Trust has been extinguished (Hollie Adams/Getty Images)
The sleepy pages of the Church Times may seem an unlikely place for a bad-tempered exchange about policing. But it seems that both the church and the police are in the process of undergoing surprisingly similar, and perhaps similarly disastrous, transformations.
The Revd Canon Alan Billings, who used to be a parish priest — and taught me theology at Vicar’s training college — is now the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire. He recently wrote a piece, in which he suggested that the Church could learn a valuable lesson from the mistakes made by the police.
Both organisations, for example, require visibility in the community. But the police, under financial pressure, have closed one local station after another, and replaced “bobbies on the beat” with hubs covering increasingly large areas that serve multiple communities. The Church, he argued, is about to try something similar. And it will end in tears.
In response, Michael Mulqueen, Professor of Policing and National Security at the University of Lancaster, wrote a letter to the paper, accusing Dr Billings of being “unfair”. He praised the way the “officers and staff [have] creatively formulated new, good-quality, high-value solutions to police increasingly complex communities”. For example, Professor Mulqueen thinks it perfectly acceptable that “digital neighbourhood policing services” can be used to compensate for reduced officer headcount. In his view, ordinary citizens find face-to-face discussions with officers “too daunting or dangerous a task”.
This latter comment echoes the language used following the murder of Sarah Everard by police officer Wayne Couzens, a few miles from my parish. If women don’t trust the police, perhaps then it is safer to engage with the police online. But there are safety issues here too. Only this week, one of the women who was arrested at the vigil for Sarah Everard described her discomfort after 50 police officers contacted her on Tinder.
The case for digital policing, according to Professor Mulqueen, is that it enables the police to “reach more people than we otherwise could, while reducing cost and carbon footprint”. Yet for Professor Billings, this strategy has opened up “a gulf between public and police, as trust and confidence in police ebbed away”.
The two boroughs of London with the highest gun and knife crime are Southwark and Lambeth. I live on the border of the two. But the only time I ever see a police officer is in a car going sixty with its lights and sirens flashing. I never see an officer walking around my parish, still less get the opportunity to speak to one, except when I report a crime to a call centre or when they come when called — which, I have to say, they do.
Isn’t this all we should reasonably expect, some might argue? Why waste valuable police resources on chat and public relations? We should free them up to chase the baddies. “Bobbies on the beat” is just sentimental nostalgia.
This is where the comparison between the police and the Church of England is instructive. There are 45 territorial police forces in the UK. There are 42 dioceses in the Church of England. Both are cash-strapped. Both seek universal service provision. Both are expected to have a presence on the ground across the country.
The so-called “British way of policing” — growing out of community consent — and the Church of England are the building blocks of localism. And localism is still being lauded as the answer to our problems: “Localism is the key to levelling up Britain,” wrote William Hague in The Times this week.
But for all the high-profile public defence of localism — and the PM was at it in his speech to the Tory Conference, defending the broken windows theory of crime prevention — experientially, localism seems on the decline. I have no idea what the name of my GP is anymore. I never see the same person twice. Getting into the surgery is a bureaucratic nightmare. Meanwhile, the police whizz by. And now the Church — most recently in the Diocese of Leicester — is proposing to relocate vicars to regional hubs.
Rationally and perhaps economically, all this makes a certain sense if these jobs are understood in purely instrumental terms. But as well as being crime fighters, the police exist to reassure the public. And here there is no substitute for presence, for the face-to-face encounter. In church terms, it is the Ministry of Just Wandering Around, of being seen and available.
I recently bought one of those fancy new electric bikes with a box on the front so that we can take the children to school. It’s something of a godsend in the Mad Max dystopian world of petrol-less south London. But the best thing about it is that I have rediscovered the joys of community vicaring. “Morning!” I shout out breezily to Mrs so-and-so as she pops out to the shops. Sometimes I pass by with a wave. Sometimes I stop for a chat. It is in these chance encounters that you really find out what’s going on in the parish, who has upset who (often me), who has gone into hospital and so on. It is the basis of establishing trust.
Is this a waste of time and money? Should the Church be paying me and should the police be paying its officers to wander around my neighbourhood with a vague sense of semi-purposeless benevolence? The bean-counters in head office think this can be achieved more efficiently. But the problem here is that so much of what we do does not fit into a strict job description.
