March Newsletter
It has been another unprecedented month. Many thanks to you and your support in our ongoing efforts to defend democracy and promote compassionate outcomes.
Here is a summary of what we’ve been up to in March thanks to your support. Please do get in touch if you would like to collaborate with or discuss any of our work.
IN PARLIAMENT
- Making the case for compassion in health: we delivered a letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Research shows that social connection has a bigger impact on health than giving up smoking, taking up exercise or losing weight. Our signatories, including Nina Goldman, Chris Ham and Julian Abel, affirm that compassion saves lives, and money.
- Formal submission to Speaker’s Conference: our written evidence for the case to reset political practice and perception, tackle online hate, and safeguard MPs and candidates is published here.
- Pushing for equality: We were in the Speaker’s House to mark International Women’s Day and celebrate the work of our 263 women MPs (up from 43 in the 1980s when our Co-founder and CEO Jennifer Nadel began reporting at the BBC). The event was hosted by our friends at 50:50 Parliament with whom we continue to push for urgent systemic reforms to make Westminster more inclusive.
- Supporting International Aid: In response to aid cuts, we initiated this letter signed by more than forty academics, charity leaders, business professionals, campaigners, and community advocates supporting Anneliese Dodds who had resigned from her Ministerial post in protest at the cuts.
- Clean Up Politics Campaign: Our Parliamentary Lead, Anya Sizer spoke at the Democracy Network’s annual summit in Sheffield about our work to Clean Up Politics and our successful campaign to ban lying in the Welsh Senedd.
-- Political Deception Bill: we continue to work with the Welsh Government to make good on its commitment to legislate by 2026. You’ll find us quoted in this article. Now we have our sights set on Westminster!
PUBLIC ADVOCACY
- In conversation with The Hon Julia Gillard AC: Jennifer was invited by Pinky Lilani CBE and Jules Chappell OBE to speak with the former Australian Prime Minister at the Women of the Future Summit about the growing tide of misogyny that women in politics are facing.
- At Malvern Festival of Ideas: Together with barrister and author Dr Sam Fowles (who successfully argued that the Prime Minister’s decision to advise the prorogation of Parliament in July 2019 was unlawful) Jennifer spoke about our campaign to stop political deception. Other speakers included Baroness Hale, Shami Chakrabarti and David Olusoga.
- At the Human Centre roundtable: We addressed leaders interested in compassion with the HC’s founder, John Drummond. We hope that a compassion in journalism group will grow from the conversations that followed.
- Miscarriages of Justice: What are the obstacles that delay and prevent justice? Jennifer joined the former shadow Attorney General, Baroness Shami Chakrabarti CBE, Barrister Christian Weaver, Elkan Abrahamson, Legal Director of the Broudie Jackson Canter and Liverpool MP, Ian Byrne to chair an important discussion at Liverpool Town Hall.
- Anthropy 2025: We spoke at two sold out events at the three day summit at the Eden Project on how to fix democracy and shift to a wellbeing economy. Jennifer can be seen below alongside Ben Page, CEO of Ipsos.
GOING GLOBAL:
- Wellbeing of Australian politicians: We are working with the Apolitical Foundation on an anonymous survey to assess the impact of the current political environment on the mental wellbeing of former and serving politicians in Australia.
- Training US Based Politicians: we are also working with the Apolitical Foundation to provide a webinar for US-based politicians and political professionals to lead effectively, safely and with resilience.
- Word is Spreading: International interest in our work is growing. This month we have spoken about our work with journalists, politicians, academics and activists from Japan, Portugal, Malta, France, Australia, the UN and the US.
CALLING AMERICAN AND AUSTRALIAN SUPPORTERS!
- Big News! We are in the early stages of setting up Compassion in Politics in Australia and the USA. If you are in either of those countries and want to get involved, we’d love you to get in touch
- And if you’re in another country and want to get CiP set up in your country we can give you everything you need to get started.
FUNDRAISING APPEAL TO STOP POLITICAL DECEPTION
As you may already know, Compassion in Politics has launched a fundraising appeal to raise £10,000 to continue our campaign to ban political deception. Now that the Welsh Labour Government has signed up to introduce it, we need to make sure they follow through; all the while working to get the same commitment from the Government in Westminster. The response so far has been overwhelming and we are incredibly grateful. We will be sharing more details about this shortly.
And lastly....
- We wanted to share this short video of our Parliamentary Lead, Anya Sizer, in her other role as a Councillor in Hackney, where she puts the theory of compassion in politics firmly into practice.
If you’d like to get more actively involved, we are always looking for volunteers. You could also consider inviting us to speak. We also offer training in resilience and compassionate leadership and are CPD registered.
Thank you for making what we do possible, and we are looking forward to scaling up our work to meet the many challenges ahead.
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