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Loneliness
6 min read

Why do we feel so lonely?

Re-reading some classics of English literature leads Graham Tomlin to wonder what lies behind our epidemic of loneliness.

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

Individual underneath a galaxy of stars

These days I can’t seem to avoid the spectre of loneliness. Bob Geldof recently described Sinead O’Connor as ‘full of a terrible loneliness’ in the weeks before she died. Elon Musk, who owns Twitter, one of the world’s greatest social networks, was recently described as a cutting a lonely figure. Even more widely, over a quarter of all Londoners say they often or always feel lonely - and that in a city where you can’t get away from people – all 8 million of them.

Loneliness is an epidemic these days. In the UK we even have a Minister for Loneliness and a Department of Government offering ‘Loneliness Engagement Fund’ grants for groups coming up with good ideas to combat it. Loneliness, as Roger Bretherton writes, causes psychological and social damage and is one of the main threats to mental health in contemporary life. I would hazard a guess that if you’re reading this there are times you feel isolated, and would love to have a greater sense of community where you live, or richer friendships. If you don’t, then count yourself fortunate.

Underneath our immediate sense of isolation, our social unease, the ache in the soul that comes with feeling out of connection with others, lies a deeper sense of cosmic loneliness.

During the pandemic, looking around for books that would shed some light on that strange experience of isolation as so many did, I re-read two novels: Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe published in 1719, and Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo, published in 1904. In both stories, people get stranded on deserted islands. Somehow lockdown didn’t seem that different.

Everyone knows the story of Robinson Crusoe. You might have thought that being the sole survivor of a shipwreck, alone on a remote island, would lead to a crisis of loneliness and self pity. Well, he does have moments when he reflects on the possibility that he might die in that desolate place, and remarks how ‘the tears would run plentifully down my face when I made these reflections.’ But the self pity doesn't last long. He goes on to ask himself the question of why he alone was saved out of all crew of the ship that foundered. He sees some kind of providential design in this - that he has been saved, not just by chance, but for some wider purpose, which gives him a sense of comfort. In fact, the novel is the tale of a kind of spiritual awakening, as he gradually sees in his story something of the hand of God mysteriously guiding and preserving him through his trials. Seeing this enigmatic hand directing his affairs, and discerning some kind of purpose in his isolation, Crusoe sets about the tasks of building a kind of small civilization on his island, constructing increasingly sophisticated shelters, planting crops, capturing and taming animals, mapping the island, until his final rescue. He is alone (until Man Friday appears of course) but strangely not alone.

In Conrad’s Nostromo, it turns out very different. This is a story of attempts to protect a hoard of silver from revolutionaries in the troubled (and fictional) South American republic of Costaguana. In the course of trying to hide the treasure, alongside Nostromo, the main figure in the story, the politically ambitious and romantic journalist Martin Decoud, also finds himself stranded on a deserted island, albeit with the load of valuable silver for company. His experience however is totally different. He has no such belief in providence and so for him, the isolation bears more heavily: “solitude appeared like a great void, and the silence of the gulf like a tense, thin cord to which he hung suspended by both hands, without fear, without surprise, without any sort of emotion whatsoever…” Unable to bear the isolation, the aimlessness of his life on the island, and the apparent failure of his plans and projects, he fills his pockets with silver ingots from the treasure, rows in a small dinghy a short way out from the shore, shoots himself with a revolver and falls overboard, sinking slowly to the bottom of the sea. And so, as Conrad describes it, in a cold, yet superb turn of phrase: “the brilliant Don Martin disappeared without a trace, swallowed up in the immense indifference of things.”

Even though they both faced isolation and loneliness, the fates of these two characters are very different. One is a story of spiritual growth, learning, meaningful activity and ultimate rescue. The other is a tragedy of lost hope and potential. It touches the heart, yet remains a tragedy.

Is it surprising that when we tell ourselves that we are alone in the cosmos, that there is no-one there to hear our cries or heartfelt longings, that the aching hole in the universe finds its way into our own hearts?

