January 22, 2026

Well we are only three weeks in and what on earth is going on….. I’ve found myself 462 times already saying ‘make it make sense’. The ‘removal’ of presidents (not kidnappings you understand oh no not that), the intended take over of Greenland, a supposedly progressive government at home standing by as a group of young (ish) pretty non-violent prisoners endure hunger strikes that will leave them irreparably damaged having already served longer on remand than they’re ever going to be sentenced for (even if convicted), Twitter tools are released that allows men to essentially create pornographic images and then still access them so long as they pay a premium, the rag tag bunch of failed politicians jump from Tories to Tory Story 2.

Make it make sense.

Any of it.

At least Spurs are familiarly crap again.

In the world of work I managed to rouse myself from an nice break at the end of last week – during which time I reflected on next steps, reconnected with some old friends and colleagues, then started to panic a bit that there was no work / yesterday’s man / maybe I should look for a job and then predictably got quite busy again. In my period of stepping back it was interesting just to look more deeply at what’s going on the worlds of health, justice and social care without being directly invested in it. Everywhere we look we see re-organisation, funding uncertainty, opaque directions of travel, rising client needs and providers (& their staff) increasingly on their knees or crying out for stability and direction.

I don’t envy the government picking up the remnants of a public sector and civic realm that had been decimated over years of austerity and compounded by global crises. But I do hold them accountable for their inability to communicate a vision of the society they want to create and their plans for how to get there. We all live and work here and in these sectors – we know that many of the systems are ‘broken’ – and we’ve stuck with it through the last 15 years with varying degrees of stoicism, resilience and hope. Those of us in the voluntary sector especially really want to be part of the change / some change / any change.

Not being the ‘other lot’ may have been good enough politically to attain power – it is nowhere near enough to deliver a fairer, kinder and more compassionate society. Hoping that Farridge’s lot will internally combust is similarly not enough for a ‘mission driven government’. So my hopes for 2026:

• Justice system reform needs completing – pesumptions against short term prison sentences enacted, court delays addressed (though not by ending trial by jury), victims of rape or sexual abuse actually being taken seriously, proper and sustained funding into diversion, rehabilition and treatment services. The enduring cruelty of IPP sentences of extended remand use on politically sensitive demonstrators makes any sensible announcements about justice reform look nonsensical.
• Health – sustained focus upon place based interventions, prevention, reductions in health inequalities and building of equitable partnerships between NHS, local government and VCSE. The fixation upon workforce conditions and pointless counting of ‘appointments offered’ is like a throwback to the early 2000’s.
• Social care – there can be no solution to the compounding challenges of an ageing population, local government finances and compassionate approaches to the vulnerable in society without a national drive / approach to social care provision. Simply raising thresholds for access to services does everyone a disservice. I am again engaged in a project where no-one bats an eyelid at the phrase “two year wait for a mental health assessment”.
• All this of course requires long term investment and just hoping for growth is not enough. It seems patently obvious that there needs to be a renewed economic settlement between UK and EU and that this will require greater flexibilities in movement of people and rights to work. Everyone knows this – and this being key to compelling narrative of financial renewal would play well with almost anyone.
• Drug and alcohol treatment needs committed long term funding and to be further freed from myopic politics. The system needs a shake up, needs to be more radical and assertive and focus again on meeting the needs of those who need treatment and their communities. This will inevitable require a broader provision of harm reduction interventions, enhanced access to abstinence based interventions especially residential rehab, more accessible medical interventions, greater use of diversion and raised status of organisations lead by those with lived and living experience.
• It feels like we all know this and have been saying this stuff for years. The government’s failure to be more radical (or even sensible) at the time when they were in command of a huge majority with public support for change really just doesn’t make any sense.
• #strategy #businessdevelopment #ramblings

And alongside all of this my wife turned 60 – we had a party with dear old friends and finished the evening dancing with our children and their partners to This is the Day and Rip It Up. Unless Spurs win the champions league – I suspect this will be the highlight of 2026.