(Im)Moral Ambition – the flaccid grip of inadequate men.

I’ve been holding off writing a blog about life inside my head and the world of work for weeks now – stultified by an ongoing sense of anger about the state of the world, helplessness in the same maelstrom and slightly concerned that anything I did say could be perceived as impolite. Then I read Rutger Bregman’s Moral Ambition, had a word with myself and thought f*ck it.

If truth be known much of my early anger and helplessness revolved around the state of my football club – which in the context of global events is fairly unimportant. But from this despair came some positive decision making – we are giving up our season tickets. I am hopeful that quitting Spurs will be as emotionally nourishing as when I quit Twitter. Am expecting life to be a bit less busy, shouty and angry. I had written a blog in which Thomas Frank and Keir Starmer had morphed into a single being – but felt that was just a bit too niche.

Suffice to say I drew random correlations between football and political leadership – lack of strategy, willful ignorance of historical context, focusing on financial growth and misconceived sense of power / influence while missing the point. While knowing that this generation (my generation) of political and football leaders will be judged so harshly in future generations history books. Bregman quotes someone else as saying “remember sitting in history and thinking ‘what would i have done’ – well you’re living now – this is what you would have done”. So we can / should / must do something now – our lives and resources are finite but we can all make a difference.

Then naturally I find myself pondering the state of global leadership more broadly – the callousness, the disregard for human life, the intellectual contortions to try and justify abhorrent actions.

And I find myself just thinking that if Grandpa Donald turned up to a family wedding in that ill-fitting suit and poundshop baseball cap (currently sold out on his own merch website) you’d check he had clean Tena pants on and sit him out of the way in the corner for a while so he couldn’t upset anyone. Yet he’s surrounded by sychophants and defiled people.

Such is the dearth of political and intellectual alternatives it’s like ‘we’ are all just hoping to survive until Novermber’s mid-terms – hoping that someone will be the change ‘we’ should be fighting for. Emergency crisis talks about oil prices…. oil prices. Not the break down in the rules based order, international cooperation, genocide and unfettered ambitions of tyrants. But short term rises in oil prices.

And fiscal rules obviously.

Domestically it does feel this May’s elections could be fairly consequential and definitely looks like the old two party state is well and truly over. Which one would hope was a good thing – if we weren’t stuck in a first past the post electoral system (that is used nowhere else in Europe other than Belarus). If we are not careful of course we run the very real risk of even more flaccid inadequate men getting a stronger domestic foothold. Which has grave and real consequences for the charitable sector and those we strive to serve. Last summer’s raise the (upside down usually) flags nonsense showed us just how vulnerable community relations can appear, the ongoing assaults on migrant (and in reality all ethnically diverse) communities are real and enduring.

Workwise over the last few weeks we’ve been working across a group of local authorities reviewing their collective and individual responses to those assessed as having ‘multiple complex needs’. This engagement has given us the very real privilege of attending and hosting events with groups of clients. Humbling, grounding and inspiring as ever to see people living in such abject poverty with complex inter-connected (yet unique and distinct) conditions caring for each other and demonstrating degrees of insight, compassion and empathy that our political classes could all learn from.

Anyway amidst all this bleakness (which includes trying to navigate the complexities of health and social care for my father) I’ve had the pleasure of re-engaging with old colleagues, celebrating milestone birthdays, reading some great books and listening to some fabulous music.

Which brings me back to Moral Ambition. There’s stuff in the book that is a bit simplistic but it’s central message (as is true in most of his writing) is a tangible call to action. We can all make a difference – and it flows from a defined a purpose. But develop a radical mindset, take action (as opposed to virtue signalling), stay humble and be an activist. Combining idealism with entrepreneuralism could yet prove to a be a powerful antidote to the current status quo.

Because when the worlds attention is turned elsewhere – the Epstein files are still a thing, there are international arrest warrants served, genocide is still taking place and little Farridge still makes great claims about flying to meet Grandpa Don for a dinner that he’s not invited to and Grandpa isn’t even at.

Flaccid and inadequate.

#strategy

#leadership