Faith and Politics do Mix!

March 2007 saw youth and community worker Shaun Bailey selected as the Conservatives’ prospective parliamentary candidate for Hammersmith, London. Faithworks magazine met him to talk youth work, God and politics.

 

In 2005 Bailey wrote, No Man’s Land, a paper for the Centre for Young Policy Studies. His first chapter begins:

 

‘I am Shaun Bailey. I come from a black working class environment. I was born and brought up by my single mother on the North Kensington Estates.

Where I live, the peer pressure to offend surrounds you. Crime is everywhere. Education on the estates is not an issue. The teenage pregnancy rate is well above the national average. There is a teenage drugs epidemic. There are significant mental health and disability issues. There is little mobility out of the area. The number of people in contact with the social services is way above national average...’

 

Bailey, 35, has now worked on his home patch for 18 years. ‘I’ve always felt a responsibility to my community,’ he says. Last year he began his own charity, MyGeneration, which works mostly with young Muslims on the local streets. How will this commitment – and his newfound Christian faith – mix with his budding political career?

 

Tell me more about your work with MyGeneration.
It’s the street work that I really enjoy – you meet the most people. I’m always telling the boys: ‘Do something! Do something!’ I’ve always done my bit as far as I’m concerned – but they didn’t see it that way and they said: ‘So what are you doing?’ Some of the parents said it too. The kids said it just to be cheeky, and their parents said it because they thought I was capable of more. The charity and this political stuff is a response to their challenge to do something.

 

What do you have in mind when you tell your young people to ‘Do something!’?
Get education, work, look after your family: all of those qualify as ‘do something.’ ‘Do something’ also means don’t get arrested. I also say to the older ones: ‘You should act as inspiration for the younger ones.’

Tell me more about your faith.

My faith is what keeps me strong. I’m a very new Christian – I’ve been a Christian two and a half years. It’s a revelation to me that the Bible has modern wisdom in it. The Bible says that your faith is worth nothing without action – that really appealed to me.

 

So how did you become a Christian?
That’s simple. Lots of my friends go to church and they invited me along – but I thought: ‘Why would I want to do that?’ Then one of my friends said: ‘You could fight with the vicar.’ So I thought I’d go, display how clever I am, beat up the vicar, and leave. But to my utter astonishment, I found it all quite interesting. I thought I’d be quiet in the first week and then come back the next with more to fight about – the same thing happened the next week. It was amazing that what my secular friends thought was a load of mumbo jumbo made sense to me.

 

How did it affect your work?
Before it was a job – now it’s a mission. I used to do it because it was easy and I was reasonably good at it. But my faith gave it a point. For a long time I still had to keep the two separate – and then one morning I woke up and I thought: ‘My relationship with Jesus is who I am, so I can’t keep it separate from what I do.’ And that was it; I just thought I’d get on with it.

 

Do you talk about Jesus with your young people?
All the time. But Christian people often talk in high, convoluted religious terms that people find scary, so I never do that. When young people ask me about what I do and why I do it, I often tell them things from the Bible. It saves me having to think of something clever to say.

I truly believe Christians shouldn’t hide among other Christians – it’s comfortable and useless. I really enjoy that I live with a big bunch of Muslims.

 

What is the most significant personal lesson you’ve learnt from your youth work?
There are two sides to people. Some people are so mean, its unbelievable…and then you see the other side of them and they are so loving and caring. A while ago one of our young people fell off his motorbike and is now handicapped in a wheelchair. I’ve seen some of the roughest, toughest boys in the world nursing him. After a couple of weeks I thought the novelty would wear off. But four years later they are still caring for him, pushing his wheelchair, buying him stuff. It shows you – no matter how far a person’s gone there is always a route back.

 

In a previous interview you mentioned that you respect your Grandmother’s values of personal responsibility and self-determination. Is she a role model?
My Granny is much more than a role model. I come from a Jamaican background – families are often very matriarchal. So my Granny’s view of the universe was the view of the universe; that was it. She had quite strong and definite views on what was wrong and what was right…and that’s what you need when you are a child. All the grey areas you can figure out when you are older, but when you are a child, you just need to know this is right and this is wrong – it makes you feel safe.

 

Do you think that the young people you work with could be learning more from older generations?
We live in very a liberal world now – the problem with liberalism is that it is always marching on into the future and forgetting the past. People keep harping on about how much the world has changed. But the thing that is the same is people.

 

If you had to summarise your key values in a sentence, what would it be?
Family, family, family. We are spiritually, biologically and anatomically designed to live in groups. I believe that life is not about you, it’s about other people. That’s another thing that appeals from the Bible.

