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Hi, I'm Ben Ansell and thank you

0:38

for downloading my BBC Radio 4 Reith

0:40

Lectures on our democratic future. In

0:43

this third lecture on the future of

0:45

solidarity, I ask how, in times of

0:47

increased polarisation, we can best come together.

0:51

Welcome to the third of this year's

0:53

Reith Lectures. We're in Sunderland

0:55

at the beautifully renovated Fire Station,

0:57

now a highly impressive live performance

0:59

music venue site, located

1:02

in the centre of this famous city

1:04

in the north-east of England. It's

1:07

symbolic of the renewal that is

1:09

happening here, part of a work

1:11

in progress, a clear effort to

1:13

say the best days for this

1:15

city can lie ahead rather than

1:17

in the past. And that really

1:19

chimes with the core themes of

1:22

this year's series, which looks at

1:24

how we might navigate our democratic

1:26

future after the turbulence of recent

1:29

years. Our lecturer is

1:31

a politics professor from Nuffield College, Oxford

1:33

University, and in

1:35

this, his third lecture, called the

1:37

future of solidarity, he's

1:40

going to be asking how we can

1:42

develop a shared sense of belonging in

1:45

today's polarised culture. No

1:47

doubt there are going to be lots of

1:49

questions about how exactly we do that, so

1:51

let us hear what he has

1:54

to say. Will you please welcome

1:56

the BBC 2023 Reith lecturer, Professor

1:58

Ben Ansell. Sunderland is a

2:01

city of firsts, first to announce results in every

2:03

general election. As I'm sure

2:19

you're very bored of hearing, first

2:21

to announce they'd voted leave in

2:23

the Brexit referendum. Whereas Sunderland went,

2:25

so too did the nation. And

2:28

most importantly of course, first

2:31

in 1936, 1913 and another four times

2:33

in the English First Division. I did

2:37

my research. But

2:41

it doesn't always feel like Sunderland comes first,

2:43

at least as far as the rest of

2:46

the country goes. Well actually not just Sunderland

2:48

sometimes, it seems only London and the South

2:50

East come first. Because compared

2:52

to the rest of the country, London's in a

2:54

different league. Average incomes in

2:56

London are about £50,000 a year. But the national average incomes

3:01

closer to £30,000. And in the North

3:03

East here, average incomes

3:05

are just half the level of London. And

3:07

that's lower than in any American state, any

3:10

French region, any German state, even

3:12

those in ex-communist East

3:14

Germany. And

3:17

it's not just income where we see

3:19

huge gaps across regions in the UK.

3:21

So as I took the train here from Oxfordshire,

3:24

the average healthy life expectancy

3:27

dropped a year every 25 miles.

3:29

So not just my life expectancy

3:32

from the train delays. And

3:35

now it wasn't always us, because in 1900 the

3:37

eighth richest region

3:40

in all of Europe was the North

3:42

of England. And Sunderland as

3:44

you know was globally famous for its glass

3:46

making and as the ship building capital of

3:48

the world. Now

3:51

in the early 1960s my own grandfather,

3:53

Eric, he moved to where the jobs

3:55

were, from a declining port on

3:57

the South Coast to work in the bustling

3:59

ship. shipyards just north of here on

4:01

the time. First to Vickers at

4:04

High Walker and then to Swan Hunter

4:06

in Woolsend. Now lest

4:08

you think that I'm trying to

4:10

curry-saver with this audience here in

4:12

Sunderland, I'm afraid to

4:14

say that he was closely involved in

4:17

the building of the Geordie Gunboat herself,

4:19

the HMS Newcastle. I'm

4:21

sorry I'll get my coat. Not

4:24

that long ago the industries, the jobs, the

4:26

opportunities in Britain they were right here and

4:28

of course many of them still are. Sunderland

4:30

has the largest car plant in the country

4:33

but the last ship was built at

4:35

Swan Hunter over 15 years ago. The

4:38

last deep coal mining county Durham closed

4:40

almost 30 years ago and over the

4:42

past few decades compared to the rest

4:44

of the country the Northeast has been

4:47

left behind and I

4:49

know left behind is an overused

4:51

phrase it's usually said right before a

4:53

politician promises to level up but

4:57

it's not inaccurate and it speaks of

4:59

a national tragedy because being part of

5:01

a country of a nation should mean

5:04

common commitments and collective dreams, a community

5:06

that celebrates its successes and protects its

5:08

less fortunate but it seems

5:11

like our nation is pulling apart

5:13

rather than coming together. Our

5:16

politics has become sharp-edged and

5:18

sharp-tongued and we have

5:20

too especially on the internet where we go

5:22

online yes to complain about politicians but

5:24

also to complain about our fellow citizens and

5:26

definitely to complain about our neighbors and their

5:29

inability to put the bins out correctly. Now

5:32

I'm not arguing that we should all

5:34

agree and in a democracy we never

5:36

will but beneath our bickering we all

5:38

have and I think want a

5:41

stake in our community's success so

5:44

to move beyond our disagreements we're going to

5:46

need some kind of social glue and

5:49

that glue is solidarity and

5:52

solidarity might not be a word that you throw around

5:54

every day perhaps you associate it

5:56

though with trade unions because a few miles

5:58

away are the old culprits of Durham, where

6:01

the annual Durham Miners gala

6:03

explicitly calls for community and

6:05

international solidarity. That

6:07

sense of solidarity is of course core to

6:10

the often embattled union movement, but it

6:12

can also transcend those struggles because

6:15

as a nation, we also feel

6:17

solidarity with one another, especially when

6:19

we face shared challenges from wars

6:22

to recessions to pandemics. And

6:25

sometimes in our most wishful, maybe

6:27

wistful moments, we do feel solidarity

6:29

with our fellow humans worldwide. Solidarity

6:33

is about an us, about

6:35

a shared fate, about a common

6:37

humanity, about developing and

6:39

nurturing a collective identity where

6:41

what befalls you affects

6:44

me and vice

6:46

versa. And the vice versa is

6:48

crucial because for solidarity to work,

6:50

it has to be reciprocal. I

6:54

treat you seriously as a real

6:56

person with real dreams and desires,

6:58

rights and responsibilities, just

7:00

as I would like to be treated myself as

7:03

part of an us. So

7:05

solidarity is not the same thing as

7:07

charity. Now the act

7:10

of charity is a moral impulse of

7:12

the fortunate to provide for the unfortunate.

7:14

There are givers and then there are

7:16

recipients. There is an us, but there's

7:19

also a them. Now

7:22

charity is a commendable private virtue, of

7:24

course, but if we decide to divide

7:26

our society into a fortunate us and

7:29

an unfortunate them, then we'll be dividing

7:31

ourselves in half. And

7:34

solidarity is about realizing there is ultimately

7:36

no them, only in us. Solidarity

7:40

is reciprocal charity. So

7:43

solidarity is about all of us,

7:45

but it's also about each of us because

7:47

as Sunderland fans know

7:49

only too well, you and I, we're not

7:51

always on top. Now

7:54

it could be worse, I'm a Crystal Palace fan so we've never in

7:56

fact been on top. But

7:58

sometimes each of us feels... invincible

8:00

when we're young, when we're well, when

8:03

we're earning a good keep, but

8:05

sadly inevitably we will age, we will

8:07

get sick, we will fall on hard

8:09

times and then we're going

8:11

to have to provide for one another because we won't

8:13

be able to rely on charity alone.