The doctor isn’t just a glorified drug dispenser. She listens to the concerned; she gives people time to express their hidden fears. Things often emerge in conversation that reveal where the real issue lies. There is no substitute to giving people time. Efficiency directives from head office rob people of this opportunity. And defending all this is not simply some reactionary nostalgia for the 1950’s — bobbies on the beat, vicars out in the parishes, GP’s chatting with their patients. It is defending the human scale of things.
Localism isn’t regionalisation. It is the presence of people, over time, and geographically rooted, committed to a collection of streets, building up relationships layered by years of daily encounter.
All this has been collapsing for years, but Covid has accelerated the change. The pubs are closing — we no longer speak of going to the “local’ for a pint. The village church is empty, so too, soon, the local vicarage. The GP hasn’t time to see you. The police fly by, always in a hurry.
My own instinct is that, one day, some of this will have to return. A regionalised church will collapse for want of local support and new forms of local church will spring up, hopefully reclaiming the ancient buildings that have been abandoned.
But for now it is time to hunker down, and sit out this social and emotional winter. Those of us who want a return to what we had will have to keep the memory of it alive. Innovations will have to be survived and endured.
Forty years ago, the great moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre wrote that “what matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us”. He wrote those prophetic words two years before the official invention of the Internet and decades before the dreaded Zoom.
These have superficially brought us together, yet also fundamentally separated us in ways that he hardly could have imagined. Fractured and disconnected as we are, with social solidarity continually fraying through lack of real face-to-face contact, the new dark ages are indeed already upon us.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeOver the last 70 years or so, the focus of the NHS has been mainly to prolong life expectancy. People, in general, have supported this idea.
Today, being old is out of fashion. I am reading all of the time that old people are in the way of progress, that the old people have abused their privileges by introducing plastic packaging, selfishly owning big houses, running wasteful cars, etc. To avoid embarrassment, critics of the old don’t say old, they say ‘boomers’.
As the social systems are dying, who is caring for these old people? The answer is – organised Church members and other local charities. My local church has only a few regular people attending on Sunday and most of them are not really deeply religious. Most are old. But the whole system is like a social club for the old. People meet on Sunday, they talk about other people who, perhaps, are ill and they visit people to help out.
Many younger people will laugh at this idea because, of course, they will never get old. Old people are a pain in the b**t, they take over the aisles of the supermarkets, they get in the way of new ideas, they were probably to blame for Brexit. But they exist and they will always exist.
What is to be done? Everyone should go into a concentration camp at 70 years and their houses pass to the state? At 70 people should be automatically disenfranchised, prevented from driving, banned from using hospitals?
Who, except for charities will clean up the mess? The Church at the grassroots level is very important. Pity about the overgrown little boys at the top.
Disenfranchisement of the elderly was seriously proposed by a number of people that I know after the EU referendum, when we all know that it is the younger elements, with their yet to be properly formed brains, who should not be permitted to vote. 🙂
I have also seen disenfranchising those that don’t pay taxes argued. More division into Us and those beyond the pale.
Well yes, on the other hand living in a university city, I do get pretty p155ed off with non-council-tax-paying students deciding who’s going to run my local government before they all p155 off back home for the summer so that Mummy can do their laundry.
Or those whose income is derived wholly or in part from the state, e.g. public sector workers, grant recipients, etc. Perhaps beneficiaries of societal largesse should not be able to vote themselves further emoluments.
If I can congratulate myself on anything as I get older, it is the fact that even when young I didn’t criticise the old as I always knew I would get there one day (if I didn’t die young). Just logic and a dollop of intelligence.
Great article.
“The pubs are closing — we no longer speak of going to the “local’ for a pint. The village church is empty, so too, soon, the local vicarage. The GP hasn’t time to see you. The police fly by, always in a hurry.
“My own instinct is that, one day, some of this will have to return.”
I suspect you’re right and you may be able to survive the cultural winter in the UK where some basic form of social cohesion still exists. I’m not sure we’ll survive here in the US. We may have to go through a very rough period before the country rediscovers, or reinvents, a shared social narrative.
“Only this week, one of the women who was arrested at the vigil for Sarah Everard described her discomfort after 50 police officers contacted her on Tinder.“
I think it’s important to point out that’s not how Tinder works. The whole point of Tinder is that unsolicited approaches aren’t possible as both parties have to agree they fancy each-other in order to match. So this means she would have had to consent to match these men in uniform- all 50 of them.
It’s absolutely amazing to me that this wasn’t pointed out or questioned either in the original article or this one.