Of course, both are novels not historical episodes, yet the two books, separated by nearly 200 years, operate in very different frameworks. The first operates in a world which assumes a kind of providential ordering of things. The working of a divine hand of providence is, as Crusoe (and presumably Defoe) realises, hard to discern and difficult to distinguish in any one moment, and so leads many to doubt it is there at all. Belief in providence has always been a choice - an act of faith rather than a scientifically proved theory. And yet the story is framed within the overall belief that in the strange twists and turns of life there is a deeper divine order that leads towards a distinct purpose of good and which makes human activity directed towards that purpose meaningful.

The other story has lost that sense of divine order, and is left only with the “immense indifference of things.” This is a world in which there is nothing beyond what we can see and feel, no objective purpose, direction or goal other than that dreamed up by us. Human activity, in this case, the search for wealth and riches, seems strangely pointless. All that is left is human love and relationship and when that becomes impossible, due to enforced loneliness, there seems little point left to life.

Richard Dawkins famously wrote: ‘the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.’ For the moment I'll leave to one side the question of whether the universe does point in that direction, but either way, if we tell ourselves that story, as we have so often been doing for the last couple of centuries, is it surprising that often we feel dreadfully alone? Is it surprising that when we tell ourselves that we are alone in the cosmos, that there is no-one there to hear our cries or heartfelt longings, that the aching hole in the universe finds its way into our own hearts? It doesn’t take much imagination to see that the ‘immense indifference of things’ leaves a hollowness in the heart of life and the pit of the stomach.

Such a deeper cosmic loneliness might explain why we can still feel alone even in a city, even in a crowd or even sometimes among our friends. It helps us see our loneliness not just as a tragedy but as a pointer towards our need from greater sense of connection than any human being could give.

In Matthew’s gospel, the very last sentence depicts Jesus saying to his perplexed but bewildered disciples, scarcely daring to believe that he has actually risen from the dead: “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” This simple promise is one that has held and sustained Christians for generations, in prison cells, through dangerous voyages, through purges, in times of persecution, misunderstanding and sickness and, yes, times of loneliness in modern western societies. Of course, we need a sense of belonging, and the company of others, as we are made for that. But underneath it we need a deeper connection, a bond with something, or someone at the very heart of things. Such a promise doesn’t remove loneliness, but it makes it bearable, even meaningful.

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Justice
Leading
Politics
5 min read

The consequences of truth-telling are so severe our leaders can’t admit their mistakes

When accountability means annihilation, denial is the only way to survive
A woman talks in an interivew.
Baroness Casey.
BBC.

Why do our leaders struggle so profoundly with admitting error? 

Media and inquiries regularly report on such failures in the NHS, the Home Office, the Department of Work and Pensions, HMRC, the Metropolitan Police, the Ministry of Defence, and so many more public institutions. Often accompanied by harrowing personal stories of the harm done. 

In a recent white paper (From harm to healing: rebuilding trust in Britain’s publicly funded institutions), I defined “harm” as a holistic concept occurring where physical injury or mental distress is committed and sustained and explained that harm is generally something that is caused, possibly resulting in injury or loss of life.  

When we look at harm from an institutional perspective, structural power dynamics inevitably oppress certain groups, limit individual freedoms, and negatively affect the safety and security of individuals. But when we look at it through the lens of the individuals who run those institutions, we see people who often believe that they are acting in good faith, believe that their decisions won’t have a significant impact, who don’t have time to think about the decisions they are making, or worse still, prefer to protect what is in their best interest.  

Even well-intentioned leaders can become complicit in cycles of harm - not just through malice, but through their lack of self-awareness and unwillingness to put themselves in the shoes of the person on the receiving end of their decisions.  

Martin Luther King Jr supposedly said, “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” In contemporary politics, leaders are neither selected nor (largely) do they remain, because of their humility. Humility is synonymous with weakness and showing weakness must be avoided at all cost. Responsibility is perceived as something that lies outside of us, rather than something we can take ownership of from within.  