8:17

Solidarity means pooling our resources

8:19

to ensure ourselves collectively against

8:21

hard times and to do that

8:24

we all have to pay in and

8:27

that means taxes I'm afraid. Boo.

8:30

Well some people might think well why

8:32

should I pay for others more reckless

8:35

or feckless or just plain unfortunate than

8:37

myself but all

8:39

of us rely on public services and on

8:41

social insurance. We all need education, we all

8:43

need health care, we all definitely need someone

8:46

to collect the bins. So

8:49

you might worry though that

8:51

all of this spending on solidarity is going to come

8:53

at a cost and you're right but

8:56

higher taxes don't necessarily mean we'll

8:58

feel worse off. Most of the

9:00

wealthiest countries in Europe, Denmark, Sweden,

9:02

the Netherlands, they have higher social

9:05

spending than the UK and

9:07

on average people feel happier there. Now

9:10

maybe that's just because they love paying

9:12

taxes, but maybe we

9:14

can get rich and look after one

9:16

another. So no

9:18

matter how frustrated we get with politicians we

9:21

do need the government to step in and

9:23

provide some maybe most of

9:25

these social services. So we're

9:28

going to need a politics of solidarity

9:30

and the good news is that we've

9:32

done this before because everyone in

9:34

this room will be intimately familiar with

9:36

the institution that best embodies solidarity in

9:38

Britain, the National Health Service and

9:41

the NHS is a truly universal system

9:43

so everyone resident in the UK can

9:45

access it, everyone faces the

9:47

same cost when they see the doctor, nothing

9:51

and also everyone has to pay for

9:53

it through taxes. Now across

9:55

our lives our relationship with the NHS

9:57

will change so when we're born, when

9:59

we're ill, as we age, we

10:02

will rely on it. And when

10:04

we're at our most fortunate, working, spending, partying,

10:06

we'll then we'll be paying for it, and depending

10:08

on how hard we party, we might be

10:10

doing a bit of both. But

10:14

we don't begrudge others using the NHS

10:16

when we're not doing so. We feel

10:18

a sense of solidarity across our own

10:20

lives and those of our fellow citizens.

10:23

And we recently celebrated the 75th birthday of

10:25

the NHS. And that anniversary

10:28

is no historical accident. The origins of

10:30

the NHS, they lie in a moment

10:32

of national solidarity, the end of the

10:34

Second World War. And when

10:36

wars end, calls come for recognition of

10:38

the many sacrifices made by the public.

10:41

So at the end of the First World War, that meant

10:44

extending the voting franchise. At

10:46

the end of the Second World War, the

10:48

demand was for those political rights to be

10:50

accompanied by new social rights, rights to work,

10:53

rights to shelter, rights to support, and yes,

10:55

rights to health care. So

10:57

our NHS is a product of

10:59

the Beverage Report. And that

11:02

report, written during war in 1942, it

11:05

sold over 600,000 copies.

11:07

It had a name recognition of 95%. It

11:09

truly was the

11:11

Taylor Swift of its day. Beverage's

11:15

report covered a whole series

11:18

of national insurance schemes, including

11:20

unemployment and pensions, but they

11:22

all had one key principle,

11:24

a principle that embodies solidarity

11:26

and that's universality. Rather

11:28

than providing support only to the destitute or

11:30

the poor, everyone would

11:32

receive benefits and everyone would pay.

11:34

The state was not a charity,

11:37

it was solidarity. Now

11:39

today the NHS is, as you

11:42

know, incredibly popular. 90%

11:44

of Brits agree that the NHS should be

11:46

free at the point of delivery and available

11:48

to everyone. Almost as many believe

11:51

it should be funded through taxes. So

11:53

I did some research to find other popular things

11:55

before I came here. So here are some things

11:57

that are as popular as the NHS. time

12:00

with your family, and I guess that sort

12:03

of depends on whose family. David

12:05

Attenborough, Morgan

12:08

Freeman, but

12:10

not even Queen Elizabeth or Team G gets

12:12

these kind of numbers. So

12:15

okay, the NHS is the national religion, but

12:17

there are tensions under that calm

12:20

surface, because although the NHS is supposed

12:22

to be universal, it doesn't always play

12:24

out like that. Depending on where you

12:26

live, access to cancer care,

12:28

for example, might vary dramatically, and we

12:30

call this a postcode lottery,

12:32

but it's not a lottery. There's no

12:35

chance poor at locations

12:37

get systematically worse outcomes, and

12:40

nor is everybody sold on the universalism

12:43

of the NHS, because regardless of your

12:45

diet, your smoking, your drinking, your drug

12:47

habits, the NHS will cover you.

12:51

And some people understandably see this as

12:53

a license to misbehave, so

12:55

they may like the idea of solidarity,

12:57

but they really hate the idea that

12:59

people are cheating the system. And

13:02

finally, the world of William Beveridge is long

13:05

gone. Life expectancy in 1942, at the

13:07

time of the report,

13:09

was just 64. Now

13:11

it's over 80, and we

13:13

demand more from the NHS. We

13:15

demand hip replacements, MRIs, anti-obesity

13:18

drugs. Solidarity is

13:20

more expensive. So even

13:23

at the heart of Britain's most solidaristic

13:25

policy, solidarity is contested.

13:28

And if we can't all agree on

13:30

the NHS, then can we really all

13:32

agree on other social spending, from the

13:34

pensions triple-lock, to school places, to universal

13:36

credit? If we

13:38

are to secure our solidarity, we will

13:41

have to conquer three enemies. And

13:43

the first enemy is ourselves. And

13:46

our difficulty in making sure that present us

13:48

looks out for future us, because

13:51

it's easy to put off paying for the future. Think

13:54

about private insurance. It's

13:56

no fun paying premiums today, but tomorrow

13:58

when your teenage son's... into a

14:00

lamppost, well then you wish you'd bought that

14:02

insurance after all. Social

14:05

insurance is the same. We pay

14:07

taxes today to cover us for

14:09

hard times tomorrow. And

14:11

here's the problem, for politicians that's not

14:13

really ideal because they raise taxes now

14:16

but the benefits only come after the election.

14:19

How very unfair on those poor politicians. And

14:22

that means though that we end up under

14:24

investing. People sometimes

14:26

say that Britain is a country that

14:28

wants European style benefits but with American

14:31

style taxes. To have our cake

14:33

tomorrow and eat it today.

14:37

Now it might surprise you but over their

14:39

lifetime most people in the UK end up

14:41

being neither net givers nor net takers from

14:44

our welfare system. We get out roughly what

14:46

we put in. The problem is there's a

14:48

mismatch. The time in our lives that we

14:51

pay the most in taxes is not when

14:53

we will most need the benefits. So in

14:55

our 40s we might

14:57

pay twice as much in taxes as what

14:59

we get back in benefits and services. But

15:02

when we're in our 70s that's going to slip.

15:04

We'll get back almost four times what we pay

15:06

in. Now then of

15:08

course there's the real freeloaders. Our

15:11

kids. Don't

15:13

worry they'll end up paying taxes eventually. We'll get

15:15

them in the end. The

15:18

second enemy of solidarity is

15:21

dividing our society into an us and them.