We are in a post journalism world.
There used to be Readers and Revisers and Sub Editors to deal with these matters. They were often working class men who left school at 15 but yet they were highly literate with a high level of general knowledge, primed to ask questions and armed with a common pool of knowledge and a comprehensive set of works of reference. The original ‘fact checkers’.
As i understand it, these men appeared on her match list only (in uniform), and were not ‘accepted’ ss viable matches ny her.
Then they didn’t contact her as claimed
I believe it’s also against police policy to post anything police related on any form social media, this would no doubt include pictures of themselves in uniform.
In fact it’s unlikely the would have listed their occupation at all due to the risks it creates for their own personal safety.
I don’t want to accuse anyone of being dishonest, but this makes the claim 50 identifiable police officers ‘approached’ her very unlikely indeed.
Yes, policemen in uniform are not supposed to kidnap women, either. But it has occurred.
So what’s the problem? That’s how. It is supposed to work
The article referred to Tinder Gold that Tinder describes as including “our new Likes You feature, so that you can see who likes you before you swipe”
Community.
Our society has ignored community and focused on efficiency and centralised decision making even at the local level.
The Church of England was part of the local infrastructure. It was more of a social hub than a religious institution not just the building but events such as Christmas, Easter and Harvest brought the community together in social celebration.
The NHS was founded on an existing structure of local surgeries (the word is relevant), cottage hospitals and general hospitals run alongside city, town and urban councils. Today’s NHS is focused on massive centralised hospitals and the CCG’s and PCN’s are an afterthought and totally misunderstood by the centralised decision makers in Whitehall as exemplified by the lack of comprehension of the Lansley reforms.
The Police Forces are another silo.
Everything is managed by a great Department of State in their own silos with attempts at micro-financial management by another centralised department, HM Treasury.
The decision regarding the Somerset Unitary Authority could have been predicted before the consultation process started. The local councils proposal with shared services was rejected in favour of the County wide proposal so people in Crewkerne or Bridgewater find their local services moved further away. In Chester and West Cheshire, Vale Royal was absorbed and decision making has moved to Chester, the Unitary Authority is dominated by the City of Chester.
Our public service structure needs to be turned completely upside down and that needs to start with financial management and revenue collection.
I have looked with admiration at public services in Sweden and Denmark and have been hospitalised in both those countries. In Sweden, Ystad has a General Hospital with A&E and Surgical Services in a town with a population of less than 20,000. Local services are funded by local taxation with elected representatives responsible to their constituents for funding and delivery.
Politicians crave power and central government represents more power (and the EU represented even more power, which explains the political support). It takes an incredible politician to decide to reduce their power base and delegate responsibility.
Central Government needs to be more in the nature of a National Auditor and Local Government needs to be less politicised and more about service delivery. Unfortunately provision of education and health services are used as weapons in political conflict between extremists.
In all this we need to refocus our society on communities of hundreds and thousands not tens of thousands and millions, in communities there is more peer group pressure to conform to norms, people are noticed and supported. The policeman and nurse are your neighbours.
Absolutely to the point. Thank you for posting.
The bigger picture is obviously local many thanks.
I sympathise with this view. The challenge about putting it into practice though is whether there would be enough people with enough courage and leadership ability to stand up and lead truly localised and locally accountable services. They would need to stand, and fall, on (pubic perceptions of) their performance – no blaming central government if things don’t turn out well for them.
The public would need to move away from a mindset that demands “fairness” in terms of service provision across the country to avoid a “postcode lottery”; be more accepting of inefficiencies and sub-par performance at least in the short to medium term; and take an active interest in participating, engaging and actively doing the holding to account so as to help identify and address problems. I suspect that many of the article’s author’s parishioners don’t know who he is and even if they did, they would probably be too buried in their phones to see him gliding by on his electric bike to stop him for a chat about Bert Jones’s lumbago.
What’s proposed here would require a far more wider reaching cultural change; a transformation of how we see each other and ourselves, rather than just a reorganisation of local government.
When I was little, in a Hampshire village, the Police Sergeant, the Vicar and a representative of the local publicans, my Dad, really did meet regularly to review what was going on and who was vulnerable or struggling. This worked in what was a face to face community but I think it would be impossible now because of worries over privacy and professional oversight and competence. 40 years ago in rural Cornwall, the GP s would talk to the local clergy regularly for similar reasons. Relational security is highly effective but easily lost.
