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Loneliness

Mental Health

5 March 2024

5 min read

What Bobby Brazier, Jo Marsh and Eleanor Rigby have in common

A public health campaign asks influencers if they are lonely.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

a young man looks pensive as he answers a questuon while sitting in a fancy room.

Bobby Brazier at 10 Downing Street.

NHS.

‘Loneliness. It’s a part of life. Let’s talk about it’

That’s the new slogan offered by the NHS in partnership with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. As part of their campaign, they recently invited young influencers and TV personalities to Downing Street to do just that – to talk about loneliness.

With those aged between 16 and 29 now twice as likely to report feeling lonely as those over 70, these celebrities were tasked with answering a few of the questions most asked by people within that age group. Their questions went along these heart-wrenching lines:

Why am I so lonely?

Is it normal to feel lonely?

Will I always be this lonely?

And while their answers to such questions were a little ‘meh’ (whose wouldn’t be? They were given seven seconds to answer some of humanity’s deepest questions), it doesn’t much matter, their answers weren’t really the point. Rather, viewers were presented with a handful of popular, successful, lovable (looking at you, Bobby Brazier) and happy looking people doing something notoriously difficult: admitting loneliness.

And I think that may be the point.

I am of the firm opinion that admitting to feeling lonely is one of the hardest things a person could do. I have certainly never had the bravery to do it.

I remember watching Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of the beloved 1868 novel, Little Women, for the first time; I was always going to love it, I had decided as much before even stepping foot in the cinema. But there was one scene that felt as if it literally took my breath away. I was left winded in row C.

It is toward the end of the film, and Jo Marsh, the feisty, strong and independent protagonist, is giving a feminist monologue for the ages (albeit to her mum) as she stands in the attic of her childhood home. Jo speaks of women’s minds and souls, their ambitions and talents, she explains how sick she is of being underestimated, getting more impassioned with every word. That is, until she tearily ends her speech by declaring – ‘…but I’m so lonely.’

This isn’t in the book.

This final line was written by Greta Gerwig specifically for this adaptation. And the only person who seemed to be more taken aback by Jo’s words than me (an owner of more editions of the novel than is cool to admit), was Jo herself, who instinctively clasped her hand to her mouth as if she couldn’t believe that she’d just said such words aloud.

As far as filmmaking goes, it was genius. As far as human nature is concerned, it was, well, true.

Not only do we find loneliness acutely painful, but we also tend to find it near impossible to admit to, so much so, the government currently feels the need to step in. Why is that, I wonder? Why does ‘lonely’ seem to be the hardest word?

Those who admit to their own loneliness are wading into profoundly vulnerable waters.

Part of it is certainly because there is a social stigma attached to feeling lonely. Ironic, isn’t it? How loneliness has social connotations. Nobody wants to be Eleanor Rigby, nor Father McKenzie, nor any of ‘the lonely people’ that Paul McCartney so pities, for that matter. It’s one of the only Beatles songs you wouldn’t want to have been written about you. Loneliness feels like a failure somehow, and so we struggle to admit it, even to ourselves. A failure because, we’re supposed to be self-sufficient, independent, free-thinking, emotionally-sturdy individuals (which is the operative word, of course). That’s what individualism has taught us, isn’t it? And so, how do we reconcile that with the piercing pain of isolation? How do we admit that there’s a deep crack within us that can’t be papered over by success, or wealth, or another episode of our favourite podcast? How do we go about admitting such a lack? A lack, which despite individualism’s best efforts, has us naturally wondering why it’s there in the first place; are we unpopular? Unattractive? Unlikable? Or worst of all, unlovable?

Those who admit to their own loneliness are wading into profoundly vulnerable waters. And most of us are utterly unwilling to follow them there, lest we be spotted by a budding Paul McCartney and our loneliness be immortalised.

And then, of course, there’s the other side of the coin: what does our loneliness say about the people who we are in relationship with? Nobody wants to unleash the panic and guilt tucked away in that can of worms (which, I must note, is unnecessary panic and guilt - there could be any number of reasons you’re feeling lonely, despite your very rich relationships).

And so, we just don’t say the word. And that’s what appears to be making the NHS and, rather randomly now that I think about it, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport so nervous.

We need to admit when we’re lonely. We have to pull a Jo Marsh and say it out loud. We must give language to the lack that we feel.

To be known and loved is my deepest and truest need.

One of the things that I find myself most consistently thankful for when it comes to my Christian faith (you know, apart from the most obvious aspects…) is that it gives me such language. At the risk of sounding annoyingly self-centred, it dignifies the feelings that I find hard to even acknowledge. It offers explanation, and therefore, a comfort that I could never find anywhere else; a comfort rooted in truth.

It may sound nuts, but I have come to understand the reality of loneliness, not through influencers on a sofa in Downing Street (although that’s great), and not even through Jo Marsh’s monologue (which is even greater), but through an ancient Hebrew poem. This poem tells me that to be alone is ‘not good’.

Not good. Not right. Not as it should be.