15:23

And a country that becomes obsessed

15:26

with binaries cannot easily reclaim unity.

15:29

If we see our fellow citizens as

15:31

others as getting in our way as

15:33

undermining our goals well then we simply

15:35

end up stoking the fires of division.

15:38

And we see this in the so-called culture

15:40

wars over identity over

15:43

the environment. Yes also over Brexit. Riled

15:46

up by social media or

15:48

by each other down the pub we end

15:50

up delighting in divisiveness. But in my

15:53

view these are the empty calories of

15:55

politics because national politics has to be

15:57

about an us not an us and

15:59

them. identity politics harms

16:02

solidarity. People end

16:04

up thinking that public spending is something

16:06

that goes to other, less deserving folk,

16:09

or maybe different looking folks. Because

16:11

in America, studies show that

16:14

white people, with what social scientists call

16:16

highly ethnocentric preferences, but you might know

16:18

them better as racists, they're

16:20

much less supportive of programs like Aid

16:23

to the Poor, which they think go

16:25

to black Americans, and

16:27

more supportive of retirement programs, which they think goes

16:29

to white people like them. Now,

16:31

we're not completely immune to this here.

16:34

Some recent experiments in the UK found that

16:37

ethnocentric white Brits, they

16:40

tend to support higher housing benefits

16:42

for white British citizens than they

16:44

do for Muslim Asian British citizens.

16:46

So the shadow of racism still

16:48

haunts our national solidarity. Now,

16:51

this isn't inevitable, and I think the

16:53

UK's come an incredible way as a

16:56

multiracial society, but we also must not

16:58

be naive. The

17:01

third enemy of solidarity is

17:03

our political division, which

17:05

makes it hard for us to build

17:07

a stable coalition for solidarity. And the

17:09

nature of that division has changed dramatically

17:11

in recent years. So a generation ago,

17:14

it was money that divided people.

17:16

Richer people voted conservative, poorer people

17:19

voted Labour. And our political

17:21

parties might have disagreed about public spending,

17:23

but the battle for swing voters meant

17:25

that there was a compromise, an

17:27

agreement to balance solidarity and the taxes you need

17:30

to pay for it. But

17:32

recently, money stopped mattering for how

17:34

people vote. So in the

17:36

1990s, high-income people favored the conservatives over

17:38

Labour by about 20% points. In

17:42

2019, there was no difference at all.

17:45

And so you might think, oh, our politics isn't about how

17:47

much we earn, maybe we're all getting along. No

17:50

money, no problems, but I think we

17:52

all know that's not true. We just

17:54

have new, more divisive divides. Education

17:57

has replaced income in shaping how

17:59

people vote. And actually in the opposite

18:01

way that it used to. Back in the 70s, university

18:04

graduates favored the conservatives over labor by

18:06

25% points in

18:08

the last election that had completely flipped. Now,

18:11

today's graduates have been winners in

18:14

many, many ways. The

18:16

national conversation is dominated by

18:18

graduates about politics, about social

18:20

norms, about whether it's OK to

18:22

work from home. And

18:25

that can leave people who never attended university

18:27

feeling ignored and patronized. And you know what?

18:30

They're right. We graduates are pretty

18:32

annoyed. But today's

18:34

graduates also feel like losers.

18:37

They now face tuition fees of 9,000 pounds a year.

18:41

Even if they do get high-paid jobs, they might not

18:43

be able to afford a modest 1930s semi-detached

18:45

house. And that's a very different world

18:48

from their parents and their grandparents. Back

18:51

in the 70s, fewer than 10% of

18:53

Brits went to university. But today, it's

18:55

around half the population. And

18:57

people born in the late 1940s, when

19:00

they were in their 20s, they spent just around 5%

19:03

of their income on housing. Young people

19:05

today, they spent about a quarter. And

19:08

I think this affects perceptions of fairness.

19:10

So I run a bunch of surveys

19:12

throughout the country. And I ask people,

19:14

what do you think determines your chances

19:16

of success in life? Is it individual

19:18

effort or forces outside your control? Well,

19:20

half of the over 70s think that

19:22

individual effort's the most important thing. But

19:25

when it comes to 20-somethings, that's just

19:27

20% of them. The

19:29

over 70s grew up in beverages world, with

19:32

affordable housing, free education, sustainable pensions.

19:35

And younger generations now face a

19:37

housing crunch, costly university, and paying

19:39

for the triple-locked pensions of

19:41

their elders. But there's good news. They

19:44

have iPhones and avocado toast. Lucky,

19:47

lucky millennials. Our

19:50

political parties now reflect these generational divides. In

19:52

the last two general elections, the age gap

19:54

in voting was over twice as large as

19:57

it was in the 1990s. So

20:00

it's no surprise that intergenerational

20:02

solidarities become so challenging or

20:04

why Christmas is so awkward.

20:08

So, what can we do? Well,

20:10

we don't have to reinvent the future

20:12

of solidarity from scratch. And

20:14

solidarity comes about in two ways. It comes about

20:17

from feeling like one another and from

20:19

doing things for one another. And to feel like

20:21

one another, well, that doesn't have to cost money.

20:24

But it's hardly simple because our national

20:26

moments of coming together have typically been

20:28

times of collective suffering, as

20:30

with the World Wars. And that would not be

20:32

my first recommendation. But

20:34

there are ways to encourage fellow feeling

20:37

without it costing the earth. Anyone

20:39

like me who's volunteered at their

20:42

local school or for charities knows

20:44

the payoff of working with people

20:46

from different backgrounds, different jobs, different

20:49

political persuasions, even different

20:51

football club supporters. But

20:54

volunteering is in decline. David

20:57

Cameron, I wonder what happened to that guy. He

21:02

once talked about a big society

21:04

of volunteers. But the

21:07

proportion of people who volunteer annually has

21:09

dropped from almost half the population in

21:12

2013 to just a quarter of us

21:14

today. Now volunteering is

21:16

cheap, but so apparently was talk. But

21:20

we shouldn't despair. From Saturday

21:22

park runs to the London Olympics in our

21:25

good times to Alcoholics Anonymous

21:27

or Marie Curie Hospices in tough

21:29

times, volunteering still binds us together.

21:32

And although the national trauma of COVID-19,

21:35

it didn't dissolve our divides. Sometimes

21:37

it did help communities come together. For me,

21:40

it was the creation of something as simple as

21:42

a WhatsApp group for our street and going around

21:44

door knocking at the beginning of the pandemic to

21:46

see if people were okay. Volunteering

21:49

is also about places as much as

21:52

people. So I think we all

21:54

bemoan the shutting of household named stores

21:56

in our town centers like Debenhams and

21:58

Wilker right here. But

22:01

this does provide a new opportunity

22:03

for charities or cafes, farmers markets,

22:05

self-help groups. It's not the end.

22:08

I'll give you an example. There's something

22:10

called the Library of Things. The Library

22:12

of Things allows people to go to

22:14

their local neighborhood and borrow expensive household

22:16

equipment from neighbors. Solidarity,

22:19

though, bluntly, is mostly about spending

22:21

money. And one solution

22:23

to our polarization is a return to the

22:25

spirit of the beverage report, a

22:27

return to universalism. So

22:30

in the UK, much of our public

22:32

spending, like child or unemployment benefits, is

22:35

means-tested. Low earners receive

22:37

it, higher earners cannot. And

22:40

that looks, superficially, it looks progressive.

