Demos launch its Commission on Character

11^th January 2010

 Frank Field spoke today to the following brief on the Politics of Character:

The major reason why Britain is rougher and more uncivilised than it was in the early post-war period has been the collapse of the politics of character.  These politics dominated the debate from the mid-Victorian period up until the middle of the last century.

The politics of character were hugely successful.  England was transformed from a rough, uncouth and often cruel nation, into the modern age where citizens treated other people as they wished to be treated themselves.

Look at Geoffrey Gorer's classic work Explaining English Character that was published in 1955.  I agree with his analysis.  It is totally wrong to claim that we were always a civilised nation.  Far from it.  But we did become a nation transformed.

How?  Gorer sets out to explain how this dramatic transformation took place.  There are many subtleties to his argument.  But he stressed one influence above all others.

England fell in love with becoming a nation of good parents.  Child rearing practices were transformed. 

English parents, in increasing numbers, learned the art of how to live together as a family.  By this route we also learned those qualities necessary to negotiate successfully a life in the wider community.  Awarding respect to others became intimately bound up with gaining our own self respect.

There can be no serious discussion about character separate from the role of families.  Families are the crucible within which - for good or ill - character is forged.

There are a number of reasons - some in themselves commendable - that explain why we as a nation have casually fell out of love, in ever increasing numbers, with seeing the role of a good parent as one of the great achievements in life.

Of course many people still willingly subscribe to this goal.  But not all.  And young people know they are losing out.

Sometime ago I asked a class of fourteen year olds in Birkenhead, and a similar group in Manchester, what they would like to see taught if they were able to build a school contract.  Every young person in both classes stated that the five most important objectives of a school should include teaching pupils how to be good parents.

The Birkenhead head told me that perhaps 40 per cent of the young people I questioned had parents who had never put their child's needs first. 

I don't know how some of my young constituents survive given the toe-rags they have as nominal parents.  I am not sure that I could do as well as they do in the demoralising circumstances they find themselves.

But note, not one of these young people said they wanted to know how to be better parents.  They were non-judgmental.  They simply wanted to know how to be good parents.

One of the bodies that transformed our behaviour was the Sunday School Movement.  There is no chance of recreating this body.  To advocate such a move would simply be an embrace of the politics of nostalgia. 

The instruments of change now in our society are schools that increasingly perform the role of parent, the wider family, as well as the place where our young constituents gain an education. 

But we cannot continue to dump yet more and more functions on our schools.  If we want them to teach parenting it will best be achieved by teaching these skills through the existing curriculum, i.e. in science, emphasising the importance of nurturing in the animal kingdom, in English Literature, choosing books that contrast different sorts of parents, and so on.

We also need to change our culture to home pro-parenting again. This initiative should be backed up by pre and post natal parenting courses.  Parenting courses should cease to be used as a punishment and become one of the crucial universal rites of passage.

Similarly those religious ceremonies which symbolised our part in the wider community, and our changing role in that community as we become older, need also to be secularised. 

The role that baptism performed in welcoming a child to the wider community needs to be recreated as a civil initiation ceremony where the wider community welcomes the child into its midst. The ceremony would set out what the community is putting into the family to help them do the best job possible, and to remind both parents and the wider family of their responsibilities. 

The Bar Mitzvah ceremony, similarly, needs to be recreated as a rite of passage for all young people.  This would be a ceremony to remind each of us that we are moving from being a child, and behaving like a child and being treated like a child, to becoming an adult, when we need to change our behaviour and the wider community, similarly, regards us in a different light.

There is not time to develop this theme today.  But I wish to emphasise what an opportunity this launch of a Commission on Character offers British politics.

We are in a world where politicians all too readily repeat the mantra that there is no silver bullet.  While this is undoubtedly true on most issues, it does not necessarily follow that it is always true. 

Putting character back into the centre of our politics does not simply signify a revolutionary change in the political agenda.  It similarly heralds the transformation from a macro to a micro social political agenda.  While politicians can kill people by the million, we need to be reminded that we can only be loved as individuals.

Date added: Monday 11th January 2010
Latest updated: Friday 5th March 2010