“This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much” – Helen Keller
Historically, the UK has been a wonderful place for community, there are currently some 166,000 registered charities in the UK, raising, on average, some £48 billion per year for good causes, and this is something the people of the the UK can and should be rightly proud of. However, there are parts of community care that need a root and branch overhaul to make them better at what they do, to be far more supportive, and for the state to take a more active role in doing what it is supposed to do – take responsibility for its people.
In the articles that will be listed here, we are going to make proposals for discussion on how we believe we can improve British society to make everyone’s life better, to improve social inclusion, social cohesion, reduce social tension and make life easier for people – this is no easy task, it cannot and will not happen overnight, and it cannot and will not happen without it being a full blown partnership between the state, its institutions and society as a whole, and that partnership must be one of equal respect and equal responsibility, understanding and tolerance, not simply words, not simply platitudes, but real action and meaningful dialogue to truly understand how we make Britain and truly remarkable society to live in.
We are a diverse melting pot of cultures going back thousands of years, from post ice age hunter-gatherers to the period before the druids, often referred to as pagans, to the Roman era, the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Normans and a whole swath of cultures since the early middle ages, the British are not a mono-culture as some would have us believe, we are not a village shut off from the global city, but we have, to a degree, lost our way in trying to fit in since 1945. It is time to embrace our complex history, good and bad, acknowledge the amazing and rich history the British have given the world, because it is a lot, and we need to rebuild our society with pride, compassion, honesty, integrity, empathy and humility so we are the place everyone else wants to live – not because of some perceived financial benefit, but because we have built a safe, embracing, inclusive, loving, honest and caring society that we can all be proud of.