For several years now, many people across the UK have been calling for a ‘new politics’ and ‘new economics’. There is a growing weariness with the current systems, behaviours and ideologies which are incapable to give us the future we need – a future in which we take climate change, the sustainability of the planet and social justice really seriously.
So, what hope do TIGgers offer us? I had the pleasure of meeting Heidi Allen MP a couple of weeks ago, when she came to Morecambe with Frank Field MP to better understand the issues of poverty and in particular the effects of government policy on the lives of human beings. I watched her sit and really listen to my friend, Daniel Burba, with tears streaming down her face, as he told his gut-wrenching story of lived-experience of poverty and how he deserved to be treated as a person with a name and not a mere number or statistic. I watched her quit the Conservative party, citing the failure of the government to make any difference to the issues of poverty, but rather to have worsened them. I admire politicians who are willing to really listen to what is going in commmunities, examine whether or not policies are actually working or in fact deeply failing people and be willing to make changes accordingly. People with lived experience of poverty are fed up to the back teeth of being told that policies are working, when they live on the receiving end of the harsh realities involved.
And so, now we have the formation of this new “Independent Group” – an interesting mixture of MPs who have, for a variety of reasons formed together on the ‘centre ground’ of British politics. But is this the new politics? Well….if anything helps break up the dominant 2-party, first past the post system with less braying across the isles, then maybe we can get somewhere towards it. If it models a new way of building relationships, then all the better!
But do TIGgers really signify a genuine shift towards a new politics for the people and the planet, a politics based on love and kindness, and politics of collaboration and genuine listening and care, a politics that is together with, not to or for or over? I’m not sure it can be – for such a politics can not be ‘independent’ but must be ‘interdependent’. Such a politics cannot rely on such a broken economic model as neoliberalism but be willing to make a shift into the doughnut, ensuring business can thrive in a way that does not mean destruction of the planet or a widening of inequalities! Nor can it be agnostic over the issues of climate change. It needs to mean the breakdown of powerful lobby groups and a more open, honest and accountable way of operating.
No, a new politics and economics will enable us to truly face up to our colonial past and the ‘hostile environment’ we have created and instead help bring communities together to build relationships and embrace interculturalism on a foundation of self-giving, others-empowering love and kindness. It will put the environment and social justice front and centre. It will ensure we focus on age old inequalities, and ensure that no child goes hungry and every life matters. It will build the health of people and the planet into every policy decision and co-create a more flexible education system that is a work of art. It will be more honest about the resources we have available and be collaborative with communities about how we use them best. It will be humble in its approach to International relationships and development, looking to build positive peace.
I am a tigger, but not a TIGger. ‘TIG’ does not yet signify the new politics we are looking for, but at least it is calling for it – and that is very welcome.
I have waited a while to write this post. It follows on in the series I started on this topic. It seems clear that the Brexit vote was about three key elements: taking control (whatever that means) of our own money, our own laws and our own immigration. I hope to write another blog on those three things another time, but in this time of transition, we must ask ourselves some questions about the kind of future we want to co-create.
I have to say that when I look at our education system, I am both heartened and dismayed. I am heartened by the amazing quality of teachers across the UK, but I am dismayed by how they are treated as a profession by our mainstream press. I am heartened by the quality of our children and young people and the hopeful possibilities they carry, but I am dismayed by the increased burden of mental health problems many of them suffer. I am heartened that there is so much great thought around education and a shared learning between nations about how to release the potential in each child, but I am dismayed by the lack of application of this learning within the UK. I am heartened that there is an increasing realisation that Ofsted reports can offer only a small snapshot of what goes on in any school and are not a fair representation of all that goes on in any one institution, but I am dismayed by our growing measurement problem. By this I mean that the constant scoring and grading of our children and young people and the comparisons made between our various schools is so detrimental to their development and achievement that we ought to seriously consider the weight it is allowed to carry in our education systems. When our children and young people are some of the least happy in Europe and live in a country where the gap between the richest and poorest, both in terms of economics and educational ‘outcomes’ is one of the worst in Europe, we have to ask ourselves some searching questions.
worthy of love and full of potential. Let’s also recognise that our education system now is one of the few things that has not evolved since the time of the Industrial Revolution and is itself in need of serious renewal and transformation. In Germany, they have managed to elevate practical skills and knowledge to that of intellect. This has given them the ability as a nation to have a much more diverse economy, especially investing in green technologies and manufacturing in a way that cares for the future. In Finland, they have a reverence for the teaching profession that we would do well to adopt here. We need to think of teaching as a sacred gift and it needs to be taken this seriously by those who pursue it as a career. A Head Teacher I know recently told me that she no longer needs teachers who see themselves as having a job, but those who understand that teaching is a vocation and a calling. It is about being willing to parent a generation, not just fill them with knowledge.
not to divide but to build community, not to prepare human beings to be fodder for the economic machine but to ensure the economy serves them to be live a life of hope-filled potential. As with healthcare, we need to de-politicise the education system, hold dear in our hearts those given to teach, caring for their wellbeing and minding how we speak of them. We must partner with them and entrust them with our precious caterpillars as they hold them through the great metamorphosis that is learning before they spread their wings and make their flight to shine like stars in a future sky that the rest of us will never see.
reimaginingthefuture 