About three years ago I was told first hand by someone closely involved in propaganda for the new government, that a group of officials had made a visit to Finland to collect examples of big society behaviour. The prize specimen, most proudly displayed in conversation on their return, was to do with groups of residents who filled the potholes in their own roads. Apparently this was it. The great Cameronian idea was that citizens did not feel they had to depend on their local authority to repair their roads: they got together and did it themselves. I waited for some explanation as to why this made sense, but none was forthcoming – the story just stopped there, as if it was self-evidently beneficial all round. Outside my window this afternoon, a truck drew up. Two men got out and took about 10 minutes to effect a thorough repair to a glaring pothole. I have reasonable confidence that they knew what they were doing, having done it before. Some of my neighbours might know what to do – what ingredients to use, what mix, what order they should go in, the optimum temperature for the sealing tar, etc – but I certainly wouldn’t. If asked to make a contribution to those costs, I wouldn’t really want to have to make another contribution in a year’s time because we got it wrong. I take reassurance from the fact that the highways department, whose decisions are monitored more or less thoroughly by democratically elected representatives, is in a position to know what is needed, can buy the materials in bulk, has access to experienced workers who do quite a lot of this county-wide, and can carry out quality control. I’m no more expert on economics than the folk in the Treasury seem to be, but I believe the phrase ‘economies of scale’ is relevant here. The local state is the logical steward for maintaining our roads, and fortunately the folly of the pothole-filling principle never took root. As with the hugely expensive privatisation of services, I think the overall point is that this government wouldn’t want an ideological obsession to be obstructed by the possibility of doing things more efficiently, fairly and less expensively. Continue reading

Since the global economy went wonky in 2008 I’ve been noticing plenty of signs where poverty becomes apparent in previously unexpected places. Comfortable looking estates and smug blocks of flats with the mild signs of decay, here and there, the wrong peeling of paper, half-hearted front doors and crap on the lawn, and households dropping off the pointed pace of consumer life, some of us end up looking like disoriented ragged joggers who have strayed onto the track in the Olympic 10k final. Now here’s an article in Cities today on the evidence of suburban poverty in the US. It covers the work of researchers Alan Berube and Elizabeth Kneebone, who stress the importance of regional responses because anti-poverty policies designed for dense urban areas ‘transplant poorly onto suburbia’: ‘We’ve seen that the suburban safety net – it’s much thinner, it’s much patchier, and it’s spread over greater distances.’ There’s also a reference to the part played by transport systems in the coming period: ‘It's significantly harder to address poverty through transportation when low-income households in need of it live dispersed over larger areas. Suburbs also simply lack the built-in networks of service providers that have grown up over decades in inner-city communities.’ I will go on pointing out, because I think it's important to do so, that in the UK this austerity is at best unnecessary and a puerile, and very nasty, form of ideological folly. Who can possibly need more evidence? I was speaking last week to someone who still thought that austerity economics was a justifiable response to ‘Labour’s excessive spending.’ Sigh. Continue reading

Civic involvement is an enduring ‘worthy-but-dull’ theme of social policy discourse. The school curriculum is currently a bit of a policy hot potato. What do you get if you bring the two together? Some schools struggle to deliver anything much beyond the core curriculum, while the fact that there are so many old Etonians in positions of power and influence is explained by an ‘ethos of public service.’ Here’s a report of research into Creating citizenship communities, published last week, which investigated the thinking and actions of young people and professionals in schools about ‘forms of citizenship that relate to strong communities’: ‘There appears to be a disconnect between school discourse around the importance of community and civic engagement, and what is taught in schools. Citizenship education is not always viewed as a subject that is taken seriously by schools. Young people in this study did not feel that teaching about community and citizenship fully prepared them to take an active part in their school or local communities. ‘Young people have strong opinions on what schools can do to recognise the contributions they already make to their communities, as well as to support young people in engaging in civic action. These include building positive links with other schools in their community; actively encouraging interaction between different groups of pupils within and outside of school; making sure that opportunities to get involved with in- and out-of-school projects are equally available to all students; and taking an interest in pupils’ lives beyond the school gates.’ Continue reading

