Royal Latin School book donation

I am nearing the conclusion of my journey around the libraries of my life to donate the biography of Jo Cox in order to spread the idea that we always have far more in common than we have which divides us. Yesterday I was in the Royal Latin School taking part in an assemble for Year 11. Below is the speech I gave them and a pic of me handing the book over to the Headteacher, Mr David Hudson. It was great to be there, not least because I got to hear the other part of the assembly led by a group of students taking action to make the school greener.

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Good morning and thank you for welcoming me to your school. It is a great pleasure to be here.

We all live in very turbulent, uncertain and divisive times. Whilst we can all be grateful that far fewer people are dying as a result of armed conflict than at any other period in recent history, we are seeing worrying increases in anxiety, distress, abuse, and mental health problems, in many different forms. We are experiencing this in the UK and beyond.

We only have to look at the news. A few days ago, the papers were reporting on a survey commissioned by the Girl Guiding Organisation. The Guardian on 19/9/18 recounted that “more than a quarter (27%) of young women aged 17 to 21 said they did not feel happy, up from 11% in 2009. Their unhappiness in turn affected their confidence (61%), health (50%), relationships (49%) and studies (39%)... While seven out of 10 girls (69%) identified school exams as the key cause of stress, pressure from social media was blamed by six out 10 girls (59%), and increasing numbers said they had experienced unkind, threatening and negative behaviour online compared with five years ago.”

I don’t doubt that a survey of boys and young men would find similar results. 


There are many reasons for this I know. But it seems to me that we are in the middle of an epidemic of ‘othering’ - where people’s differences are being used against them to make them feel bad about themselves. And this othering can sometimes turn to hate.

We have to find ways to reduce this. And that is a job for all of us. 

So why am I here today? 

The story starts with the tragic murder of Jo Cox MP by a right wing terrorist during the EU referendum campaign. It was a moment that shocked and saddened me deeply, as it did most other people of course. Here was an MP working hard to listen to and help her constituents in Batley and Spen. She was on her way to a regular surgery on 16 June 2016 when a man stabbed and killed her. As the world reacted to this event, much about Jo became to be more widely understood. 

In particular a paragraph from her maiden speech in the House of Commons delivered by her on 3 June 2015, just a year previous, became well known:

“Batley and Spen is a gathering of typically independent, no-nonsense and proud Yorkshire towns and villages. Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir. While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”

Just to repeat that last bit:

“we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”

And so wind forward another year and the general election of 2017 was called. I placed a bet of £20 on how many seats the Conservative Party would win (within a 25 seat margin) at odds of seven to one. (I am not promoting gambling by the way!) I was right and I won my stake and £140 back. So then I thought, what should I do with the money? I could have blown it all on a night out or given it to a charity. But I decided instead to purchase 11 copies of the book about Jo’s amazing life and tragic death. And I decided at the same time to donate each one of these books to the libraries of my life. 

So here I am today, at stage seven of my journey. I began in the school I went to when I was your age, last year - a school called Purbrook Park just north of Portsmouth. I have been back to my University in Reading and also the Oxford school where my own children were educated. 
Coincidentally where Mr Hudson’s children have also been educated. 

So I bring this book today for your school library, as the Mayor of Buckingham. It is my earnest hope that it will be widely read by you and your fellow students to come after you - and that all will be inspired to work for the kind of world that Jo was working for. 

A world in which everyone recognises that we have always far more in common than anything we have that divides us. 

A world in which there is less hate and more love. 

A world where people experience interest and compassion, not othering and bullying

A world in which there is more delight in difference, where all forms of diversity are celebrated and enjoyed. 

I have the greatest of pleasure in donating this book to your school library.

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