Communication across class boundaries

It’s time people in the UK got to know each other a little better

By Adrian Chiles

I write this on a train to Birmingham because the governor of the Bank of England asked me to meet him there. Not a sentence I ever thought I’d write. I’ve only just read Mark Carney’s letter to me outlining what he wants. And I’ve punched the air with delight, because it seems the Bank of England is getting something right.

As I rattle north through Watford and Milton Keynes and Rugby and Coventry, I know the governor and his deputies have made the same journey from London, for they’re spending the morning visiting all manner of people and places in the West Midlands’ business, voluntary and educational sectors. And this afternoon we’ll all get together to talk about it. The point is to convince the people that the Bank is interested in them, and keen to learn from them, and tell them what exactly it is the Bank of England does. Cynical, tokenistic, patronising, PR-driven drivel? Believe that if you will, but at least they’re out there breathing the same air and breaking bread with the people they serve; the kind of people they, ordinarily, in the normal run of things, probably wouldn’t have much to do with.

We need more of that, all of us, on every level, whoever we are, wherever we are.

This became clear to me when I was last working in the West Midlands. It was for a Panorama programme just after the referendum, examining why people voted to leave the EU. My job was just to listen, in a non-judgemental way. It was fascinating in more ways than there are canals in Birmingham, and there are many. But my one overwhelming discovery was this: people from different classes do not communicate with each other. “The thing is,” I explained to my eye-rolling 13-year-old daughter when I got home, “you could go the rest of your life without having a working- class friend.”

We’re rightly hung up on issues concerning race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and so on, but it’s around different classes that the biggest walls still need to be scaled. Ask yourself this: when’s the last time you had a conversation with someone of a different class to yourself? I don’t mean a nice chat with someone you’ve had to deal with, be it a plumber or lawyer or Uber driver or oncologist or whatever. I mean a proper talk with a friend; someone you’ve chosen to spend time with.

It rarely happens. And in London this is particularly extraordinary because, unlike elsewhere, the different classes tend to live cheek by jowl. The road of terraced three-storey houses in Hammersmith where my children have been raised is typical. There’s a £2m house; a house converted into four flats; a crack den; a £3m house with an Olympic swimming pool in the basement; more flats; etc, etc. There are hundreds of people of wildly different incomes and backgrounds breathing the same air and walking the same pavements, yet hardly ever talking. Social connections are rarer than parking places.

A month after my Panorama listening week in the Black Country, I was in Rio moderating a trade conference. A speaker from the FT made an impassioned speech about the under-celebrated brilliance of the UK’s financial services sector. There was laughter when she pointed out that the organisation promoting the sector used to be called British Invisibles. But it remains invisible to the people of Birmingham and the Black Country and just about everywhere else. You can’t have inclusive growth if most people a) don’t know what’s growing and/or b) can’t see how the growth benefits them.

I’m not sure how British Invisibles — now rebranded TheCityUK — should go about this. Building schools, hospitals, playgrounds might be a start. Or why not just walk around estates in Tipton, à la Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in Medellin, handing out wads of cash? It could be a way for the Bank of England to win a few hearts and minds actually; I’ll suggest it to Mr Carney this afternoon.

This article first appeared in the RSA Journal Issue 3 2016