LORD PUTTNAM OF QUEENSGATE CBE. A Country that fails to value its Teachers, fails to value its future

Transcription

1 LORD PUTTNAM OF QUEENSGATE CBE A Country that fails to value its Teachers, fails to value its future A Speech to the North of England Education Conference, 2014 As delivered Delivered at: Nottingham Conference Centre Burton Street Nottingham On 15 January

2 It s a genuine privilege to have been asked to address you today. I d like to start with the story of the 'Paisley snail'. On the evening of 26 August 1928, May Donoghue took a train from Glasgow to the town of Paisley, seven miles east of the city. There, at the Wellmeadow Café, she ordered a 'Scots ice cream float', a mix of ice cream and ginger beer, which was bought for her by a friend. The ginger beer came in a brown opaque bottle labeled "D. Stevenson, Glen Lane, Paisley. She drank some of the ice cream float, but as the remaining ginger beer was poured into her glass a decomposed snail floated to the surface. Three days later she was admitted to Glasgow Royal Infirmary and diagnosed with severe gastroenteritis - and shock! The case of Donoghue vs Stevenson that followed set an important and lasting legal precedent. Stevenson, the manufacturer of the ginger beer, was held to have a clear 'duty of care' towards May Donoghue, even though there was no contract between them, indeed she hadn t even bought the drink. One of the judges, Lord Atkin, described it like this: You must take care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. Now, please hang onto that 'paisley snail' story, because it becomes ever-more important. About eighteen months ago, the Hansard Society, a non-partisan charity which seeks to strengthen parliamentary democracy, and encourage greater public involvement in politics, published, alongside their annual 'Audit of Political Engagement', an additional section devoted entirely to the relationship between politics and the media. Here are a couple of rather depressing observations from that survey: Tabloid newspapers do not appear to advance the political citizenship of their readers, relative even to those who read no newspaper at all Tabloid-only readers are twice as likely to agree with a negative view of politics, than readers of no newspapers. They are not just less politically engaged; they are consuming media that reinforces their negative evaluation of politics, thereby contributing to a fatalistic and cynical attitude to democracy, and their own role within it. Little wonder that the report concluded that: 2

3 In this respect, the press, particularly the tabloids, appear not to be living up to the importance of their assigned role in our democracy. I doubt if anyone in this room would seriously challenge that view, but if Hansard are right and they usually are - then we ve a serious problem on our hands, and it s one I d like to spend the next few minutes focusing upon. But before I do, and in order to shed a little light or maybe add some heat to this issue, here is a short extract from a U.S. television series - some of you may have come across it - entitled 'Newsroom'. Last year Jeff Daniels won the Emmy as 'Best Actor' for this performance as the increasingly jaded anchor of a US Prime Time News Show. Here he is participating in a College debate, the format of which will be only too familiar to many of you. I apologise in advance for some of the language, but I was unable to cut around it, and my commitment to 'freedom of expression' made it impossible to simply 'bleep' it out! (Run the Jeff Daniels 'Newsroom' clip sec's) As he says, "The first step in solving a problem is recognising that there is one". That's pretty unarguable isn't it? But let's get back to that 'paisley snail'. Over the past decade or so, a great deal of thinking has developed around this notion of a 'duty of care' - as it relates to a number of aspects of civil society. Generally, a 'duty of care' arises where one individual, or group of individuals, undertakes an activity which has the potential to cause harm to another, either physically, mentally, or economically. As many of you will have personally experienced, this has principally focused itself upon obvious areas such as our empathetic response to children and young people; to our service personnel, and to the elderly and infirm; it has seldom if ever extended to equally important arguments around the 'fragility' of our present system of Government; to the notion that honesty, accuracy and impartiality are fundamental to the process of building and embedding an informed, engaged, participatory democracy. And the more you think about it, the stranger that is. A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of opening of a brand new school in the North East of England. As I walked through their impressive glass covered Atrium - in front of me, emblazoned on the wall - in letters of fire - was Marcus Aurelius's famous injunction: 3