 

Any particular political role models?
Only Martin Luther King. I really admire the way that he was a Christian first – in our world that’s hard to do. And he reasoned through the Bible, which I think is impressive in the extreme. He wasn’t about elevating himself up above other people.

 

How does your Christian faith affect your involvement in politics?
It’s made it possible – I’d never have done it before. It’s given me confidence. When things go wrong I can pray – it keeps me calm. It has given me something as a check, something to kick against, a basis.

In your interview with the Sunday Times you said: ‘My politics are so much of the street, its unreal.’ Explain.
Your politics are driven by your personal background experience, loves and hates. My politics are of unemployment, single parentdom, crime and housing – because these are issues for me. I come from the street, but I don’t want to stay here. I don’t think anybody should have to stay here. There’s no nobility in starving to death, beating each other up and struggling to survive.

When I make policy statements or do policy studies I’m not doing it from some theoretical viewpoint. I was unemployed for ages – I know what it’s like. I know what it’s like to be homeless, I know what it’s like to be unemployed, I’ve watched my mother, my sister and pretty much every female friend I’ve had go through single parentdom. I’ve watched my mates go to jail, I’ve watched my mates shoot people, I’ve watched my mates be shot, I’ve watched my friends sell drugs, I’ve watched my friends die of drugs. I have an experience that makes me grounded in where people from modest backgrounds come from and obviously that has a massive impact on my politics.

 

The Bible speaks about righteous anger and God’s justice. Do you feel like your politics come from a personal place of righteous anger?
I’m angry about pretty much everything but one of the things I have to be careful about is coming across as angry. If someone says to me: ‘Why are you involved?’ – it’s because I hate this stuff and I need it sorted. ‘Why are you involved in politics when you could be doing your charity?’ It’s because I see this happening nationwide, worldwide and I need to address it.

If you do become an MP, will you leave your work with the charity behind?
Everybody’s saying this to me. The answer’s yes and no – two reasons why. Firstly, and this is crucial: why should people from my walk of life always have to stay close to the street? That’s what keeps us there, that notion that we should stay there. ‘Don’t forget where you came from’ and all that. Secondly, it is important that I leave because it gives somebody else the opportunity to rise up. One of the key roles of the charity is to develop other people to replace me. One me is nice, 1500 mes could be useful. You have to get out of the way to let other people get past you.

But I’ll always be involved in this charity and other charities as well – if you want to keep the contact you can. I want to…make a direct highway from Hammersmith Grove, from Shepherds Bush Green, into the House of Commons. Unless someone like me goes and sits there, that line won’t exist.

 

What would you say to somebody who said: ‘faith and politics don’t mix’?
They’re obviously a lunatic. Firstly – people with faith in the world are in the majority. Secondly – people of faith started all the big social institutions. I once worked for a project that was started by nuns, the probation service was started by the church, youthwork was started by the church. Look at all the work Mother Theresa and Florence Nightingale did – two Christians. Faith is a better starting point to grow a person than reliance on the world.

 

How would you deal with the pay rise if you became an MP?
I’d buy a house. I’m also very fond of radio-controlled cars, so I’d probably buy a few of those! I’ve spent my whole time – and it’s difficult because I come from a poor background – trying not to become greedy. Greedy men are horrible. I’d give anybody the permission, if they see that I’m being greedy, to point it out to me. And also I’ve got a wife who is very grounded. I’ve got people who say to me: ‘behave yourself.’ I’m not in this alone. I’m a member of a big church… that’s one of the key things about being a Christian. Community, accountability – I put myself in a position where I am accountable.

 

How can the average Christian, who perhaps has a family, an active church life and a busy social life get involved in politics?
The first thing is to have conversations. If your children are about nine or ten, start then. Show them that politics is not some lofty far off concept. It’s about real, everyday things. Why is there a parking restriction outside your house? Politics. Why do you pay so much tax? Politics.

You could become a local councillor, join a party, deliver leaflets or write letters to your local MP or PPC (prospective parliamentary candidate). Politics is easy to get involved with.

 

If you do become an MP, what one thing you would like to achieve above all else?
Safety in my community; safety in communities in general. A lack of a feeling of community creates a lot of anguish and anti-social behaviour.
The real thing for me is to make sure views of people from a modest background are represented. They don’t have to be conservative views – that’s just my view. And I’d like to encourage our children in particular to move away from all these things that are bad in the world. They get so much exposure to them and it’s turning them crazy.