So in Wales they have appointed a ‘Poverty Minister,’ the excellent Huw Lewis. His aim is to ensure that the government machine ‘turns to face the people caught up in the poverty statistics.’ Ah yes, when it comes to addressing poverty statistics, the rest of the UK gets this chap, known for his use of what Fry would call ‘terminological inexactitude’ regarding statistics. Continue reading

England seems to be shifting from being a rather right-wing country to a frighteningly right-wing country. JRF research published the other day shows not just that ‘the public has become increasingly likely to say that individual characteristics rather than societal issues cause poverty;’ but also that this is largely accounted for by a shift in attitudes among voters on the left. In 1986 the proportion of Labour voters who cited social injustice as the main cause of poverty was 41 per cent: in 2011 it was just 27 per cent. Never mind, let’s see what’s in the news to cheer us up. How about this? A brand new UK Independence Party councillor, Eric Kitson, has made racist ‘jokes’ and shared ‘a cartoon of Muslim people being burnt at the stake with copies of the Koran fuelling the flames’, on his Facebook page. The following sentence seems to be his explanation for why Ukip have not suspended him: ‘I'm not a politician - I'm a bit of a fool really.’ Meanwhile, Colin Brewer, the previously mentioned independent councillor in Cornwall who said that disabled children should be put down, apparently was re-elected in the same round of elections: according to the Indy, ‘with 335 votes – a winning margin of four votes.’ Brewer compared disabled children with deformed lambs that are dealt with at birth by ‘smashing them against a wall.’ His presence on the candidate list would certainly get me out to the polling station. In both cases, I’m perversely curious about whether some voters put their cross against these names without at least some understanding of what they stood for. The logic of democracy means that you have to believe that a majority of those who voted for these people knew what they were doing. Something is very rotten in the state of England. Continue reading

Now things have quietened down a bit, what can we say about the questioning of neighbourliness around 2207 Seymour Ave in Cleveland Ohio? Don’t blame the neighbours; avoid knee-jerk conjuring of halcyon historic community; and take mental health more seriously. Exhibit A is the cliché of American ‘community’ life, half-heartedly examined by Rupert Cornwell in the Indy for instance: ‘Cleveland has somehow given the lie to all this. If communities are supposed to look after their own, this particular one failed.’ I think it must be a bewildering, deeply disturbing experience for the neighbours concerned and I don’t see that it helps to clobber them with a sense of having let the side down. As I wrote a year ago with reference to such contexts, the experience of local people may be complicated by a sense of guilt mixed with cruel deception: ‘Can we understand how it felt in retrospect to have been a neighbour of Josef Fritzl, and to have respected his privacy? I imagine people saying simply, We knew nothing, what should we have done? – and never really recovering. An anti-social or deranged individual determined to use privacy as a smokescreen will do so, unless as a society we were to dismantle the structures and culture of privacy… ‘How close could the best of good neighbourliness have got to an Anders Breivik or a Josef Fritzl? No closer than they’d let you, through a street rep scheme perhaps, and no closer. You cannot see what he brings home from the stores in boxes or the magazines going through the letterbox, or what he views online.’ So far I don’t see that the case of Ariel Castro is particularly different. And it doesn’t help to refer to more halcyon days or localities, mythical or not, unless we are also going to offer analyses which suggest how we can reduce the likelihood of deranged behaviour having brutal and lasting impact on the lives of others. With that in mind, there’s one social imperative which seems to be missed every time: the need to create a culture in which the disorder of the individual in question is self-recognised as treatable by an available, confidential, caring system. Castro is said to have prepared a ‘suicide’ note in which he speaks of a sex addiction and said he needed help. What realistically were his chances of getting it, of taking it? Maybe we need to put more effort into pre-emptive services for all kinds of mental ill-health; and to normalise or de-stigmatise the idea of consulting them. Implementing the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Mental Health and Policing would be a start: ‘mental health is core business’ it says. Today we tend to find the treatment of people with mental illness, in previous centuries, distasteful or even barbaric. Unless we learn how to learn from tragedies like Seymour Avenue, I think that future societies may reflect in the same way about our own primitive disinterest in mental health. Continue reading