22:43

But it's unpopular because it works

22:45

more like charity than solidarity. Benefits

22:48

aimed at the poor end up

22:51

being poor benefits. They lack

22:53

political support. They become stigmatized.

22:56

And then people suspect fraud. And

22:58

the British public think a third of all welfare

23:00

claims are fraudulent. But the actual number, the actual

23:03

number is 100 times lower. Universal

23:08

benefits and services, like the NHS, on

23:10

the other hand, well, they are much

23:12

more popular. But how we do universalism

23:14

really matters. So you know that old

23:16

sore about when countries have the word

23:18

democratic in their names, that's a red

23:20

flag. Well, I think the same is

23:22

true for policies with the word universal

23:24

in their title. And I'll give you

23:26

an example, universal credit. First problem, not

23:28

actually universal. What universal

23:31

credit does is it combines a

23:33

whole series of existing means-tested benefits,

23:35

like housing benefit, unemployment benefit, incapacity

23:37

benefit, working tax credits. So

23:39

like other means-tested benefits, it's

23:42

stigmatizing and it lacks strong

23:44

political protection. It's also

23:46

conditional, with draconian punishments for failing

23:48

to make work tests. And

23:51

many recipients end up feeling like

23:53

potential fraudsters, not real people with individual

23:55

needs. But there is

23:58

another universal. policy

24:00

idea that does address these

24:02

concerns. Give everybody in the

24:04

country a universal basic income, no questions are,

24:06

sounds great, where do I sign up? The

24:10

universal basic income or UBI is simple,

24:12

it does what it says on the

24:14

tin, everyone gets the

24:16

same cash benefit. Now the admin

24:18

costs of this kind of scheme are pretty

24:21

low because you don't have to worry about

24:23

monitoring other people because it's unconditional. And

24:25

the UBI is also not stigmatising.

24:29

Receiving it doesn't make you a lazy person or

24:31

an undeserving person, it just makes you a person.

24:34

So it resolves the us and them problem because

24:36

all of us get it. How

24:38

we use it, well that's up to us, so

24:40

it creates a solidarity of freedom if you will.

24:43

And it also sends off a

24:45

threat to the future of solidarity

24:47

that artificial intelligence algorithms could

24:49

replace the jobs that us humans get to do

24:52

today. And I think our society

24:54

can only tolerate that kind of mass unemployment

24:56

if it doesn't also have to tolerate mass

24:59

poverty. The UBI is not perfect

25:01

but it's better than being made destitute by

25:03

our robot masters. But

25:06

there are downsides to a UBI. So

25:08

the most popular benefits out there are those

25:11

that people feel they earn, people don't like

25:13

benefits or even taxes that are unconnected to

25:15

effort or earnings. But the

25:17

UBI is completely unconditional. You could be a layabout,

25:19

you could be a billionaire, you could be both

25:22

and you get it. And I think

25:24

that upsets people's principles about fairness. And

25:28

there's also something I find slightly

25:30

alien or inhuman about the UBI,

25:32

especially if it's keeping us alive

25:34

in our robot dominated world. It's

25:36

a form of solidarity detached from

25:38

human obligations. I think

25:40

a politics of solidarity that sees us

25:42

as anonymous agents, as problems to be

25:44

solved, not real humans with deep attachment

25:46

to the people and places around us

25:49

that can't really bring us together. So

25:52

a successful universal policy agenda has

25:54

to find this Goldilocks pass between

25:57

an unfeeling computer says

25:59

no. conditionality and

26:02

an obligation-free handout. And

26:04

that, I think, starts with taking who we

26:06

are and where we live seriously,

26:09

as seriously as we do. And

26:11

that might mean the central government letting go. Because

26:14

Westminster doesn't always see people or

26:16

places. It sees national insurance numbers

26:18

and tax returns. It treats Sunderland

26:21

as interchangeable with Sandwell or South

26:23

End. It ends

26:25

up seeing like a state categorising and

26:28

sorting people, but not always listening

26:30

to them. So rather than

26:32

a one-size-fits-all universal

26:35

benefit, we should think

26:37

instead of universal guarantees, guarantees

26:40

of everything from access to schools

26:42

and doctor surgeries to affordable housing

26:45

to accessible public transport, and to

26:47

be implemented in ways that make

26:49

sense locally. So take

26:51

building houses. We have an affordability

26:54

crisis for young people. Of course

26:56

we do, but it's not only because

26:58

of selfish NIMBYs. So when I run

27:00

my surveys asking people about why they

27:02

oppose house building, the same concerns come

27:04

up again and again. Schools,

27:07

surgeries, doctors, dentists.

27:10

Some people really like talking about sewers.

27:13

But people correctly suspect that

27:16

the local infrastructure needed won't

27:18

be provided along with those houses. Now,

27:22

our main political parties still disagree about

27:24

how much to spend on solidarity, but

27:26

they have always agreed on one

27:28

thing, that the centre should decide.

27:32

If people felt trusted to govern the places they

27:34

lived and provide for local needs, I

27:37

suspect we would discover that our communities

27:39

around the country are a bedrock of

27:41

solidarity. The solidarity

27:43

of this century would pass

27:45

power downwards. So

27:48

if we want to heal our national

27:51

divides, to give places the chance to

27:53

thrive, to build a north-easter that attracts

27:55

ambitious people like my grandad from across

27:58

the country, treat

28:00

people and places seriously,

28:02

not as problems to be managed.

28:06

Solidarity is a test for our nation

28:08

about what kind of society we want

28:10

to be and whether

28:12

we're willing to pay for that when the chips are down.

28:15

But the good news is that

28:17

the future of solidarity is in our hands.

28:20

It's about us and it's up

28:22

to us. So let's get cracking.

28:25

Thank you. Ben,

28:38

thank you very much. We're going to

28:40

take questions from this absolutely packed

28:43

auditorium in a moment. But if I can

28:45

kick us off, I mean it seems to

28:47

me from your talk the examples that you

28:49

gave fitted into two silos.

28:51

So there's kind of sort of local

28:54

solidarity with people who are like you

28:56

who either are of your tribe, if

28:58

you like. They live in the same

29:00

area, they have the same concerns and

29:02

then national solidarity. And a bit

29:04

worryingly, the examples you gave of really good

29:06

national solidarity were World War and pandemic

29:09

and I just wondered whether it really does

29:11

take a crisis to

29:13

create a national solidarity. There

29:16

are some real contradictions in

29:19

the ups and downs of human life.

29:21

So for example, inequality, economic inequality is

29:23

often lowest during really tough times,

29:25

right? And during the Black Death inequality went down. Well,

29:28

you don't want the Black Death to have lower inequality.