Brilliant article and I would add that the massive failure in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire at following up solving reported crimes demonstrates what happens when Police are not accountable locally and have to meet peoples gaze.
Everywhere lip service is paid to localism, but everywhere the trend is in the opposite direction – pubs, surgeries, police stations, banks and now it seems the Church of England. The EU too, one of whose founding principles was subsidiarity (‘the principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate level that is consistent with their resolution’), has moved fatally in a federalist direction.
Perhaps this is all the consequence of increased mobility, and its chief downside. Which of us however is prepared to forgo its benefits?
…very well said, and absolutely spot-on. I’m fortunate in living in an inner-city neighbourhood that still has many of those components of community in it’s parade of shops, and a small square with a handful of bars and bistros…but I have never seen a PCSO, much less a bobby on foot patrol…nor an identifiable priest, vicar or iman…nor the staff from the primary school at the end of street, much less anyone from the local health centre. All of whom could benefit both us and themselves by having some sort of local visibility…
A key problem for the Church is maintaing the fabric of churches funded by a dwindling congregation. Maybe the state should own and maintain the churches and the Church should participate in community policing with churches more readily available for community uses.
We have a large and ancient building, but the great majority of the funds we raise is paid to the diocese. I know exactly what happens to parish money, but no clue about what happens to diocese money, although I occasionally read about diocese or Church jobs which I know to be utterly irrelevant to us in our parish. Meanwhile, our rector covers so many local parishes that I don’t see him from month to month.
As for using the church for ‘community uses’; it is occasionally used for concerts, because of its atmosphere, but otherwise, we have a village hall which is better for most things, because it has heating, comfortable chairs, tables, a kitchen with crockery etc., lavatories, and a stage.
Thanks , interesting comparison
Every time I see one of the self serve kiosks at the drug store or supermarket I think of the theme of this article. One less point of human contact in our society.
In our GP practice we are desperate to retain continuity of care and be embedded in the local community but much is against us not least huge demand and not enough doctors.
Interestingly covid enabled the strengthening of this in some.ways when we ran the community covid vaccination clinic in our local (baptist) Church Hall. The church were enormously supportive and gave over much of their building to us. Our volunteers were all form the local community many of them our own patients.
Healthcare team and volunteers alike we’ve never felt such a sense of shared purpose nor worked together in a project such as this. It brought much joy. As did seeing so many patients face to face again.
As Giles mentions, there is no much that cannot easily be measured by this.
Sadly in our daily work infection control issues and epic demand limit what we want to achieve. Our younger doctors also do not feel the same purpose or sense of commitment to a population. Maybe that comes with time and sticking with the same.job and project. Does love of community have to be learned these days?
‘Hello, you have reached a Leicester diocesan hub, one of the diocese’s new, improved methods for meeting your pastoral needs. Your call is very important to us. Unfortunately all our client interfacers are very busy right now but we will connect you to the next available one. Waiting time is currently 53.36 minutes. If your call is urgent we do encourage you to leave a message. We aspire to return your call within the next 14 days. And remember, even if no one here is available, Jesus loves you.
Having arrived at this article via following a thread, I wonder whether anyone else noticed that Kew can scarcely be described as anywhere near the border between Lambeth and Southwark. Indeed a very different area! But the article was written while Giles was doing his vicaring at St Mary’s Newington which fits that description well.
Sometimes, Giles, I love what you write; sometimes I disagree strongly. Perhaps that is a good thing.
Thank you Giles for highlighting the loss of the relational aspects of living in our society. This I have long assumed accounts for for the increasing fragmentation of the community and alienation of many of those to whom I minister, as well as the depersonalisation that enables exploitation, violence and abuse. We have lost our focus on the commonality of human needs and experiences and how best to meet them. The transactionality of much interaction demeans and diminishes us all and we will destroy ourselves completely if we do not remember our common humanity which should trump our factional identities – but doesn’t seem to.
It’s the curse of managerialism, isn’t it? Unless something produces a ‘measurable outcome’, governed by a SMART target, it’s not thought to be of any use. I saw this when I was working in libraries. Just chatting to a lonely person for ten minutes can’t be measured or evaluated, so what’s the point? Direct them to the self service machine! Unfortunately this mindset is everywhere. It doesn’t do us any good.
Christianity, like the Greek Gods, Celtic Gods, Norse Gods, will die out. An educated population just doesn’t believe in these ancient fairy tales any longer. Give it a few more generations and the Church will be as relevant as the The East Indian Company
I think you could be right, who knows? But I think you have to differentiate between Christianity and The Church.