Here's Will Hutton in today's Observer, summarising the social damage wrought by elitist educational and economic policies: "Societies are built on multiple interdependencies. Trust, the foundation of human relationships, is created around reciprocity. An elite that segregates itself is declaring it does not want to be part of reciprocal relationships of trust. All that matters is its own betterment. Entrepreneurship and innovation, as entrepreneurs and innovators know full well, happen best in a climate of openness, access and high trust, not in societies managed to deliver economic rent and advantage to a self-perpetuating oligarchy of the privately educated." And at the local level, the gated community is an increasingly powerful symbol of all this comtemptible ideology promoted by this government and its largely conniving press. Continue reading

I have recently finished a short booklet on a theme familiar to readers of this blog – lost possessions. It comprises a light-touch essay, illustrated with a range of photos, exploring the curious tradition whereby people pick up items that others have dropped in public places, and place them somewhere to optimise the chances of rediscovery by the owner. I’ve long been fascinated by these acts of anonymous consideration. Co-editor Martin Dudley and I had an absorbing time selecting the images for the final cut: they include examples of sundry gloves, hats and scarves, but also a necktie, a vehicle registration plate, some shopping items and a notice about a lost i-Pod. We’re considering setting up a page somewhere to accommodate those images we could not include, and for people to add their own. In the meantime, here’s one of those that got away… I was rushing home from the station one evening, burdened with luggage, when I saw this child’s hoodie draped over a bollard. I failed to take the time to take a proper image, and have regretted it since. I promise you the photos in the booklet are of better quality, if not necessarily all quite so striking. We’ve edited and designed it using the Bookleteer process, and I’ll post here again when it becomes available in a week or so. Continue reading

Here we go again with the ‘criminality’ of chalking on pavements… or do we? The BBC, Mail, Telegraph, Indy and other sources report that a ten year old girl was reprimanded by passing police officers for chalking a hopscotch grid on the pavement. Tsk. I’ve commented on a few examples before, but they’ve always been confirmed. Lots of people have jumped on the copper-bashing bandwagon in this instance but it’s worth noting that the force so far has not accepted any involvement: ‘We cannot currently trace any car being in the area at the time.’ Let's wait and see shall we. Rain may not wash this one away so quickly. Previously: Pavement chalking anarchy again Pavement chalking: this time seen in a positive light Pavement chalking epidemic? Footnote on pavement chalking 'If it can be washed away, it's not graffiti. But' Continue reading

‘Confused spaces’, ‘neglected spaces’, ‘spaces of uncertainty’… various terms are used and they can often tell us a bit about the limits of the planner’s role. I came across this striking example in Watford the other day. The two pictures are taken from opposite sides. The curved wall defines a spiral path down to a subway, condemning a near-triangular space above, without purpose. A sheet of corrugated plastic roofing betrays someone’s desperate, but perhaps comparatively sheltered, bedding place. Continue reading

A research report on Social networks, social capital and refugee integration has just been published by the universities of Birmingham and Cardiff. The study was based on an analysis of The Survey of New Refugees (SNR), augmented with a short online survey. Among the findings: Social connections have a clear impact on health and language. Those who participate in quality English language learning get more help and have more frequent contact. There were clear social capital benefits from family reunion. Frequent contact with kin has no impact on access to employment. Those in contact with a formal group are less likely to need emotional support. No kind of social network is anti-integrative. And there are a couple of surprises (to me at any rate). First, there seems to be comparatively low interest in associating with ‘co-national or ethnic groups’. When asked to rank 15 priorities, respondents placed greatest importance (understandably) on ‘Absence of verbal or physical attack’ (9.5) and ‘Housing’ (9.29). The lowest priority was accorded to ‘Volunteering’ (7.09) (understandably); and (surprisingly) association with ‘co-national or ethnic groups’ (7.49). Secondly, the research challenges the model which suggests that if you spend time and energy investing in strong ties (e.g. for emotional support) that detracts from investment in weak ties and bridging social capital (e.g. for getting work). The researchers say there was ‘no evidence that having strong kin networks precludes getting support from formal networks’: ‘The positive correlations between different types of contact… provide compelling evidence against the argument that immigrant and ethnic minority communities are ‘inward looking’ and only ‘invest’ in bonding social capital... There is no evidence that receiving help from relatives and friends (widely considered as ‘bonding’ capital) is mutually exclusive with gaining ‘bridging’ social capital from ‘out-groups’ and more formal organisations.’ (p11-12) Continue reading