29:30

That's a bad way of getting there. World

29:32

Wars had the same effects. Recessions often have the

29:34

same effects. So that's an

29:37

unfortunate reality. War was

29:39

also about sacrifice. So yes, it

29:41

did have the effect of destabilizing existing

29:44

relations. It basically made a bunch of

29:46

rich people poorer. And in some

29:48

ways that probably helps equality in the

29:50

early post-war period. But it also had

29:52

the effect of bringing people together in

29:54

a common goal. Let me question

29:57

that though, because I mean the pandemic, we

29:59

were all scared. together. You

30:01

know we lost people together but

30:04

nothing showed the difference and inequality more. You

30:06

know there were people who had gardens, there

30:08

were people who didn't have gardens, there were

30:10

people who could work from home, there were

30:12

people who had no choice about working from

30:14

home. That terrible

30:16

crisis did not

30:18

forge solidarity I would suggest

30:20

but actually showed the divisions between

30:23

us very much more clearly than

30:25

before the pandemic. I think it

30:27

did a bit of both because we

30:29

did have the furlough scheme and what everyone

30:31

thinks about it, people stepped

30:33

up and paid for other people to be out

30:35

of work at home. We could have just abandoned

30:37

everybody to their fate and that would have been

30:40

a horrible outcome. We did end up not just

30:42

clapping for the NHS but also supporting the NHS,

30:44

building the Nightingale hospitals, the vaccine program and so

30:46

on. So to some extent our society succeeded there.

30:49

The problem is that we all still feel

30:51

divided but it didn't, so I think the

30:53

real failure if you like of the pandemic

30:55

didn't politically bring us together, it didn't make

30:57

us feel more of the team

30:59

together and as you noted people had very

31:02

different experiences of that pandemic.

31:04

Those predate the pandemic right so all of

31:07

the inequalities we had as a country became

31:09

manifest, became visible during the pandemic in much

31:11

higher death rates and so on. We

31:14

have not it seems to me got to

31:17

a period yet where we're really serious about

31:19

doing something about those health inequalities so that

31:21

in the next pandemic the suffering is at

31:23

least more equally shared. Okay we're

31:26

going to ask you to put

31:28

your hands up and ask questions. Gentlemen over

31:30

there shot up immediately so should be rewarded

31:32

for his courage and enthusiasm. Thanks,

31:35

thanks for that great talk Titus

31:37

Alexander democracy matters. My question

31:40

is round global solidarity. Some of

31:42

our biggest crises are international

31:44

and we need to share them. How

31:46

do we strengthen global solidarity both financially

31:49

and politically? Yeah that's a great question and

31:51

I only touched on it briefly in the

31:54

talk. As a country for

31:56

a long period of time we did something that was

31:58

not very popular with our own citizens but more might

32:00

have been beneficial in that way, and that was the

32:02

0.7% foreign aid target. Now

32:05

that's pretty controversial, because understandably,

32:07

charity begins at home, is a

32:10

common feeling that people have, and because so many parts

32:12

of the country have been struggling, you can see why

32:14

that was politically controversial. For a long

32:16

period of time, the government stuck to it. We of

32:18

course no longer have it, it's now back to being

32:20

an ambition again. The

32:23

tricky thing is, turning that kind of

32:25

commitment to fund development around the world

32:27

into outcomes that are beneficial for the

32:29

rest of the world, because it is easy for that

32:31

money to be used badly, or to end up

32:33

supporting charities or research groups

32:36

that conduct wonderful research, but don't necessarily

32:38

get directly to the heart of the

32:40

matter. But I do think

32:42

that so many of our global challenges stem

32:45

from poverty, and stem from people

32:47

lacking the security that we feel

32:50

here. It seems unlikely

32:52

that we'll have effective international solidarity with

32:54

the level of global inequality that we

32:56

currently have. The lady behind. Charlie

33:00

Charlton, you talked about social glue.

33:03

The further that's stretched, the less sticky

33:05

it becomes, and one of the greatest

33:07

challenges for the Northeast are the preconceptions

33:10

people have about us down south and

33:12

elsewhere. How do we change

33:14

that narrative? Yeah, it'd be really useful

33:16

if politicians from the South didn't use

33:18

you as prop and stereotype. And

33:20

I think there's just been a massive

33:23

tendency of that in Westminster. I think

33:25

in part because Westminster didn't know

33:27

what to do in 2016, so

33:29

it invented a group

33:31

of Northern voters or Redwall voters or Brexit voters

33:33

in their own heads, that sometimes

33:36

resembles actual real people, but mostly resembles

33:38

a bunch of kind of glued together

33:40

stereotypes that they've gleaned from old anti-cap

33:43

comics. So I don't

33:45

think that's very helpful. And I think

33:47

for Westminster to take the Northeast seriously

33:51

would require maybe a different political system than the

33:53

one that we have, because we had a

33:56

system where every Northeast constituency voted the same way for

33:58

70 years, and I can understand that there was... there's

34:00

a reaction against that, you feel taken

34:02

for granted. But

34:04

it doesn't seem that things have really changed

34:06

for the Northeast enormously over the last few

34:08

years. Leveling up is an idea, I'm not

34:10

sure it's an experienced reality. So

34:13

I think a de-centering of politics

34:15

is probably the only way that you

34:17

get taken seriously. And

34:20

I don't know whether that's the new

34:22

Metro mayor system because that then puts

34:24

Sunderland in with lots of other places

34:26

that Sunderland fans don't always agree with.

34:28

But I do think some form of

34:30

decentralisation would at

34:32

least force politicians to listen to local

34:35

needs. Coming back to you, it's hilarious

34:37

that you turn Newcastle into the Voldemort of

34:39

geography, wouldn't say its name. Is that a

34:41

worry? We can get back to the lady

34:43

who asked the question, that

34:45

if you are pulled into the

34:47

orbit of the Metro mayor system,

34:50

that you will be completely eclipsed

34:52

by Newcastle that is larger and

34:54

louder. Well, it's a very

34:56

tricky issue at the moment. There's a

34:58

lot of excitement about devolution, a lot of

35:00

excitement about the potential. But arguably,

35:03

if you look at the Northwest, the

35:05

decision would be made about a leading

35:07

city. And inevitably, people

35:09

believe that will be Newcastle. That

35:12

poses very interesting challenges for an

35:14

area that has been very tribal.

35:18

Getting Sunderland to have Newcastle as the

35:20

leader, getting Gateshead to have Newcastle as

35:22

the leader, right down to Teesside, right

35:24

up to Berwick. It is a

35:26

challenge. And you've

35:28

got seven local authorities to

35:31

keep an agreement as well. The woman in the middle,

35:33

yeah. My name's Eileen, and I'm

35:35

a PhD researcher at the university here

35:37

at Sunderland. If we have a bunch

35:40

of, I'm assuming bunch is the collective

35:42

word for mayors. If we

35:44

have a bunch of Metro mayors, or

35:46

as they're trying to expand it into

35:48

the rest of the country, mayors

35:52

for regions throughout the country,

35:55

this not be anti-solidarity,

35:57

as each mayor will

35:59

obviously be for their region.

36:02

Yeah there's a real tricky trade-off that you've

36:04

outlined so clearly there between

36:07

wanting our local areas

36:09

to be treated seriously with the

36:12

people that we know and care about around us

36:14

and which is where most of us I think

36:16

our solidaristic feelings coming from and wanting to empower

36:18

that and then how it plays out at the

36:20

national level and I think there's always going to

36:23

be a bit of a bounce back and forth

36:25

between those things and that's okay because the country

36:27

is more than just the kind of aggregation of

36:29

all the localities. I think it's important

36:31

to be aware of that we do have things that

36:34

are national in nature that bind us. I

36:36

just think that we've focused on those for the last

36:38

few years and not on the former. One

36:40

way of thinking about a national

36:43

government that took localities more seriously would be and

36:45

I hate to say it if we

36:48

are going to reform the House of Lords which

36:50

may happen then thinking about

36:52

is a second chamber of regions that's

36:54

more locally defined a way of getting

36:57

that. Thank you.

