routes also need to join up our communities more effectively to improve opportunities for those who live in areas that are currently more financially deprived. 
  10. If we are to really improve health and wellbeing and care for the environment, then we need to see this written into EVERY policy decision. If politics IS health, as per Sandro Galea, then we need to take this seriously and stop making policies which do not care for these things.
  11. We want to be part of city that does welfare well! We think there are many possible new ways of doing things more effectively, as described in Hilary Cottam’s book, ‘Radical Help – Reimagining the Welfare State’. One of the things felt to be important is increasing skills in money management (85% of people living in social housing in this district are in debt to the city council -though this is certainly not only due to poor money management , but an unjust system that isn’t working for the majority). Morecambe Bay Credit Union offers an alternative economy as a way of using micro finance in our local geography.
  12. We need better ways to communicate and connect people together. There is smart, digital technology that could help us here….perhaps a Lancaster portal, that connects us together more effectively and helps facilitate the sharing of our assets and gifts.

 

Wowsers! Not bad for 2 conversations of 90 minutes each! Just imagine what a phenomenal city Lancaster might become over the next 10-20 years, if we set out on a journey together to build this kind of city! What is stopping us, I wonder?! #enoughnow #togetherwecan

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