As you say, Christianity is a book of tales. The Church is, effectively, a business which uses the idea of Christianity to give itself a ‘raison-d’etre’.
Where I live, The Church of England is virtually dead but the various chapels are still very much alive. Also, the work done at the lower levels of The Church and the chapels is phenomenal; where the official social system is failing, the voluntary workers are keeping things going as before. If you like, the lower level religious organisations are forming a focal point for local charities. The chapels tend not to have a large upper level hierarchy but the Church of England upper hierarchy is full of left-wing, school-boyish wasters who don’t do anything at all, except (like all good wasters) have interminable meetings about other-peoples money.
Who knows? I do.
There is a vast collection of deep and profound truths in those “tales”.
When you discover it – and test it out – you begin to see the world in a whole new light and are blessed in ways you would never have believed possible.
An educated population will continue to discover that God’s Word has been right all along.
The government and law in the West still have an essence of Christian Spirit – even if there is a drive to push it out. Without God, all we would have is a world of leaders like Stalin and Hitler.
You must see the evidence for this in the craziness in the Left today. With no God to guide them, they are in chaos and turning to fascistic methods of control.
If what you say is true then the predominantly secular Scandinavian countries would be invading other countries and engaging in genocide. It’s no mistake that the most advanced and secular countries are the happiest. The most religious countries are the most violent.
Society doesn’t need God to be moral. The Bible is anything but moral just look at the Catholic Church! It’s a hiding place for the most foul society has to offer
As for Hitler he was raised Catholic & baptised and even claims to be Christian in Mein Kampf so..
Hi Milos, unlikely because as GK Chesteron remarked, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing – they believe in anything.” You only have to see the nonsenses peddled by the new ‘woke’ religion to see how true that is.
There is an instinct in human beings that life does not end with death and no amount of education will erase that. As Blaise Pascal wrote, we only have one life to make our wager on whether it is true or not.
(I sound preachy today!)
The latest findings of the British Social Attitudes Survey, published today, reveal 71% of 18-24 year olds say they belong to no religion.
It’s dying out. THANK THE LORD
I suspect the lack of relevance of the “East Indian Company” was owed in no small part to the fact that it never existed.
He tried to make a smart comparison but revealed his ignorance
Ignorance is believing in ancient texts that are provably incorrect and historically false. 75% of 18-35 year olds are agnostic/atheist. Religions will eventually become an irrelevance.
Oh touche Grahamn. Touche
Does Grahamn then rhyme with damn?
Says the man who must know everything to be able to make such a bold claim, thus claiming to be an all-knowing, all-seeing being, otherwise known as God, who he said is a fairy-tale ;-).
What? Why must I know everything to claim I don’t need religion for moral direction. If you need the threat of hell to stop you misbehaving you must be truly evil?
You need God to give backing to your moral claims. Otherwise, whatever you claim, I can respond that I don’t agree…and why should your opinion trump mine?
But people don’t want to submit to God, so look for any excuse to ignore him.
Maybe Christianity will die out. What of the other major world religions, though? Not much sign of them losing adherents. If we don’t have our own ‘ancient fairy tales’ , with their values of charity, forgiveness and kindness, what are we going to put up against them? Because I don’t see much sign of those values in the secular sphere.
And not much sign of Christianity dying out in South-East or East Asia, in Africa or in parts of Eastern Europe. Commentators like Milos Bingles need to raise their gaze and look beyond their immediate surroundings.
This is true but their levels of education in these areas aren’t the same as in western countries. I was referring to Britain and northwest Europe. 75% of 18-35 are now atheist/agnostic. Religion has had its time. Over the next 200 years, it will die out.
Christianity is a desert plant that doesn’t grow in lush conditions. I know many people who would have ended up in prison if it wasn’t for their belief system or religious community. You might have transcended it, but for many desperate people, sometimes it’s all they’ve got.
I don’t rely on religion for my morals? I don’t need a book to tell me how to be charitable, kind, or empathetic.
How did you learn to be charitable, kind, or empathetic? Were you naturally born that way, do you think?
You picked up Christian values from the culture, which is originally based on the bible, however poorly. As that influence fades, society will go from bad to worse.
The Romans and other non-Christain cultures were incredibly cruel and uncaring about others. It was the spread of Christianity that changed them.