36:59

Chris Mullen I was the Member of Parliament

37:01

for Sunderland South for 23 years. Isn't

37:04

the political problem that

37:07

any politician or any political

37:09

party that went into an election

37:11

promising higher taxes especially those that

37:13

will be required to fund a

37:15

basic a universal basic income risks

37:18

triggering mass hysteria?

37:22

Spoken like a man who's experienced a

37:24

tax bombshell poster. Yeah

37:27

it's really difficult. So actually I

37:30

alluded to the challenges earlier that politicians

37:34

normally have to raise taxes today for benefits

37:36

in the future and that's challenging around elections.

37:38

You know FDR had that problem with the

37:40

introduction of social security back in the 30s.

37:43

Initially they'd wanted the benefits to come out

37:45

many years after the initial taxes were paid

37:47

but after they lost a congressional election at

37:49

the end of the 30s they just schmooshed

37:51

them together. It's really difficult to do. Part

37:54

of it I think relates to

37:57

our volatile form of first-past-the-post electoral

37:59

politics. which means that

38:02

firstly politics is quite nice edge in this

38:04

country, right? You either win or

38:06

you lose control of Parliament and

38:08

because our political system is

38:10

so centralized and creates

38:13

such a kind of overbearing power in the

38:15

executive of the day, it's quite hard to

38:18

make policies stick over time and I worked

38:20

on a skills policy back in the mid-2000s

38:22

that did when I worked for the Treasury.

38:24

It did become part of law and then

38:27

government changed policy went out the window. Very

38:29

easy for that to happen. So all of this is

38:32

a real challenge for each of us when we go to

38:34

the ballot box, right, to in our own

38:36

heads think well wait a second am I just voting

38:38

for what's convenient for me today but of course as

38:40

a voter you're not making the key decisions. What

38:43

this really is then is a call for

38:45

grown-up politics from our politicians. I'm

38:47

sure you're all extremely confident that that's going

38:50

to happen but I think

38:52

it's possible. It might require

38:54

some kind of cross party agreement

38:57

about securing the future of

38:59

the NHS but I'm not sure how

39:01

you create that easily because in our

39:03

current extremely polarized environment it's very challenging

39:05

to do that and I acknowledge that

39:07

the UK is a particularly hard place

39:10

to get these kind of long-run policies

39:12

that we might need. Do you mind

39:14

if I throw that back to you Chris

39:16

Mullen because I mean if this is radio

39:18

so people can't see your eyebrows but in

39:20

the dance of disbelief but could you could

39:22

you ever imagine a time when there is

39:24

cross-party support to turn to

39:26

the voters and say what do we

39:29

want more taxes to pay for whether

39:31

it's UBI, universal basic income or better

39:33

NHS or anything like that you've been

39:35

in politics is that ever going to

39:37

happen? Well at the beginning of 2000

39:40

that was possible Blair did raise national

39:45

insurance to put money into the National

39:47

Health Service that wasn't as

39:49

a result of a two-party agreement as a result

39:51

of having a majority of 160 in Parliament so

39:55

I think it's very impractical the

39:58

professor said we would need

40:00

to rekindle the spirit of beverage. Yes, but

40:02

it took a world war to do that.

40:05

Yeah, I mean, beverage may be the only

40:07

successful cross-party agreement in our

40:09

history. Having a huge majority is

40:11

obviously one key way of

40:13

essentially having to be being able to

40:15

get past the electoral problem. But another

40:18

is just having economic growth. And

40:20

there was great growth in the 90s and early 2000s. And

40:24

we've had a growth rate that, believe it

40:26

or not, is worse than any growth rate

40:28

since the Napoleonic Wars in this country. And

40:30

that just makes every decision so much harder.

40:33

Hello. Graham Thrower, the Institute of

40:36

Economic and Social Inclusion at the University of

40:38

Sunderland. I worry that

40:40

maybe the biggest barrier for

40:42

the future of solidarity is a lack

40:44

of any shared acceptance of

40:47

the objective truth about the

40:49

challenges facing society and

40:51

the inequalities in our society in a

40:53

world of alternative facts and fake news.

40:55

So how do we combat that?

40:58

There is an onus on us not

41:00

to simply call out the so-called mainstream

41:02

media and to say, oh, they're all

41:04

lying to us, the main guys in

41:06

the establishment. I think that's been a

41:08

really unfortunate outcome. Of course, venerable

41:10

institutions like the BBC or ITV or Sky

41:12

News or the major broadsheet newspapers, they don't

41:15

always get all the facts right. But I

41:17

do think we tend to jump on them

41:19

very quickly when they make a mistake. And

41:22

we give a lot of leeway to crazy research

41:24

that's being done on social media, where the evidence

41:26

base is very low, there are no fact checkers.

41:28

So I think it's on all of us to

41:31

take seriously the big institutions a bit

41:33

more. Nobody likes

41:35

trusting a big institution. But I think they

41:38

are a lot more trustworthy than stuff you

41:40

find on Twitter or on TikTok or on

41:42

Instagram and so on. I think

41:44

what you're saying is what everybody would wish

41:46

is that we all think about things more,

41:48

think about each other more. But

41:51

does that make you just a hopeless optimist? That

41:53

genie is out of the bottle now. We all

41:55

do. We go whichever way we want to go.

41:57

We listen to whoever we want to listen to.

42:00

isn't it empowering though in some way to think

42:02

that it's actually up to us, right? The government

42:04

can't step in and ban fake news. It's not

42:06

a viable thing to do because information travels from

42:08

the States or from Europe or from Russia at

42:11

the speed of light into our social media feeds.

42:13

So actually preventing that from happening would require an

42:15

enormously strong and authoritarian government that then we would

42:17

all shiver about. So I think the empowering part

42:19

is to say, look, actually it's up to all

42:21

of you. It's up to me, it's up to

42:24

everybody. So be a bit more serious about

42:26

this and not just denounce the big guys and not get

42:28

tricked. Okay, the lady behind.

42:31

I'm Maeve Cohen, I'm from an organization

42:33

called The Social Guarantee, the advocate for

42:35

universal basic services. So I

42:37

don't know if you tell me what it's still got, oh, I'm sure

42:39

it would. So it is a question about. Always give a thumbs up.

42:42

It is a question about UBI,

42:44

universal basic income. It does seem

42:46

to me that it is the

42:48

ultimate throwing money at a problem.

42:50

These inequalities and the social inequalities

42:53

we face and a lot of the

42:55

environmental breakdown that we face is

42:57

due to an over dependence on private

42:59

markets and private production and private consumption.

43:02

And just giving everybody cash doesn't address

43:04

any of those underlying forces that are

43:07

creating these problems. So I think a

43:09

far better use of that money would

43:11

be investing in collectively provided services, which

43:14

is something that you have spoken about.

43:17

And I wasn't quite sure if you were

43:19

advocating for a universal basic income, because

43:21

you did speak a lot about services and I'm

43:23

not convinced you can have both. And I would

43:25

like to ask you about the tension between the

43:27

two. I'm cunning like that. Because

43:30

there's a lot of real UBI advocates out there.

