Strayside Sunday is our weekly political opinion column. It is written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party. 

Something different this week from me this week.  A bit of a manifesto actually.

Having spent the last two weekends in the company of my adult daughters, I’m struck by the uncertainties they now face.  When covid struck, Daughter 1 was furloughed; then, when it was realised that her employment had commenced too late to participate in the scheme, she was placed on 50% salary. And then, perhaps inevitably, she was made redundant.  In the past month she has applied for more than 100 jobs, but to no avail; I suspect her experience is no different from that of hundreds of thousands of young people across the country.

Daughter 2 is now well into her third year of drama school; a middle-class child at a private university.  She’s a worker (her father is from mill working stock) and earns money in her spare time working behind the bar at a pub.  I’m afraid she’d better get used to it. As things currently stand, little opportunity for graduates is afforded by the arts and culture sector.  In common with so many others, her sector is in crisis.

As a parent, I encourage, I console and I subsidise.

So, instead of sounding off from the cheap seats about the actions and intentions of others I feel compelled to set down some of my own views, such as they are, about how, in the age of covid, we need to think about repairing and renewing ourselves, each other and our society.  And make no mistake, the economic and knock on social consequences of the pandemic will last at least a generation.  We are emphatically not “post” covid and we won’t be for a very long time.

My view is that we need to take this time to think on and think deep, to re-examine the beliefs we have lived by heretofore and to ask ourselves whether or not they are fit for purpose, let alone fit to create a world we would want for our children and theirs.

My daughters, and yours, face a new reality.  Their vista is nowhere near as pretty and compelling as my own was, thirty years ago.  Surely we have a responsibility to ask ourselves what can we do to make things better for them?

In this column I want to outline three broad subject areas – inclusive growth, health and wellbeing and justice - to which I’ll return in future weeks, to explore in more detail and to place in local context.  Additionally, in the age of the NHS Test & Trace App, I will touch on the dangers of the disruption caused by data and technology, if its benefits for capital are not balanced by a consideration for people.  Technology is here, let’s give it a purpose.

So, for the record, I believe a good and prosperous society is one where economic growth is not, de facto, good.  Inclusive economic growth - in which people can participate and engage actively in meaningful work, benefit fully from the fruits of that work,  and be valued by both employer and government, with true agency in their economic and social relationships - builds better communities. Communities that thrive, rather than simply grow.

I believe that good health and wellbeing for people and children is a right to enjoy; governments and business are responsible for that achievement. Those rights bring responsibilities, so people must play their full part in looking after themselves.  If covid has taught us anything, we must cherish our NHS, it’s our first and foremost democratic privilege. It is not simply an entitlement.

And I believe that justice should be available equally and for all, unconstrained by means, social standing or personal health histories. In turn, people have a responsibility to do the right thing.  During lockdown most of us behaved properly (most of the time).  Now, as we begin to feel the vice grip of restriction tighten on our movements and liberty; behavioural compliance is slipping - part fatigue, part defiance, on any view, wrong.

As we seek to build a good society, technology, data and artificial Intelligence are revolutionising democracy, the work of government, public service provision, human relationships and community fabric (whether these are ‘place-based’ or ‘of interest’). Further, data and technology are revolutionising traditional business models, their fundamental economics and the value-exchange (what we each get from the deal) they provide with consumers like you and me.

At the moment, technology is being harnessed almost exclusively for the good of capital.  This balance needs to change; because technology offers us opportunities to make things better for all by connecting people through technology to tackle social exclusion blight, solitude and unwarranted loneliness; by using data insights and understanding  to strengthen the human “ties that bind” people together in community; and by promoting data rights and agency to empower people in our new digital economy and in their relationship with government.

I could be wrong. I often am. But if we don’t anchor our values and the way we behave in new modes of thinking, the future looks bleak indeed.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Next Sunday Paul will be taking a break -  Strayside Sunday will return on October 11th. 

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