A VOICE FROM THE STREET

21st July 2026
 
Extra, extra, read all about it!

Whatever Happened to Helping Each Other?


By David Selves


There was a time — and it really was not that long ago — when helping someone was not a political statement, a social-media opportunity, or something requiring a committee, policy paper or risk assessment.

It was just what people did.

Neighbours checked on neighbours. Someone struggling with shopping got a hand without asking. People gave up seats on trains and buses to others who needed them more. Children were corrected by adults who were not their parents. Communities were imperfect — and nobody should pretend the past was some golden age without prejudice, hardship or unfairness — but there was a sense that society worked best when people felt some responsibility for each other.

Somewhere along the way, that changed.

The question is: did society change first and our institutions merely reflect it? Or did politics, television, education and culture help push us there?

It is the old Grange Hill question.
When the groundbreaking school drama arrived on television in 1978, some people asked whether it reflected the reality of modern schools or influenced children by exaggerating bad behaviour and making rebellion fashionable.

The truthful answer was probably both.

Great drama does not come from showing twenty children quietly doing homework and saying, “thank you, Sir.” It comes from conflict, rule-breaking and extremes. But when the exceptional becomes the entertainment, does it slowly become normal? Did it change culture?

The same question applies far beyond television.

Politics used to contain fierce disagreement but often a recognition that opponents were not enemies. Did we have a glimpse of this in Starmer’s final PMQs? It is said by all parties that the opposition is across the aisle but the enemy behind you. Different parties argued over how to improve the country. Increasingly, politics feels like a permanent campaign where proving someone else wrong matters more than getting something right. Once the purpose of a media interview on television or wireless was to inform the listeners, now it feels more like an attempt to make the Minister look stupid.

The infamous note left by outgoing Labour Treasury minister Liam Byrne in 2010 saying “I’m afraid there is no money” was intended as a joke following a long-standing Treasury tradition. But politically it became dynamite because it symbolised something bigger: the accusation that one government had knowingly left another to clean up the mess.

The Conservatives used it as evidence of Labour economic failure. Labour argued it was taken out of context after a global financial crisis.

Different sides, different explanations — as you would expect in politics.

When Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government left office in 2024, the scenario reversed. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves claimed they had inherited a £20 billion-plus “black hole” in the public finances. Jeremy Hunt rejected that characterisation, arguing that the pressures were smaller, closer to £12 billion, and that there were existing plans to deal with them.

Again, opposing parties argued over responsibility.

That is politics.

But perhaps the more worrying development is when the same instinct starts appearing within parties themselves.

When politicians on the same side begin positioning themselves against each other — when yesterday’s colleague becomes tomorrow’s convenient problem — the danger is that the national interest becomes secondary to personal positioning.

If a Prime Minister or party leader is more interested in making themselves look good and a potential rival look bad, whether that rival is Andy Burnham or anyone else, the loser is not the politician caught in the crossfire.

The loser is the country.

Because the message trickles down.

If leaders constantly blame predecessors, colleagues, institutions, circumstances — anyone except themselves — why should society behave differently?

Responsibility is contagious. Unfortunately, so is avoiding it.

We have built a world where everyone talks endlessly about rights but far less about duties. We celebrate individual identity but sometimes forget shared responsibility. We have thousands of rules telling us what we must do, yet fewer instincts telling us what we should do.

The irony is that the old community spirit people miss was not created by government schemes. It was created by millions of tiny decisions by ordinary people:

Holding the door.
Helping the neighbour.
Picking something up.
Looking after someone struggling.
Doing the right thing when nobody is watching.
Politics cannot legislate that back into existence.
But it can set an example.

When leaders accept responsibility rather than constantly allocating blame, society notices. When they treat opponents as people rather than enemies, society notices. Perhaps that is why Kemi Badenock took the line she did at Starmer’s last PMQs. When they put the long-term interests of the country above tomorrow’s headline, society notices.

Perhaps we should stop asking only whether television reflects society or changes it. Perhaps we should ask the same of politics.

Does politics merely reflect a country becoming more divided, less trusting and less willing to help?
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Or has the behaviour at the top helped teach everyone else that looking after yourself comes first?

The answer, like Grange Hill, is probably uncomfortable.

It is both.