Yarlington Housing Group may have got itself into a bit of hot water for a new initiative ostensibly intended to help residents in personal and family development. In a nice contemporary example of really tacky scheme design and marketing, they announce: ‘The aim of our Household Ambition Plans are (sic) to support you - our tenants, in achieving your goals and ambitions and help you sHAPe your future to transform the lives of you and your family. sHAPe is currently being offered to all new tenants who accept a 7 year fixed term tenancy. It is an agreement between Yarlington and the tenant and sets out the ambitions and aspirations of the tenant and their family.’ It’s not clear if this is a response to levels of anti-social behaviour, disorder, or other tensions among tenants. It may not be a response to anything, but a positively-intentioned developed. But I suspect we have been quite near here before. In 2006 I edited a book on Respect in the neighbourhood which included a thorough research-based chapter by Liz Richardson on ‘Incentives and motivations for neighbourliness.’ Liz pointed to the significance of local agencies taking action and concluded that incentives certainly have a positive effect, but schemes need to allow space ‘for negotiation and the accommodation of alternative views’. Yarlington would doubtless claim that they do that. Inside housing quotes executive director Phyllida Culpin: ‘Our approach to getting a positive involvement from new tenants is crucial to the success of our company aim to build communities… We expect everyone entering this with us to do the very best that they are able.’ These people only want tenants who have ambitions, and who 'do their best' according to someone else's judgement. It's hideously reminiscent of current education policy. There's little attempt to disguise the moralising. Some of the comments in response, on the Inside housing pages, are well-worth reading. I don't think any of the scheme's defendants can get away from the impression that the housing provider has assumed a right of judgement over people’s lifestyles: indeed some people celebrate that as being what housing providers should do. Yarlington have unwisely stepped over the line between laudably offering support to residents, and coercively requiring them to participate in a customer scheme with dubious intentions. The chief executive’s use of language and the wording in their customer guide are not reassuring: ‘We will look at the progress you have made with your HAP when we consider the renewal of your tenancy at the end of the 7 year fixed period. ‘Some people may feel uncomfortable about committing to a HAP. If, after discussing it with Yarlington staff, you decide that you do not want to take advantage of this opportunity, you will be able to bid for homes offered by housing providers who do not have a similar scheme.’ It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that Yarlington have a cleansing scheme in mind, with the intention of getting rid of ’undesirable’ tenants, who might or... Continue reading

Yesterday, as various sources report (BBC, Indy), five disabled people lost their High Court challenge over the government's decision to abolish the Independent Living Fund (ILF). Only from Zoe Williams’s less resigned account in the Guardian do we learn that: ‘It's an inaccessible courtroom, so the people who brought the action couldn't get into the room to hear the verdict.’ What an exquisite vignette for the moral bankruptcy of the system. Can the injustice of British politics and the notion of British ‘justice’ sink any lower? We must wait and see. Matt Kenyon’s superb illustration brings a weird sound, a bit like laughter, to the cries of derision. But there are sources of encouragement. According to Andreas Whittam Smith in today's Indy, action by those victimised across Europe by authorities in the name of ‘austerity’ has brought results: ‘When the President of the European Commission says that austerity has reached its limits, then something profound has changed. The street protests in weaker eurozone countries have made a difference.’ Plenty still to do though. Continue reading

