Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Cross-bench peer who worked under five prime ministers tackling homelessness, poverty, and crime; led the Everyone In initiative to protect rough sleepers.
On the island
Eight records
The first tune I ever taped to my unending joy was this particular one in my bedroom after Mass on a Sunday night.
It reminds me that, regardless of how dark and sad and painful many things may be in our communities, in our families, in our society, that the world remains wonderful.
My mother loved this. She had to be carried out of the Manchester Opera House by one of her beaus early on because she was crying so much. And basically it's our tune.
Love TrainFavourite
This is Love Train, which of course for me is a dancing song and it just it's like a sparkle of joy.
Abide with me is saying God, and if you don't believe in God, for me, each other, to humanity, it's saying, please be with me. Be with me and carry me in the times that are hard. People are there for me in my darkest moments. and I will be there for them. And A bite with me is for Sister Eater.
There's something extraordinary about brass bands and the dignity. And the story of Brastov is the story of taking the dignity away from working people. It goes deep into my own family. And so when I listen to a brass band play Danny Boy, it takes me into my soul about those people. and the fact that it is Irish. of course is about Really, some of the tides of immigration, and those tides have made this country the country that it is. And we should embrace it and accept it.
Nocturne No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2
It's just simple and beautiful and it just carries you.
This piece is by the Self Isolation Choir, and my friend is one of the six thousand people that is in this Self Isolation Choir. And it's just an extraordinary thing, I think, to think that people all over the world get in front of their, you know, telephones and their whatever's and they record together. You know, dear God, I hope as the clouds part and the sun shines again and we're through this. That we will all meet again and we will meet again together and that we will leave no one behind, that we will go back and we will check that people aren't hungry and we will check that people aren't homeless and we will check that communities who've been riven by unemployment and by despair have hope and that that's what this song means.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:11Why did you want to go back to the sharp end of volunteering?
To be honest, I've never really stopped. That's just, you know, the way I sort of approach things is I think you've got to see, feel and understand what's actually happening, as it were, on the street, in the homes, on the housing estates and getting on a train and going to see people and listening to them and trying to understand what their lives were about.
Presenter asks
3:42How do you relax and decompress from all that?
I love socializing. When that who's who thing came years and years ago when I was first a civil servant, I couldn't fill it in because they what are your hobbies? And I said, drinking and reading novels. I love to go out, socialise, and I love to read. I've nothing else to add, really.
Presenter asks
5:11How did you get involved in the COVID rough sleeping task force?
Tucked my nose in. I chose to persuade people that they needed me. I was due in the Cabinet Office to do something I had to do there anyway. Anyway, I just walked down Whitehall and I texted Robert Jenrick, and I texted the Permanent Secretary and said, I'm in reception. Do you want a hand, really?
The keepsakes
The book
Collected Works of Jane Austen
Jane Austen
There is something just incredibly comforting about Jane Austen.
Presenter asks
5:54Looking back, is there anything that you would do differently?
Um sometimes I've looked back and thought Maybe I should have been even more challenging to some of the system. I was deeply disappointed that when we had a lot of these people in hotels, many of whom were able bodied and okay and could have worked, that could I get anybody to give them a job, I found really frustrating and I couldn't really Get enough attention onto that. We left people in those hotels for too long without getting them out and into jobs. ... Like you've got to be careful that you're not pretending you're solving something when you're not. And actually, the truth is, it wasn't a rough sleeping strategy. ... But you need a strategy to sort out these really difficult and challenging problems, and that's what we'll need as we come out of the pandemic.
Presenter asks
7:04What's your approach to keeping politically neutral?
You know, I often think of it as like a stone with the water like a uh actually endless big waves coming at you. And that what you have to be is a stone that weathers those waves, that if you're doing Really important big things for society. You have to hold your own in it, and that can be very difficult. How do you know when you're striking the right balance? And I think you don't always know because you can't always handle politics.
Presenter asks
25:54What was your thinking and how did you respond to that criticism [about enabling homelessness]?
Well, I, you know, a few times in my career, not my finest hour, I would say, that what I was trying to say is, look, we've got to get people off the streets, not keep people on the streets. Instead of that, I said rather brashly, they're handing out better sleeping bags on the strand than you and I can buy, you know, in the best camping shop. So it wasn't sensitively handled, but the point remains the same. ... what we wanted to do was to encourage people to come inside for help. It's tough love.
“I think the best thing that has happened because of the pandemic is just this extraordinary sort of surf wave really of kindness towards each other.”
“I love to go out, socialise, and I love to read. I've nothing else to add, really.”
“For one reason or another, it's my privilege really to have some sense of what being in the dark is like, and what facing difficulty is like, particularly as a child or a young person. And I think that that means I'm empathetic.”
“I won't naturally go with the grain if I don't think it's the right thing, Lauren. But I'm not a politician. I don't have to be popular.”
“Yeah, I used the F word seventeen times in one speech. You know, that's not really what you expect of senior civil servants. And I felt ashamed of myself really. Messing up in public is incredibly painful, but you can learn a lot from it.”