So, why do leaders struggle so profoundly with admitting error? 

The issue is cultural and three-fold. 

First, we don’t quantify or systematically address human error, allowing small mistakes to escalate. 

We then enable those responsible to evade accountability through institutional protection and legal barriers. 

Finally, we actively discourage truth-telling by punishing whistle-blowers rather than rewarding transparency. Taken together, these create the very conditions that transform errors into institutional harm.  

Nowhere is this plainer than in Baroness Casey’s recent report on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse that caused the Government to announce a grooming gangs inquiry. In this case, the initial harm was compounded by denial and obfuscation, resulting not just in an institutional failure to protect children, but system-wide failures that have enabled the so-called “bad actors” to remain in situ. 

Recently, this trend was bucked at Countess of Chester Hospital where the police arrested three hospital managers involved in the Lucy Letby investigation. Previously, senior leadership had been protected, thus allowing them to evade accountability. Humble leadership would look like acting when concerns are raised before they become scandals. However, in this case, leadership did act; they chose to bury the truth rather than believe the whistle-blowers.

Until we separate admission of error from institutional destruction, we will continue to incentivise the very cover-ups that erode public trust. 

The answer to our conundrum is obvious. In Britain, accountability is conflated with annihilation. Clinging onto power is the only option because admitting error has become synonymous with career suicide, legal liability, and is tantamount to being hanged in the gallows of social media. We have managed to create systems of governing where the consequences of truth-telling are so severe that denial is the only survival mechanism left. We have successfully weaponised accountability rather than understanding it as the foundation of trust. 

If Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council had admitted even half of the failures Alexis Jay OBE identified in her 2013 report and that Baroness Casey identifies in her 2025 audit, leaders would face not only compensation claims but media storms, regulatory sanctions, and individual prosecutions. It’s so unthinkable to put someone through that that we shrink back with empathy as to why someone might not speak up. But this is not justice. Justice is what the families of Hillsborough have been seeking in the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill: legal duties of candour, criminal offences for those who deliberately mislead investigations or cover-up service failures, legal representation, and appropriate disclosure of documentation. 

Regardless of your political persuasion, it has to be right that when police misconduct occurs, officers should fear not only disciplinary action and criminal charges. When politicians admit mistakes, they should face calls for their resignation. Public vilification is par for the course. Being ejected from office is the bare minimum required to take accountability for their actions.  

The white paper shows that the cover-up always causes more damage than the original error. Institutional denial - whether relating to the Post Office sub-postmasters, the infected blood scandal victims, grooming gang victims, Grenfell Towers victims, Windrush claimants, or Hillsborough families - compounds the original harm exponentially.  

In a society beset with blame, shame, and by fame, it is extraordinary that this struggle to admit error is so pervasive. Survivors can and will forgive human fallibility. What they will not forgive is the arrogance of institutions that refuse to acknowledge when they have caused harm.  

The white paper refers to a four-fold restorative framework that starts with acknowledgment, not punishment. The courage to say “we were wrong” is merely the first step. Next is apology and accountability followed by amends. It recognises that healing - not just legal resolution - must be at the heart of justice, treating both those harmed and those who caused it as whole human beings deserving of dignity.  

Until we separate admission of error from institutional destruction, we will continue to incentivise the very cover-ups that erode public trust. I was recently struck by Baroness Onora O’Neill who insisted that we must demand trustworthiness in our leaders. We cannot have trustworthiness without truth-telling, and we cannot have that without valuing the act of repairing harm over reputation management. True authority comes from service, through vulnerability rather than invulnerability; strength comes through the acknowledgement of weakness not the projection of power.  

We must recognise that those entrusted with power have a moral obligation to those they serve. That obligation transcends institutional self-interest. Thus, we must stop asking why leaders struggle to admit error and instead ask why we have made truth-telling so dangerous that lies seem safer.