It’s been a while. I like what you’ve done with your inbox. Is that a new haircut?
I left you as we were coming to the end of the community power podcast series. That was 18 months ago and so much has happened since then. SCOTUS blew up affirmative action, Aston Villa qualified for the Champions League, and the UK electorate voted for the Labour Party in what is being called ‘a loveless landslide’ that thrust Keir Starmer into 10 Downing Street.
It’s the last of these that has occupied me most (partly because the Champions League is yet to start) because of Starmer’s January 2023 speech about communities wanting to take back control. To me, this was all about power, and, despite the careful wording of political speeches, there was a lot to justify that interpretation:
- “[C]ommunities … will tell you…that they do have ambition for themselves…”
- “Giving communities the chance to control their economic destiny…”
- “…the desire for communities to stand on their own feet”
Right, I thought, the moment has come. A political party, at the time tipped to become the next government, being as explicit as politicians can be about the need for community power. It was time to enter the murky world of policy, to apply what I have learnt in 12 years of exploring the link between community and health, to a national agenda.
Long story short, I am.
But the long story is that it’s been hard.
The first step was to bring together the evidence on power. Funded by Dr Iain McRitchie, businessman and founder of MCR Pathways, I wrote a report that summarised what I have learnt about community power in relation to health equity.
Titled Community Power – A Primer for the UK’s Labour Party, I describe my journey to power, taking in Syme’s notion of control, Whitehead’s frameworks linking it to health, Lukes’ three faces of power, Braveman’s delineation of structures, Seidman’s contention of redistribution, and Pastor’s proposal of co-governance.
When I read it back to myself I thought, “Oh, I seem to have learnt a thing or two”.
But how does all that learning, how do all of those references, translate into policy? The simple answer is not easily. I want to say ‘fund community organising!’ and ‘support popular education!’ but you get caught in debates as to whose method of each is best.
Besides, the California Endowment has spent $1.8 billion over 10 years supporting the building of community power in pursuit of health and racial equity and realised it was more complicated than any single methodology.
The experience has reminded me of the saying attributed to the great philosopher, Iron Mike Tyson: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face”. Entering the murky world of policy has been like that. The thing you think you know gets diced, atomised, rearranged, and turned into something that may or may not be what it started out as.
That is not to say that the people I have engaged with have sought to subvert. Quite the opposite. They’ve been curious, probed, reflected, made quizzical faces. They’re working hard to relate what is known (the evidence) to what might be applied (a policy). And they’re trying to work out how it might fit with the broader national agenda.
Over the next six months, I plan to write about my work, not just in trying to devise national policy but in trying to write about community power for the health literature.
I’m entering this six months of writing in the belief that it’s my swan song. Twelve years of exploring community and health, of scratching an itch, pulling a thread, and playing fast and loose with my economic security is enough. It’s time to get a real job.
See you in a couple of weeks.
Note
The credit for the image behind the title is Richard Beacham / Ikon Images
From 2013 to 2026, I explored the link between community, power and health. I started when I was the Physician Editor of TEDMED. This website lists my projects, publications and posts. Find me on LinkedIn.