43:32

And I think there are some benefits to this

43:34

as an idea. At the risk

43:37

of advertising my own book, I wrote a book, Why

43:39

Politics Fails, where I talk about the merits

43:41

of UBI and I ultimately come down against

43:43

it, which is an unpopular position for academics

43:45

to take. And the reason is because the

43:48

money to pay for a UBI that was

43:50

actually meaningful, which maybe like would be kind

43:52

of the level of the basic pensions like

43:54

nine or 10 grand a year has to

43:56

come from somewhere, as the

43:58

point was being made earlier. that money has

44:00

to come from somewhere. That means increased taxes,

44:02

or probably it means cutting other things that

44:04

we already like. So it strikes

44:08

me that you might win

44:10

the battle with UBI and lose the war, that

44:13

you'll end up without people having access

44:15

to services, because you've stripped back many

44:18

of the collective public goods that

44:20

we depend on, from public

44:22

transport, which we don't find enormously generously in

44:24

this country, but education, health care. You could

44:26

end up in a situation where people are

44:29

sort of buying health care vouchers or education

44:31

vouchers because that's how you've saved the money

44:33

from the UBI. So yeah, I guess my

44:35

idea of universal guarantees is along the

44:38

lines of universal basic services. Thank

44:41

you very much. I'm Councillor Graham Miller,

44:43

and I'm leader of Sunderland City Council.

44:45

So I was interested in your comments

44:48

about the mayoral combined authority, but that's

44:50

not my question. The

44:52

future of solidarity, I think, said

44:54

under deep threat from

44:57

AI, the use of deep

44:59

fake technology, people's increasing belief that

45:01

social media just tells them the

45:03

truth or the truth they

45:05

want to see. All

45:07

of that risks splintering the

45:10

future of solidarity. We

45:12

have gone down the wrong path in thinking

45:14

about how to govern artificial intelligence by focusing

45:16

so much on what's called the existential threat

45:19

from artificial intelligence, which is the sort of

45:21

Terminator 2 threat. But it seems to me

45:23

that the AI risks that are much more

45:25

important are those to the essence

45:27

of our policy and of our economy. Artificial

45:30

intelligence could replace all of our jobs, I

45:33

suppose. But I think the bigger risk is

45:35

it makes a small group of people extremely

45:37

wealthy and makes a lot of other people's

45:39

jobs much more insecure. And then

45:41

to our policy, it's very unclear to me

45:43

that there's any serious move

45:46

in our major social media companies to take

45:48

seriously the threat of AI deep fakes. It

45:50

is very hard, I think, for our

45:53

government to do very much about

45:55

that. We have been effective at

45:57

regulating political advertising on the normal

45:59

media. on TV and radio for years and

46:02

we just wave our arms in the end and say oh well what

46:04

can you do about social media and I think we probably could do

46:06

a little more than we're doing. Question at

46:08

the back. Hi I'm Broly

46:10

I'm a master's student at the University

46:12

of Sunderland. Can you have an

46:14

English solidarity when some cities

46:17

don't identify as English? Yeah

46:19

lots of parts of the country in

46:22

Merseyside and in the north east they

46:24

feel less in common with the country

46:27

than they might do. Now that might

46:29

be long-standing as I think it is

46:31

in Liverpool but Liverpool was a Tory

46:33

town in the 50s and 60s, Newcastle

46:36

used to vote conservative, places

46:38

also change and adapt so I don't

46:40

think I would want to think of

46:43

different city regions in the United

46:45

Kingdom or even in England as

46:47

being fundamentally distinct from

46:49

England as a whole but

46:51

many places have felt completely ignored

46:53

and I think feeling neglected, feeling

46:55

ignored leads to backlashes that we've

46:57

only started taking seriously in this

46:59

country as a political outcome in

47:02

the last decade and I'm not

47:04

sure we've really taken seriously administratively

47:06

or economically at all yet. Can

47:08

I throw it back to our students

47:10

questioner really? I mean

47:12

I get the impression that you're saying that England

47:15

is not the banner underneath which

47:17

you think there is going to be this

47:19

sort of solidarity. What would it be? Solidarity

47:22

has to come through class because

47:24

people at the top of the tree don't need

47:27

solidarity because there's

47:29

no struggle so

47:31

people who find it hard like students,

47:33

people who work, people on benefits, I

47:36

mean even the middle classes are feeling a pinch now and it's

47:39

the people at the top who frankly thought

47:41

well having a solidarity but don't know what it means

47:43

to deliver it. Thank you. Hi

47:46

my name is Kevin Ewell and I'm

47:48

Emeritus Professor of History and

47:50

my question is about national solidarity

47:52

because in the past this

47:55

country has been bound together by its common

47:57

past, by its history and I think you

47:59

have some background in history as well.

48:01

Yeah. Good research.

48:04

I noticed that my children's generation

48:06

is ashamed of the past and

48:08

they have a disdain for the

48:10

flag and they have

48:13

a rejection of Britain's history. And

48:16

I just wonder whether a national

48:18

solidarity is possible without what has

48:20

bound together this nation in the

48:22

past, which is its history. I'm

48:25

not going to sit here and say that

48:27

I think that students should be

48:29

taught an airbrushed version of

48:31

history. I also don't think

48:33

it makes sense for students to be taught

48:36

horrible histories where the only horrible part is

48:38

the UK. I get that. I

48:40

think we have to

48:42

trust that our children are a bit smarter

48:44

than we sometimes think they are about knowing

48:46

that there's good and bad in all things

48:49

and being able to teach history

48:51

in a way that doesn't veer towards one

48:53

of those two extremes is extremely challenging for

48:56

anybody who teaches history. Anyone who's taught as

48:58

a professor, as a teacher knows that's a

49:00

balance you have to strike. But you do

49:02

spend all of your time talking to students

49:04

about bias and sources. And so in a

49:06

way, I think we

49:08

need to have a more grown up

49:11

conversation in this country about how to

49:13

talk about the goods and bads of

49:15

British history and not worry too much

49:17

about emphasizing one or the other as

49:20

taking away our solidarity. I think our

49:22

solidarity comes from collectively shared experiences more

49:25

than it does from collectively shared narratives. So,

49:27

you know, I'm open to being wrong. In

49:30

the past, we've had national services, been

49:32

at a time of war. But

49:35

would that not be a thing that

49:37

would bind us together in solidarity, maybe

49:39

not a militaristic one, but the social

49:42

service or, you know, putting something back

49:44

in our community? Would a national service

49:46

do that? So I initially thought

49:48

about talking about this in this lecture and I

49:50

left it out. But I think the point I

49:52

want to make about national service is very few

49:55

people, even in this room, would have had to

49:57

do it. And a lot of politicians and advocates

49:59

of national service. service never had to do it.

50:01

So that does raise the question of how would they

50:03

feel had they had to do it. And whether it's

50:05

just make work. Because I don't think you want people

50:07

around the country having to do make work for a

50:10

year without being able to get on with

50:12

the rest of their lives. And the other thing I

50:14

would say about national service is I don't think you

50:16

can force feelings of common

50:18

feeling with other people. I

50:20

think that's something that you want to develop organically

50:22

rather than saying, well, everybody has

50:25

to do this same process and that will create them.