4 "If it's not true don't say it". "If it's not right don't do it". The Head Teacher saw me staring at it, and said: "That's our school motto". On the train back to London I couldn't get it out of my mind. I kept thinking, "can it really have taken us over two thousand years to come to terms with that simple notion as being our minimum expectation of each other"? Isn't it time we developed this concept of 'a duty of care', and extended it to include 'a care for our shared, but increasingly endangered democratic values? After all, the absence of a duty of care within many professions can all to easily amount to accusations of negligence ; it's a charge that would strike horror into any school staffroom and, that being the case, why should we feel remotely comfortable with the notion that we're in effect being 'negligent in respect of the health of our own society, and the values that underpin it? Here is a clip from another movie I'm particularly fond of - entitled Good Night and Good Luck it concerns a particularly difficult period in the life of another extemporary journalist, Edward R. Murrow, and his battle to get Television News to take its responsibilities seriously - here he is responding to the receipt of a 'Life Achievement Award' in (Run clip from 'Good Night and Good Luck' sec's) Could anyone honestly suggest, on the evidence, that the same media which Hansard now so roundly condemns, have taken sufficient care to avoid behaving in ways which they could 'reasonably have foreseen' would likely undermine, or even damage our inherently fragile democratic settlement? I cannot count the number of times on which, during the six years I worked closely with the Department of Education, important policy decisions were undermined and distorted by willfully ignorant, and sometimes even hostile elements of the media. The atmosphere of manipulation and fear within which senior politicians engage with the mainstream media is something you have to experience in order to fully believe. It's destructive, it tends to be highly reactionary, and it offers little or no opportunity for the 'best' solution to emerge from sometimes seemingly intractable problems. My own favourite commentator on these things is the New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman. Recently he wrote this: "Among a number of unresolved issues, we have a Parent problem; parents who do not take an interest in their children's schooling, or set high enough behaviour standards. 4

5 And we have a Student problem; students who do not understand the connection between their skills and their life opportunities, and are unwilling to work to today's global standards. Reform requires us to challenge parents and students, and create a culture of respect, and an excitement for learning." Not only will the type of reform to which he refers help young people to flourish as citizens, it also has the power to transform their economic prospects - in a very challenging environment in which youth unemployment remains shockingly high. Increasingly, in the future, most well paid jobs will be at the highly-skilled end of the spectrum - and the global competition for these jobs is likely to be intense. I would argue that these are issues which seldom get adequately debated, let alone addressed in a way that 'best serves the country'; and if I m beginning to sound a little high minded, or even utopian, then I beg you to reflect on this. It's surely no exaggeration to say that early last month our media was dominated by the news of the death, and subsequent well-earned eulogies to the life of, Nelson Mandela. Politicians from every nation scrambled over each other to make themselves visible at his funeral, presumably in the hope that the aura of the man might somehow rub off on them! And Lord knows he was special. As a former filmmaker allow me to recount one very particular scene, not from the recently released movie entitled 'Mandela', but from an earlier film in which he featured. Some of you may have seen it - it was called 'Invictus', and it revolved around the 1995 Rugby World Cup which was - somewhat unexpectedly - won by the Springboks. There was a brief attempt by the then new ANC-led Government to change the traditional Springboks 'green and gold' colours to something which might be more reflective of the post-apartheid settlement. Mandela, in refusing, made the point that that was simplistic and selfish thinking he said we have to surprise them with the type of restraint and generosity that best serves the country". How many contemporary politicians and media magnets have similarly impressed us with their own commitment to the type of "restraint and generosity that best serves the country"? As the writer Dov Seidman has said: Leaders like Mandela generate moral authority by being willing at times to challenge their own constituency - and not just that of the 'other' side. 5