That’s God’s point of view at least – that to be alone, properly, completely and permanently alone, goes against the very fabric of the world. It is at odds with human flourishing. I’ve come to deeply value how concrete that is. I’ve also learnt to relax into the knowledge that not only is loneliness ‘normal’ (referring to one to the questions referenced at the beginning), it’s natural, in every possible sense of the word.

To be known and loved is my deepest and truest need. I was designed for relationship, with God and with people. And therefore – with all the complex ways that life unfolds - to be lonely, is to be human.

So, with all of this in mind, I’m tempted to end where we began, to come full circle and once again borrow the government’s words:

‘Loneliness. It’s a part of life. Let’s talk about it.’

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General Election 24

Politics

7 June 2024

4 min read

Who’s right when hurling charges of hypocrisy?

Accusations highlight the risk of self-deception.

George Pitcher

George is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and an Anglican priest.

A newspaper headline, text and an image of the subject of the article.

Ashcroft's charge against Raynor.

David Yelland, X.

Lord Ashcroft launched an extraordinary new attack on Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, in the Mail on Sunday at the start of this week, claiming that his investigation into where she lived, allegedly for tax purposes, was never about money.

“Hypocrisy was always the charge against Angela Rayner,” he intoned, “not tax avoidance… And the stain will dog her for years to come.”

Leaving aside whether stains dog people or the other way around, this is extraordinary not because Ashcroft attacks a senior Labour figure – day follows night, etc – but because it’s the sort of volte face that journalists call a reverse ferret.

Had Rayner been found by investigating police officers to have committed a tax-fraud or electoral offence (and, to be clear, they didn’t), we need to ask ourselves whether Ashcroft would have run with the same line.

Imagine: “Angela Rayner has committed a crime, but this is really about hypocrisy.” Do you think he’d have gone with that? Neither do I.

Usually, charges of hypocrisy are levelled at politicians who use social privileges to which they’re opposed in principle.

Hypocrisy is invariably the charge when there’s nothing else to go with. And that must raise questions about what hypocrisy really is.

It’s clearly not just about telling lies. In the first televised debate this week between Rishi Sunak and his rival for premiership, Keir Starmer, the former repeatedly (12 times) claimed that Treasury officials had independently calculated that the latter’s spending plans would add £2,000 to the tax bill of every family in the UK. A published letter subsequently showed that the Treasury had specifically told the Government that this figure was bogus and not to be used.

Was this hypocritical? No, it was just plain wrong – in the sense of both inaccurate and immoral. The opportunity for hypocrisy came when both leaders were asked whether they would use private healthcare for a family member in need. Sunak said he would; Starmer said he wouldn’t. If Starmer now ever uses private health facilities, Mr Hypocrisy will be ringing his door bell.

From this, we deduce that hypocrisy is pretending to be what you’re not. So Donald Trump poses as a great statesman, the saviour of his nation, but goes down for all 34 felony charges of falsifying accounts to hide his pay-off of former porn actor Stormy Daniels, in order to protect his electoral prospects. That’s hypocrisy, precisely because he’s pretending to be someone he isn’t.

That hypocrisy is exacerbated when Trump holds up a Bible to support his authority – or, indeed, publishes his own. Likewise, when a rich TV evangelist is convicted of sexual abuse (there are, tragically, too many examples to choose from).

By contrast, is Rayner pretending to be something she isn’t because her family has used two properties? Very probably not. Similarly, we might like to ask whether SNP deputy leader Kate Forbes is a hypocritical politician because she’s a Christian, or a hypocritical Christian because she’s a politician. Very probably neither. Being both is who she is.

Usually, charges of hypocrisy are levelled at politicians who use social privileges to which they’re opposed in principle. Like when Labour MP Diane Abbott sent her son to a fee-paying school. Private education, like private healthcare, is only meant to be available to those who support it ideologically, rather than just financially. Otherwise, it’s hypocrisy.

The problem here is the presumption that the private sector is only available to those who endorse it. So it’s hypocritical for socialists to use it. But that presumption moves very close to the view that working people should know their place (a social order, incidentally, that the Christian gospel defies).

There is no inconsistency – and consequently there can be no hypocrisy – in wanting the best for our own children, while concurrently wanting the best for all children. One might even call such a policy something like levelling-up, should such a thing exist.

We may not know what Angela Rayner’s shortcomings are, but simply having them doesn’t make her a hypocrite.

A biblical definition of hypocrisy might be the hiding of interior wickedness under an appearance of virtue. In Matthew’s gospel, it’s the charge levelled at Pharisees whose good deeds are entirely self-serving.

In this manner, moral theology would point to hypocrisy being the fruit of pride. But simply to hide one’s own shortcomings isn’t necessarily to be construed as hypocrisy, because there’s no moral obligation to make them public.

In that context, we may not know what Angela Rayner’s shortcomings are, but simply having them doesn’t make her a hypocrite. Otherwise, we’re all hypocrites (and there may be some truth in that).

It reduces to resisting the temptation to point to the mote of hypocrisy in our neighbour’s eye, while failing to attend to the beam in our own. That would also be to avoid self-deception. The kind of deception that pretends that one’s actions are in the public interest, when clearly they are only serving your own. Which, neatly enough, brings us back to Lord Ashcroft.