Britain is suffering from a crisis of storytelling Sherwood writer tells Labour conference

Real Britain is a Mirror series that stands up for your community and asks how politics affects real people. This week Ros Wynne-Jones reports from the Labour Conference where she talked to Sherwood writer James Graham about his new project ‘Ordinary Hope’ and proudly watched as five teenagers from her “If Year 9 were in No.10” project inspired delegates

Keir Starmer made “respect” for ordinary people the centrepiece of his first speech at the Labour Party conference this week.

He spoke of the “bond of respect that can unite a country”. A Britain “built with respect”. And of “a country that doesn’t just work for you and your family but one that recognises you, sees you, respects you as part of our story.”

In total, he mentioned respect 13 times.

And it appeared in a passage lauded as the strongest in his speech. “To those who say that the only way to love your country is to hate your neighbour because they look different, I say not only do we reject you, we know that you will never win,” the Prime Minister said.

“Because … the respect for difference under the same flag, that is stronger than bricks.”

Respecting everyday communities is a theme developed by University College London’s Policy Lab in its ‘Ordinary Hope’ project – with te help of the Sherwood writer, James Graham.

As the story of a Nottinghamshire community under strain is recommissioned for a third series, ‘Ordinary Hope’ has been helping develop political ideas rooted in people’s everyday lives – and in the belief ordinary people know how to solve their own problems.

When I caught up with Graham on the conference fringe, he told me he believes Britain is suffering a “crisis of storytelling.”

The Dear England playwright says we had national stories in the past – from Clement Attlee “rebuilding a welfare state in the ashes of war”, Harold Wilson’s “white heat” of revolution and Tony Blair’s Cool Britannia.

Society, he says, is “only really the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves”.

“The riots of the summer, and the quieter divisions that simmer under our culture, are partly because we been listless, drifting, and it’s making us exhausted and angry,” Graham says. “It’s a vacuum that ‘bad actors’ will offer to fill with fake, easy answers to complex problems. Populists and hate-mongers and opportunists.”

James – who also wrote the musical Tammy Faye with Elton John, as well as giving the Edinburgh Festival MacTaggart lecture this year – has been working with UCL Policy Lab over the last sixth months as they work to develop a new progressive story for Britain.

Themes that were heard throughout the Prime Minister’s speech.

“The project’s policy ideas all come from the idea that people are inherently good, and care about each other, and that solutions for greater unity can be found within communities themselves,” Graham says.

As UCL’s Marc Stears explains: “The Prime Minister set out in his speech the idea that genuine change, political and social, isn’t simply forged in Westminster and Whitehall but is the work of people up and down Britain.

“Building the foundations of national renewal on a deep respect for the contribution each person can make sat at the heart of his speech – and is what we’ve helped set out in Ordinary Hope”.

Keir Starmer also spoke in his speech about playing the flute and enjoying the composer Shostakovic, and Graham said he took hope from Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy’s heartfelt cry for access to the arts for working class kids.

He said he was “hugely encouraged” to see “creativity and imagination heralded as a right not just for the elite, but something that can add value, meaning and joy to everyone’s lives.

“As someone from a working class background, who discovered his love for theatre doing plays at his comprehensive school, I feel this very strongly.”

Graham spoke on the Conference fringe at the Renewed Reception on the eve of Starmer’s speech on Monday night in Liverpool, organised by the UCL Policy Lab, This Day, and Future Governance Forum. The playwright spoke passionately alongside cabinet ministers Ed Miliband MP and Shabana Mahmood MP, as well as campaigner Lesley Penton of the Citizens UK Liverpool chapter.

The need to bring ‘real’ voices to the Conference, also led the Mirror to bring five of the young people from our ‘If Year 9 were in Number 10’ project to Liverpool.

The five teenagers were among thousands of people who descended on Liverpool this week for the biggest party conference in Labour’s history – from MPs and local activists to a swarm of lobbyists, some of whom had paid £3,000 a ticket to attend.

Showing no sign of being overwhelmed by the standing-room only audience, one by one they took to the microphone to speak truth to power.

Divine Mbaloula, 14, from North London, told the event about the impact of living in poor housing on her disabled brother Axel. Erin Twigge, 14, from Leigh in Lancashire, who lost her Nan to the pandemic, railed against Partygate.

Yahya Suleman, 14, from Cardiff spoke about how access to sport could help young people with their mental health. Summer McGough, 14 is fighting for free travel for young people. And Inaaya Ijaz, 14, from Redbridge, raised the issue of climate change as well as calling for votes for 16-year-olds.

The response from the audience and the other speakers on the platform was overwhelming - “You have given us hope.” In a conference full of polished speeches and political messaging, our young people cut through because they spoke so sincerely, calmly and authentically.

Also speaking at our #Yr9No10 fringe were the social justice campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa and Kim Leadbeater MP – both everyday people who were plunged into politics by tragedy.

Kim was a fitness instructor when her sister, the MP Jo Cox, was murdered by a Far Right fanatic. She said her sister’s murder had taken her on her own political journey to becoming an MP herself – “and now my job, is to listen to you,” she told the young people.

While Kwajo’s father was dying of cancer, his family lived with cockroaches, mice, damp walls, a broken kitchen and conditions he said should be “illegal”. The experience led him to becoming one of Britain’s foremost housing campaigners – exposing landlords on his social media channels, where he has many thousands of followers.

And later, they got to meet Angela Rayner – whose own journey from working class kid to Deputy Prime Minister is nothing short of inspirational.

“Don’t give up,” she told them. “Keep pushing and you’ll get there. Sometimes the hardest things – the things you have to work hardest on – are the best.”

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