A few weeks ago, I decided to have a clear-out. There were several years’ worth of clutter best assigned to the rubbish, but among the old birthday cards and assorted keyrings, one box stood out: it was full of letters and cards from readers.
I started writing about social issues for the Guardian in 2012, around the time austerity measures began to be put in place. The following seven years have seen the emergence of a level of poverty few of us would have previously imagined possible in modern-day Britain, from hungry school children scavenging in bins for food to the growing homeless population sleeping in tents. But somewhere, not too far below the surface, I have also seen it produce a wave of generosity and hope.
This is exemplified by the reaction to my recent column about the Biscuit Fund, a volunteer-run “gifting service” for people going through hard times (named after a rumour that a Tory minister spent £10,000 a year on biscuits).
I reported on Jemima, a mum of two with chronic illnesses herself, who developed the fund to provide what she calls a “breather”: a washing machine when the old one packs in and you’ve no savings to replace it, or a food hamper to get through a benefit sanction. Within days, readers had donated £25,000 to the charity.
You could say the Christmas spirit was at work here (the piece ran late December) and that may have played a part. But it’s far from the first time Guardian readers have responded in this way. After I reported on a disabled toddler, Sophia, whose family were struggling in an inaccessible flat without specialist healthcare, readers raised £15,000 for her treatment. When we ran the story of Peter and his son, Gabriel, who had their Motability vehicle removed after losing their disability benefits, readers donated enough for a new car. The smallest tokens are often the most heartening, such as the £40 Tesco voucher posted to me to pass on to a case study “to brighten up her day”.
When the Guardian’s now features editor, Kira Cochrane, and I started the Hardworking Britain column in January 2016 – named after the then chancellor George Osborne’s favoured anti-benefits rhetoric – the idea was to focus on the people behind the politics. Politics is often presented as what happens between politicians, no more so than in these drama-filled times, while the pressure of a 24/7 news cycle means there’s a sense that something has to be “news” to justify the column inches. But the truth is most politics happens far away from Westminster, where the policies agreed in the House of Commons ricochet on to people’s lives.
Those in poverty have long been ignored by the media or actively vilified, and that’s got worse in recent years in some sections of the press. I think it is a journalistic responsibility to prioritise the voices too often shut out or distorted, and in doing so to try to reflect the social trends and profound changes occurring in the country.
In many ways, Hardworking Britain has turned into in a chronicle of austerity Britain. The mother fighting the closure of her Sure Start centre. The man with schizophrenia who died after being found “fit for work”. The jobseekers unhappy that their local jobcentre was shutting. There’s always a risk that personal stories are dismissed as isolated incidents – indeed, ministers have repeated this falsity in recent weeks – while at the same time, a thinktank report can seem abstract and cold. I work to integrate the two: an individual shows the human cost of a policy and research provides evidence of the scale of the problem.
Reader involvement has always been invaluable to this. Each week, I’m contacted through emails, tweets and even the old-fashioned post. I’ve had 10-page handwritten letters, back and front. With the community editor, Caroline Bannock, and the assistant opinion editor, Maya Wolfe-Robinson, we’ve also created online forms to enable readers to contact me about an issue important to them. Sometimes these are tipoffs, and some help also comes from campaign groups such as Disabled People Against Cuts. Sometimes people share how a policy is affecting their own lives, such as having their social care removed. I never fail to be in awe of the trust needed to speak to a national newspaper about what are deeply personal details, something that can be an even bigger leap of faith when the authorities have failed you.
Some of the stories have had a reach far beyond what we imagined, with the video series of disabled people affected by austerity filmed with John Domokos at the last general election receiving 7m views on Facebook within a few days. It is always wonderful to see how journalism can make a tangible difference, particularly when stories go viral on social media or are picked up by broadcast media. For example, Edith, a 30-year-old with multiple sclerosis, was due to move into a nursing home for elderly people because of social care problems, but the outcry in response to her story means she has been able to stay living independently in her own flat.
Amid the fatigue of austerity, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. That’s why I’ve always thought there has to be a sense of hope in even the toughest reporting: that there are good people out there, that change is possible, that we’re stronger together. But at the same time, there’s a responsibility not to sanitise poverty or the effects of government policy.
Things are hard right now for many. For some, it’s a crisis. It feels wrong to flinch away from that or to try to dress it up. Even a story like the Biscuit Fund – one of unfettered generosity – has to be told in the context of a decade of cuts. It’s the delicate balance I try to tread. It is fundamentally wrong that Britain’s safety net has been cut, and yet human kindness is a shot of light in the dark.
