The Very Reverend Joe Hawes, Dean of St Edmundsbury was invited by Suffolk County Council to give a thought of the day at the opening of a Suffolk in Focus meeting today. The Dean’s speech is below:

“I am very grateful indeed to have this opportunity to share a reflection or two on our collective duty of service to the people of this wonderful county, and in doing so, being among the first to offer warmest congratulations to councillors on your election or re-election.

 

Faith plays a significant role in the life and wellbeing of Suffolk. We are firmly embedded in all communities and all aspects of urban and rural life. Like you, we serve and nurture diverse communities and I hope that, together, we will continue to work in common purpose.

 

Our new Bishop, Joanne Grenfell made her maiden speech in the House of Lords last Monday. She began by reflecting on her academic research into the sixteenth century poet Edmund Spenser and how he was preoccupied with the idea of the common good in Elizabethan England, and what The Common Good might look like today.

 

I wonder if the idea of ‘The Common Good’ in Suffolk today played a conscious part in your reason for standing in the local elections which have brought you to this chamber today?

 

And if it was, then what might you understand The Common Good to look like? What might its qualities be? Why does it matter? How might it be under threat?

 

If it constitutes everything from the policies, the ethics, the social contract itself which taken together will benefit the most people in any one given moment of history, if that’s what The Common Good looks like then a couple of simple questions occur:

 

If for you, today, as a newly elected county councillor, what does serving the common good for the people of Suffolk feel and look like in your Division? What qualities and virtues might you want to put into a sort of personal psychological backpack to carry around with you for the next few years? Serving the most vulnerable? Treating people equally, setting an example of loving service? Bringing the best interests of our diverse county together, to ensure that no-one is left behind? Challenging any narratives of fear and hatred?

 

Because, working together, I would suggest that we’re all going to need those virtues of the common good more than ever over the next few years.

 

The increasing consensus is that the ties of the common good which bind us together are fraying. Public perceptions of politics demonstrate that many in the electorate are disconnected or sceptical about the ability of hard-working politicians to get to grips with many of the key issues that face us in daily life, which has inevitably led to an increasing disconnect between politicians and their electorate. I was naively astonished the other day that our MP in Bury St Edmunds, like other MPs habitually needs a bodyguard. We have become increasingly impatient in an age of instant gratification: online convenience, same day deliveries, impatient with having to wait, and more, having to set aside out own imperatives, our own preferences in order that someone else might be served ahead of us.

 

And yet wait we must: on NHS waiting lists, for housing, for the age when we can retire. And we’re not happy about it as a nation and a county. And we blame our politicians.

 

Have we become ungovernable? Four prime ministers in four years, the very nature of how we do politics is changing, a lack of trust in many institutions, and uncertainty about how the structure of local and regional government will serve us in the future. All against the background of an increasing sense of unease and fragmentation in our national conversation.

 

What an exciting opportunity then, as you are on the frontline of local government, tasked with delivering the common good in Suffolk in that profoundly challenging psycho-social context. But in an environment where policy delivery is becoming increasingly performative, reality has a nasty tendency to bite. So, the task ahead of you is enormous, but in building and securing trust and confidence, we all know the people of Suffolk to be open, generous and supportive, but perhaps best not to take their patience for granted.

 

Faith groups are determinedly non-political, but mindful of the delicate boundaries we tread, I would like to offer a few observations, if I may, with which you may already be familiar.

 

1. You’ll be under keen observation, more so given the universal reach of the media, and I’d suggest that the people of Suffolk will be rather more impressed if they can see genuine collaborative efforts to work across political divides to deliver measurable benefit in a time of economic hardship for many.
2. Knowing how much the common good matters to us all in Suffolk, then let this new Council start as it means to go on, with care, compassion and positive action. We may be less of a Christian observant country nowadays, but we remain a country founded on the principles of Christendom, where questions about who is my neighbour, and what do I owe to them, are foundational to the Common Good and to a social contract which is under threat.
3. So thirdly, I invite everyone sitting in this chamber today genuinely to commit to listen to the better angels of our inner nature, resisting the scoring of points for political advantage and thinking always of the constituents who most rely on you: the poor, the vulnerable, older and younger, the marginalised and the outsider. These too are the values of Christendom and they are no less relevant today than they were when the carpenter’s son proclaimed them on a Judean hillside two thousand years ago.

 

If those fabled Suffolk qualities of quiet resilience, decency, loyalty, modesty, really are true, then we’re all going to need them over the next few years of a stormy social, political environmental landscape. Let Suffolk reflect those good qualities in its political leaders, public servants, humble in service, working for the common good.

 

I’ll make a start by saying that I and faith leaders across Suffolk wish you every success with the challenges and opportunities you face and are here to support you, and we will be praying for you.

 

I think you’re going to need it.