Empathy should be at system’s heart

BARNARDO’S is having to support children as young as nine who are being criminally exploited, and we are deeply concerned that without Government action the problem will spiral even further out of control.

During the pandemic we have seen organised gangs grooming young people and encouraging them to carry drugs and weapons.

These children are victims and need the right support to help them recover, rather than being criminalised. Yet evidence from our frontline workers shows children and families across England can experience months of exploitation, fear and violence before help arrives.

We know that children who have already had a tough start in life are particularly vulnerable, including those in foster care and residential care.

That is why we are calling on the Government to change the law so that children who are being exploited by gangs are identified and supported early. It is also vital that this month’s Spending Review includes long-term, sustainable funding for local areas to invest in youth services, counselling and other support for young people at risk.

We believe there is a lack of understanding and consistency among professionals including the police, social care and health workers about how to identify and support these young people. This is leading to vulnerable young people being criminalised rather than safeguarded.

That is why Barnardo’s is calling on the Government to make changes to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill so that every local area develops a strategy to tackle child criminal exploitation and serious youth violence.

● Natural warmth and empathy – MP Kim Leadbeater lost sister Jo Cox; she paid tribute to David Amess MP

EMPATHY. Humanity. Community.

When Kim Leadbeater, the sister of the murdered MP Jo Cox, spoke out on BBC news, she did so with a natural warmth and empathy for the family of David Amess – his assistants, his colleagues and for his whole community. His different political affiliation was irrelevant, our common humanity was, is, everything.

The murder of another MP, the death of any human being, should not be a nine-day wonder. It demands change.

Sadly, there may always be the psychologically damaged, the sociopathic, or others capable of harm, or hurt, if not of murder, but surely in an ethical society, there should be no place for the manipulators of blame and hate that inspire, motivate, and provoke them.

Surely, in an ethical society, abusive behaviour would be called out, shamed at source?

Who of us after Jo Cox’s murder, or the murder of David Amess, would relish abuse, insult, blame, hate, of any kind - on Twitter or Facebook, in the Sun or the Telegraph, the BBC, or the House of Commons? Yet such abuse is commonplace, like a deep and chronic sickness of intolerance.

A culture of blame, of hate of ‘othering,’ of turning a fellow human being into an object of derision or loathing, or hate and fear, has absolutely no place in a civilised society, or in a society that can be successful in our complex world.

A culture of enmity and blame is absolutely incompatible with any legitimate constitutional democratic way, where the law of the jungle must be superseded by open accessible debate, evidence, reason, argument, mutual respect and consensus. It’s a question of survival.

And then we see, hear those ‘exemplars’ of democratic culture government ministers - abuse, insult, and deride those who don’t agree with them, or who have better arguments.

The game is to avoid evidence, debate, reconsideration – because we, the electorate, allow their abuse, blame and slogan to work very effectively.

Such politicians - thank goodness not all - have nothing but disdain for us, they play us and think enough of us will always dance to their tune.

A corrupted press sells itself by finding enemies for us to hate - benefit scroungers one week, migrants another, GPs today, judges, lawyers, muslims, teachers, environmentalists, epidemiologists, ‘experts,’ anything ‘European’ - always a fresh distracting blame story.

They dehumanise the ‘enemy’ - who is really someone like us - someone, in fact, of us. So we become desensitised and dehumanised ourselves.

In another parallel context, slogans like Freedom Day or ‘have to live with Covid’ means 1,000 covid deaths a week are normalised. It’s not normal. It’s not normal anywhere else in the world. No human empathy in those words either.

Real democracy requires empathy, humanity, community values, respect, tolerance. It’s well past the time to call out those who use abuse and hate and blame for political gain to rule us for their selfish ends.