Listening to the periphery at the heart of Westminster

There was something intensely symbolic and powerful about yesterday’s launch of the Good Society Conversation by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland and Church Action on Poverty:

Eighty people packed into the Cardinal Hume Centre’s children’s centre, a stone’s throw from Westminster’s power places – Parliament, Whitehall, Abbey and Cathedral – yet somehow a million miles away from the formalities of what now passes for conventional ‘report launches’ or political debate.

Good Society conversations always start with listening at the periphery

As Cardinal Nichols eloquently said in his keynote speech, ‘The Good Society conversations always start with listening at the periphery. But the periphery is not always geographically distant, but rather people or places which feel distant from power.’

And the huge energy in the room came precisely from listening to the stories and voices of those living and working in…