50:27

Maybe it will or maybe it will just lead to

50:29

a great deal of resentment. Or my

50:31

bigger concern actually is it leads to a great

50:33

deal of inequality as people from more privileged backgrounds,

50:35

just as with the Vietnam War draft, find ways

50:37

of getting out of it or getting the cushy

50:40

jobs. OK, thank you. Now,

50:42

the woman in green in

50:44

the middle. Hi, I'm

50:46

Jen Clark, and I'm interested

50:49

in our history of solidarity

50:51

movements of mobilizing of people

50:53

holding governments to account or

50:55

trying to influence change. What

50:57

do you think is the

50:59

future, given clampdown on rights

51:01

of protest and other things,

51:03

of the future of solidarity

51:05

of activism, of mobilization of

51:07

movements of citizens? Well,

51:09

in this country, we've very recently been

51:11

having a great debate about protest. We

51:14

have had a government that's twitchy about

51:16

protest. Amazingly, we have a police force

51:18

that's less twitchy about protest, which is

51:21

impressive. You

51:23

know, other countries, the French have blocked

51:25

some forms of protest entirely over the

51:27

last few months. So whether we're striking

51:29

the balance correctly, I don't know.

51:31

But what I think we can say is that during

51:34

times of war, for example, the Iraq

51:37

War, we saw massive protests. We see

51:39

and some people hate them and some people

51:41

love them. Huge, effective protests by extinction rebellion.

51:44

So it's not obvious to me that

51:46

activism is a sleeping

51:48

giant. I think it's happening in the

51:50

country. The area of civic organization that

51:53

I think needs a

51:55

jolt maybe compared to other countries is with trade

51:57

unionism, because if you look at what's happened in

51:59

the United States. over the last few

52:01

years, you've seen a massive resurgence of

52:03

labor organizing with Amazon and Starbucks and

52:06

entities that people thought could never be

52:08

unionized and done so quite successfully, obviously

52:10

with the backing of President Biden, but

52:13

we haven't seen that same turn here.

52:15

And I think figuring out how labor,

52:18

here in the Northeast, right, with a grand tradition

52:21

of labor organization but around

52:23

six jobs where it was easier to

52:26

organize because everybody did work in the

52:28

same place, could organize together, much harder

52:30

in the gig economy, in the precarious economy.

52:33

And I don't think we've had that conversation in the United

52:35

Kingdom yet and that seems to me to be an interesting

52:37

one to have. We have some representatives from

52:39

Durham miners here and just tell me

52:42

what you think about that

52:44

observation about protests

52:47

and solidarity. I'm

52:49

Ross Forbes from the Durham Miners

52:52

Association. There was a year-long protest

52:54

40 years ago with

52:57

people trying to protect their communities.

53:00

I'd be very interested how Ben

53:02

would react to that period

53:04

in particular and how that changed the

53:06

British state. I

53:08

think the British state realized that they could crush

53:10

a union and once they

53:13

realized that it became much

53:15

harder for unions to have

53:17

credible negotiating power against the

53:19

central state. Now that

53:21

was always going to be more of a showdown

53:24

when you had an industry that was fighting directly

53:26

against the state rather than say an employer. But

53:29

to give you a similar example, the University

53:31

Colleges Union hit the red

53:33

button, had a marking boycott,

53:36

students didn't get their degrees, everybody

53:38

thought this is like, this is the last thing

53:40

you would do, this has to work and it

53:42

didn't work. Well that makes

53:44

it very hard to negotiate after you've done

53:47

that. So unions have to be credible. So

53:49

I think it's been a real challenge for

53:51

the movement since that point because that empowered

53:53

the government so much in the years afterwards

53:57

to create a series of laws that make it harder

53:59

to strike. And I don't think that the

54:01

swing back has recovered much of the territory

54:03

since then. Thank you. Hi,

54:05

Ben. Neil Herron, former market

54:07

trader. We have another Sunderland first,

54:09

and that was the first person to be

54:11

prosecuted under the medication regulations. Guy

54:14

called Steve Thorburn became the metric martyr. And

54:16

the solidarity that we saw was the anti

54:19

British public got behind the unfairness and injustice

54:21

of prosecuting someone for selling bananas by the

54:23

pound, just the one who asked for bananas

54:25

by the pound. Steve

54:28

went through the court, European Court of Human Rights,

54:30

House of Lords, Royal Court

54:32

of Justice. And we had a

54:34

massive public resistance. What's the question? The question

54:36

is, do you think it helps saw the

54:38

seeds of Brexit? I mean, it's funny, right? If you

54:40

say went through the European Court of Human Rights,

54:42

there's a sort of dance here, right? Because

54:45

on the one hand, the regulations made it harder. And

54:47

on the other hand, it provided the apparatus to go

54:49

through it. Look, I don't think

54:51

it can be as simple as one event for

54:53

Brexit as a whole in the country. But also

54:55

local events matter locally. And

54:57

Sunderland, of course, was a defining

54:59

point of the Brexit referendum of

55:02

people feeling they

55:04

weren't being listened to. I do think

55:06

any higher level of government

55:09

needs to take seriously that there are always

55:11

going to be local consequences to its decisions

55:14

that it can ride roughshod over, but

55:17

might ultimately end up

55:19

accumulating into a reaction it doesn't

55:21

like at all. And

55:23

the final question goes to you. I'm

55:26

Emily and I'm here with my sixth

55:28

on college, Robert of Newminster. As

55:31

the younger generation is painted out

55:33

to be so obsessed with social media, concerning

55:36

the fact of like fake news, we

55:38

therefore a threat to solidarity and like

55:41

how we're going to get around that.

55:43

I know you guys are way better than your grandparents

55:45

on Facebook. So

55:49

when I mentioned earlier that I run surveys around the

55:51

country with several thousand people, and what I always try

55:53

and do in my surveys is I don't just ask

55:55

people to kind of give me a number like how

55:57

much do you approve of something. and

56:00

ask people to put in open-ended answers about how

56:02

they feel about things. So

56:04

then I get their explanation, so why do you feel

56:06

that way? And then I can look

56:08

at how older people and younger people respond to

56:10

things. So younger people are much

56:13

more concerned in the language that they

56:16

use about the system,

56:18

about the structure, about inequality,

56:20

about then that has

56:22

then that hasn't, about fortunes, about fairness

56:24

than old people are. Older people tend

56:26

to focus on individual tenets. They talk

56:28

about effort, they'll talk about savings and

56:30

you know and that's great too. I

56:33

believe you should all engage in lots

56:35

of effort and save money but

56:37

it's a very distinct way of thinking about it and

56:39

it's not clear to me that the youth are less

56:41

solidaristic. It feels like they're more solidaristic. They think about

56:43

things in terms of the structure of society more. So

56:46

if you care about solidarity that's good news. This

56:49

has been a really fascinating Q&A session.

56:51

Thank you so much. Unfortunately we're going

56:53

to have to leave it there. We're

56:55

out of time. Next week we're going

56:57

to be in Atlanta in the swing

56:59

state of Georgia just 11 months from

57:01

the next US presidential election and there

57:03

Ben is going to be asking how

57:05

we can continue to grow our economies

57:07

without despoiling the planet. So that's for

57:09

next time. For now though

57:11

thank you to our audience here at

57:13

the fire station in Sunderland. A huge

57:16

thank you to our BBC re-lecturer

57:18

for 2023, Professor Ben Ansell. If

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