See if maybe you can help with this. Der spring is sprung and there's a minimalist blackbird in my neighbourhood. Well I think it's a blackbird. It recently progressed from a three-note scale to four notes. I'm not a musician so there's no more detail on that, sorry. But you're welcome to pop round. Come early. So for example at ten to five this morning there was the usual modest medley of different chirps - no thrushes I'm afraid, the cat-owners have a lot to answer for - including this occasional incongruous voice, da-da-da-da from high to low as if just tuning up. It's like having Status Quo on stage during a Messiaen concert. A bit like being on twitter I suppose. Maybe it's a consequence of the protracted winter here in south east England. My daughter says it's a blackbird in puberty, it's the avian equivalent of grunting, get used to it. Continue reading

‘Jacques is 14 years old. When he comes from school, he is welcomed by his mother and Paul H, their co-resident in the home, a man 70 years old. They are living together in one of the two kangaroo homes operated by the Public Social Welfare Centre in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek (Brussels). Each home accommodates four seniors with one single-parent family. Each resident has his/her own room, but the living areas are communal… ‘Paul, formerly a mail-sorter with the Post Office explains: "When I arrived here, I had lost my wife and was forced to leave my apartment. I felt cast loose, as if the world around me was collapsing. But since my arrival here I feel less lonely."’ This comes from a case study article on the European Urban Knowledge Network. It got me thinking about responses to the UK’s infamous so-called ‘bedroom tax’… Could co-housing offer an opportunity to emphasise mutuality and reciprocity over ‘traditional forms of support and care’ (to quote a recent UK Co-housing tweet)? I thought I might find a one or two references to welfare policy on the UK Cohousing Network site, but just drew blanks. I can understand that they might want to steer clear of the torrid current politics. Wouldn’t we all. But there’s an important theme here, and it’s reassuring to see how the movement promoting cohousing for older people is gathering momentum. Possibly, just possibly, it will give us all pointers for the future, for two reasons: First, just because it accepts a mixed economy to get things done, the cohousing movement doesn’t abandon the principle that many things are better for being collectively endeavoured, and that many things should be ‘public’; nor the principle that the existence of a public sphere is in everyone’s interests. And secondly, it seems to reassert the valuable notion of interdependence for older people (and I do mean ‘valuable’, in an economic as well as various other human senses). Some years ago when I was researching into neighbourliness and older people, there seemed to be some acceptance of this notion – pulling away from both a tiresome insistence on older people’s independence on the one hand and some inconsistent attitudes towards dependence on the other. As a society we should have been exploring ways of providing infrastructure that makes interdependence and collective responsibility possible. We could pay a heavy price for our sluggish response to the looming crisis of old age, unless co-operative movements like co-housing serve to stimulate a widespread understanding of the necessity of mutuality and reciprocity. (And I do hope you feel that this topic is a welcome antidote to the current desperate, morally bankrupt attempts to reify Thatcher). Continue reading

I came across this on the edge of someone's property this morning. Continue reading

The debate about urban design will surely always be with us. John Harris had a rather inconclusive piece in the Guardian on Saturday about some of those new squeaky-clean housing developments and the culture they represent – aspirational, artificial, organic…? ‘The pristine, faux-traditional houses are the same as those you see all over the country, offering the promise of "traditional living with modern comforts."’ And so he asks, ‘If you use the word "village" and learn from the planning mistakes of the past, can you quickly build a community from scratch?’ Although he doesn’t really get face to face with the question, there are several delightful insights, including this one from Terri Clarke, a resident of Fairford Leys: "It's referred to as a village, but it's an estate," Terri insists. "The fact that it was all built at the same time means it's an estate. Villages evolve, don't they?" Thank you Terri. I’ve been round a few such places (including Poundbury, which is hardly typical) and a few things have struck me. The architecture is invariably an improvement on what was left us by the architects and planners of the 1960s and 1970s. And there is more likely to be a mix of renovated and new build of different sizes with social and private housing. The developers’ contribution to local amenities almost always lags behind and the eventual level of provision is probably seldom adequate. The public realm matters everywhere. The article quotes architect John Simpson, emphasising in these new developments ‘a public realm, rather than just leftover space, which is what you get on housing estates.’ So who was responsible for designing housing estates without a public realm? Why? People reflect readily on their neighbourhood, but snobbery around words like ‘estate’ and ‘village’ surfaces quite easily. These snobberies can get institutionalised in the regulation of residents through terms and conditions, with some of the least rational forms emerging. Thus one of the residents quoted in the article says she’s ‘not allowed solar panels’. The version of ‘heritage’ espoused by her residents’ association presumably excludes the idea of future generations inheriting an inhabitable planet. These estates have often achieved a subtle, possibly unnoticed, control over vehicle traffic, so that kids can play in the street. If the residents’ association allows that sort of thing, of course. Some people are clearly suspicious of the ‘prissy’ over-prescribed environment, and readily contrast it to some notion of ‘community’ which entertains a degree of lively disorder. Others appear to have a fear of disorder (which itself can seem like a psychological disorder at times) and will invest heavily in the local politics of protection: for them, ‘community’ is characterised by peace and predictability. Maybe we can’t build for all sorts and shouldn't try. To return to the question posed: ‘can you quickly build a community from scratch?’ There's a superficial answer, which is that in some circumstances you can of course: it helps to have an identifiable shared adversity. But the question begs too... Continue reading