6 It's easy to lead by simply telling your own supporters what they want to hear. What's really difficult is getting society as a whole to do something big and hard and together. You can't do that by only asking the 'other side' to do the hard things - you have to challenge your own people to do the hard things too. The source of Nelson Mandela's moral authority derived from the fact that 'he trusted his people with the truth' rather than just 'telling them what they wanted to hear'. Leaders who trust people with hard truths, find themselves trusted in return. There will of course be those who'll argue that what I'm asking of the media could all too easily drift into a form of censorship - albeit self-censorship! I don't buy that argument. It has to be possible - we have to make it possible - to balance 'freedom of expression' with our wider social and ethical responsibilities. To help explain why, let me offer an example from my own former career. I never bought into the idea that filmmakers should set about putting their own work above or outside of what he or she believed to be a decent set of values for their own life, their own family and the future of the society in which they live. As I see it, filmmakers, journalists, even bloggers are all required to face up to the social expectations that come with combining the intrinsic power of their medium with their well-honed professional skills. Obviously, this is not a mandated duty. But for the gifted film or programme-maker, and the responsible journalist, tweeter or blogger, it strikes me as being utterly inescapable. We need always to remember that our notion of individual freedom and its partner, creative freedom is comparatively new in the history of western ideas, and for that reason is often under-valued, and can all-too quickly be undermined. It's a prize very easily lost, and once lost, once surrendered, it could prove extremely hard to reclaim. That to me is the most cogent defence of Edward Snowden's actions, and the far more healthy debate that has followed the release of the surveillance documents. Surely our first line of defence has to be our own standards, not those patrolled by the censor, the intelligence agent, or legislation. Our own standards and our own integrity our integrity as we deal with those with whom we work, and the standards we seek of ourselves as we operate within society. 6

7 And obviously these 'standards' of ours need to be all of a piece with a sustainable social agenda. They are part of a 'collective' responsibility the responsibility of the teacher, the journalist or the artist to deal with the world as it really is; and this must go hand in hand with the responsibility of those reporting on society to also face up to that world, and not to misappropriate the causes of its ills. Yet, as has become strikingly clear over the last couple of years, it's exactly this type of responsibility that, to a great extent, has proved beyond the imagination of sections of our media. As a consequence, right across the western world we're watching hopelessly over-simplistic 'policies' being promoted by parties of protest; with their appeal directed at a largely disillusioned older demographic. And this, together with dangerous levels of political apathy among the young; taken together these, and similar challenges are threatening to squeeze the life out of active, informed debate and engagement. Surely, most of us, certainly here in Europe, accept the case for some reasonable role for the State in enforcing a Duty of Care. The key word in that sentence being - reasonable. Judges must ask, did they take 'reasonable' care; and could they have reasonably foreseen the consequences? As I see it, far from signifying over-bearing state power, it s that small common-sense test of 'reasonableness' that I'd like to believe it could be applied to society s 'messengers', those in the media who, after all, set the tone and content of the vast majority of our democratic discourse. That, of course, is also where their power lies. Democracy, in order to work, requires that 'reasonable' men and women take the time to understand and debate difficult, and sometimes complex issues, in an atmosphere which strives for the type of understanding that leads, if not to agreement, then at least to a productive and workable compromise. It's been wisely said that if you can't learn to compromise on issues without compromising yourself, then you shouldn't go anywhere near politics! Because politics is all about choices; and within those choices, priorities. Expenditure on Education as against Defence; Infrastructure versus Pensions; should the emphasis lie with Energy Security or Health? Good governance is about reconciling these conflicting imperatives - wherever and whenever possible based on a transparent understanding of the facts. 7

8 But if the facts themselves are distorted, the resolutions are likely only to create further conflict - with all the stresses and strains on society that inevitably follow. The media have to decide, do they see their role as being to inflame or to inform? In the end it all comes down to a combination of 'trust' and 'leadership'. Democracy, well led and well informed, can achieve great things. But there's an important precondition - we have to trust that those making these decisions are acting in the best interests, not of themselves, but of the whole of the people. To be sure of that, we need factually based options clearly laid out; not those of a few powerful and manipulative people and corporations, pursuing their own frequently narrow agendas; but accurate, unprejudiced information with which to make our own judgments. If we want to provide decent fulfilling lives for our children, and our children's children, we need to exercise - to the greatest degree possible - that 'duty of care' in support of a vibrant and hopefully lasting democracy. As I suggested earlier, Nelson Mandela was universally held to be a great man; what none of us can afford, when the history of human-kind is finally written, is for him to be remembered as 'the last of the great men'. As he many times suggested: "In order to build our future, we will be required to exceed our expectations". I spent thirty years of my life as a filmmaker - I profoundly believe in the power of cinema to speak - deeply - to our better selves. That being the case I hope you'll forgive me if I leave you with a final short clip which, in its own way, rounds out all that I've been trying to say this afternoon. Thank you very much for listening to me. (Finish with clip from Invictus secs) 2,748 words - about 28 minutes with clips 8