It’s been a depressing time just lately for any observer of social inclusion in the UK, and I’m going to try not to rehearse the reasons for that – although, wait, it’s hard not to make aslant reference to the bedroom tax, arguably the daftest piece of legislation contrived since Cromwell managed to put his point across (I note it was the subject of an ineffective EDM in parliament a whole nine months ago). Instead, here’s some good news, I think. It's time to join your play fellows in the street. According to CYP Now, the Department of Health has put up £1m ‘for the development of play streets’ across England, to a consortium including Play England, London Play, Bristol’s Playing Out and Bristol University. 'Grats to them all. However it’s not clear quite what ‘the development of play streets’ means, since, remarkably, the nearest I could come to an informative press release, offered by London Play and dated 22 March, doesn’t trouble to explain. CYP Now says ‘The consortium is deciding how it will use the money.’ That's a good idea. Don't worry, they'll think of something. Continue reading

Last month I helped organise and run an event involving children and young people in poverty, so that government officials could hear them talk about their experiences. The slightly formal context of a conference venue was going to be unfamiliar for the participants, the timetable was very tight, and they would not know most of the others there. So we designed a mix of plenary and group sessions, exercises, discussions, and one short presentation; followed by a trip round the houses of parliament. We also had to take account of the fact that some of the young people had fairly complex backgrounds and there was always a chance that attention spans would be short and their behaviour could be what is euphemistically called ‘challenging’. One of the exercises was designed to allow some of the experience to be fictionalised: this gave the participants ‘permission’ to release some fairly strong concerns – and some personal aspirations - that otherwise might not have been shared. This post summarises that process. We had seven groups of about 5 or 6 per table, of mixed ages. Using a pre-printed worksheet, each group was asked to invent a character and describe their family background and the area where they lived. Prompt cards were provided but only the age of the child was prescribed, in order to ensure a variety. We used the carousel principle so that each table inherited the character created by others. The second stage required them to think about the skills, interests, fears and friendships of the character. We provided plenty of prompt cards for this stage, covering a broad mix of options to get people talking: some groups used these while others chose to draw or write, for example - Fears: ‘not being able to leave the estate’ ‘A bit afraid of new people. Doesn’t know what is happening.’ ‘He does not go to school so he don’t have a good ajication.’ They all offered a reasonable degree of consistency – that is to say, there were only a few apparent contradictions along the lines of ‘loner’ / ‘team player’. In the next stage, inheriting a character with some detail known about them, the participants were asked to think up a crisis (or crises) that affected the individual, and to describe the implications. As we had anticipated, this gave them no difficulties whatsoever, although there were one or two oddities – ‘No life. Goes into foster home & runs away. Police find him and Bob wants to stay with the policeman.’ ‘They move to a small stone hut.’ There was plenty of mention of adults in the household losing their jobs, plus imprisonment and quite unceremonially reported death. In the last group phase, they were asked to think through the future for the invented character they inherited, given what was known about their circumstances and the crisis which afflicted them. Here, what was striking was the sense of resilience in some of the outcomes (but not all): ‘Finally he got his... Continue reading

Research reported by the Big Lunch claims that more than 50 per cent of respondents ‘don’t know their neighbours’, with one in four ‘having no idea what their names are’. There’s no way of finding out what this means, as there is no press release on the website, and no indication of who carried out the research or how the questions were worded. Of course it’s part of the BL process of cranking up its publicity, which is fair enough; and it gives the Daily Mail something to put in its columns, which maybe can’t be helped. All I can offer is a quick comparison with some previous ‘findings’, noting the three tentative conclusions I drew a few years ago that about 90% of us enjoy good relationships with our neighbours and speak to them often about 5% of us have no contact with our neighbours there's no consensus on whether neighbourliness is in decline. I could point out once again that the phrase ‘to know your neighbours’ needs a bit of unpacking if it is to be helpful; and that knowing names is not the same as recognition, which is what underpins neighbourliness. I can also promise to try and do another mini-analysis of collected ‘findings’ from sources like this, because they do have a fascination and possibly some lessons. But it remains the case that if organisations don’t feel able to reveal the source of such eccentric conclusions, their credibility will need rescuing. Continue reading

Today I played my part in an established neighbourhood ritual, as signatory witness with my neighbour to counting the money from charity envelopes collected. There are just fourteen houses and, remarkably, she had managed to get a response from all but one; we hit the record with well over £4 per household. The cause was a popular one, and when people decide to be generous, they are generous. Everyone seems to have money on their minds these days: how much they have, the predictability of their income, and what to do with it. And I sense that more and more people – in spite of the conspiracy of disinterest shown by most of the broadcast media - are beginning to get the message that poverty is a dominant, complex social problem. There has been a significant political shift lately, and tomorrow’s budget ought to bring some relief; but undoubtedly profound, lasting damage has been done, much of it inexcusably ideologically-driven and malicious. Some people, like Bradley Ariza who has an article in today’s Guardian, are counting calories too. As he says, ‘not to lose weight, but to try and make sure I get enough.’ ‘The problem is that as soon as we try to work our way out of the grip of the welfare state, we lose so many benefits, and incur so many other costs; transport, childcare etc. Yet instead of helping people, there seems to be this obsession with punishing those on benefits, as if being poor is some sort of crime.’ Previously: Poverty: curtains or blinkers? Political stereotyping of poverty Povertyism in policy: 'troubled families' The language of povertyism It's the povertyism, stupid It's the poverty, stupid Continue reading

I’ve been travelling more than usual recently, and I want to follow up on my recent post about behaviour on trains, referring also to an observation I made four years ago, when I had '...half-watched a young woman perform a 20 minute phase of what may have been a marathon meticulous make-up, including fastidious uprooting of eyebrows, the full MOT…' That was nothing. The other day a young woman sat down diagonally opposite me at the table, distributing luggage and clutter where she could, and within about ten minutes, after a trip to the toilet, she was surprisingly deshabillee and well into an intensive make-up routine. We shared this space for more than two hours, and she was still preening and powdering her image in her tiny mirror when I left the train before its journey was complete. The routine included two bouts (at least two, I did not pay attention the whole time) of squeezing spots at close range with her head down studiously. There was one lengthy spell of creaming the face and neck, and several bouts of face-brushing with all the head-bobbing that goes with it. After about an hour we had eyelash fixing – tricky on a fast-moving train, I would have thought. Do they have left-eye ones and right-eye ones? If so there’s a chance she might have put left on right unnoticed, and/or vice-versa, which might leave anyone looking a little inebriated. I did not inspect, although I suppose I might have done if invited to the cause. And then we had fingernails selected from a large box, apparently stuck on, then used to collect up all the scattered unused ones. I think that for some people, some of this might just be too intimate for the public realm. I was hugely impressed with the contrast between her personal concern and public disconcern. There was a sense of urgency, almost aggression, in her actions, in spite of the time it all took. Perhaps experience had taught her with this particular journey that there was no slack for the job in hand: two and a half hours to London and the task must be completed… You wouldn’t want to be pulling in to the terminus with more to do and not feeling able to leave the train perhaps, then being whisked back up the line as the return journey started, still touching up round the temples... At one point I wondered if this was an unavoidable occupational necessity – was she going to get off the train in London and get tipped out of a taxi straight onto the stage in the west end? Had I unknowingly been privileged to witness the meticulous preparation of a new operatic star? OK, perhaps serving in a night club bar or similar? My conclusion was not, because she kept pouring herself slugs of vodka and sticky-sweet. I could be wrong. As it happened, someone was taken seriously ill on the train during the journey. Medical expertise from among... Continue reading

Liverpool is a remarkable city which I regret never having had the chance to get to know. I was there today and for once had time for a little wander, taking in this delight on the eye-feast that is Duke Street. Continue reading

I'm enchanted to discover that there is such a thing as the National Campaign for Courtesy. I bet they get some spam. Their chair has been praising the actions of a train driver who made an announcement rebuking a noisy mobile phone user. The assumption is that ‘the announcement was made because another passenger complained to a guard’. This was a commuter train, and the first class carriage, so perhaps it was neither the first nor predictably the last occasion when the complainant encountered this individual behaving in this way. Let's pass over the widely-held expectations that people who travel first class either (a) tend to be more civil towards one another than mere plebs, and/or (b) tend to be more assertive about their own importance and rights… It’s more instructive to think about how the story raises a central question in social relations: what is the point at which behaviour perceived as anti-social or uncivil, requires an intermediary? Should the complainant have spoken first to the phone user? (And in the circumstances, would non-verbal communication, ironically, have done the job?) Some people would say they should have done so. I might have tried that myself, with a smile and gestures towards the ears or a finger to pursed lips. In the neighbourhood context, where a comparable disagreement arises over noise, the advice is generally to try to speak to and reason with the offender first. Central and local authority websites, housing association guidance, consumer advice materials (e.g.), they all usually recommend that initially a personal, conciliatory approach should be tried. The story raises a few issues about appropriate behaviour in the public realm and between neighbours. For a start, one-off instances of discourteous behaviour in the public realm are not the same as repeated cases. If you know your journey will soon be over and you are not likely to see the individual again, you may just choose to sit it out. And community space is not the same as public space. If you live next door to someone whose behaviour you find uncivil or antisocial, your response might not be the same as it would be in a public venue, a park or square, or on public transport, or a non-local online forum, from which you can usually escape - whether or not you feel you have a strong sense of co-ownership of that space. What’s more, you can’t always count on your fellow citizens to back you up if you do complain. People may not sympathise with your sense of injustice; or if they do, there may be other reasons why they feel unwilling to express any kind of support, which might leave you, finally, heavily dependent on whatever official intervention society has on offer. At its worst, this diminution of social capital can be exaggerated to the point that it puts enormous pressure on those official roles, until they in turn become defensive and cannot cope: think Northern Ireland, for instance, or even the Amsterdam of... Continue reading

This morning I had a little part to play in taking an elderly lady from a home to her dentist. As we left the car park, I spotted a baby’s white boot on the wet ground. I know from experience how frequently those things get sprung off by recalcitrant sprogs, how annoying it can be to have to retrace your tired steps to recover them, and the expense that is sometimes involved if you are unsuccessful. I snatched the shoe up and stuck it like a traitor’s head on the spiked railing alongside - but gently. The railings are black so it was highly visible. (I would proudly have taken a picture but my phone has snuffed). This gave me the chance to explain to my companion that I recently began writing a long-pondered text about lost clothing, reflecting on the social tradition of picking things up and placing them prominently for a stranger one is never likely to meet. About 40 minutes later we came back the same way and to our delight, the shoe had gone, presumably recovered with relief by parent or carer. I really like the anonymity of the sequence, when it works. And it happens all the time – especially in winter – all over the place, and proves quite nicely that people don’t have to receive thanks in order to repeat simple low-cost gestures of consideration. As for the text, I'm working with photographer Martin Dudley and we hope to come up with a curious little illustrated booklet, which you can be sure I will mention here, in due course. Continue reading