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Michael Hastings

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34

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1

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1. “Cultures that are different to your own. Look at animal programs and look at the natural world that you may never have touched but is there and see history through a lens of its lessons, not its failures. And I believe that the most important thing any young man or woman can do is to keep seeking for what's unknown.”

   undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “We'll all remember Donald Rumsfeld, who was the US Secretary for Defense, and he talked about the known unknown. And all the things he also said, the things we know that we don't know, and the things we don't know that we don't know. And I, as a Chancellor of a university and now as a chairman of university, the head of a school, often say to all my students is, listen, remember, we can see what you know because it's on your qualifications. But you have no idea what you don't know. There's more out there you don't know. So become curious, ask questions every single day. You go into a circle of people, don't assert yourself, find out who they are. Ask questions of the other people. Spend time on your phone discovering information, useful, fascinating, curious, intriguing. Look at the world beyond your own environment and take a perspective on cities and countries.”

   undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “It outwards, express, share, give, embrace, bring people into the circle. I really believe always never go anywhere that's grand and don't take somebody with you. Just make sure you spread the joys that are given to you. And some of those joys become gems for others' advantage. And that to me is incredibly invigorating. My children always saying to me, when are you going to stop and retire? To which the answer is, if I stop, what am I going to be valuable for? All I'll be valuable for is myself. So what's the point of that? If your mission and your purpose is to benefit those least advantaged, you better carry on doing it till you can't breathe anymore.”

   undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “You know, Charles, I think not just when you get as old as I am, and obviously I'm obviously older than you, I imagine, but when you get old, you have two choices, which is to retire in your mind or to dig in better and deeper and re-energize. And I feel that the duty that sits on us because we've had opportunity, titles, privileges, places, dinners, lunches, engagements, opportunities, travel positions, employments, big bank accounts, all those things. The duty that sits on us is to enable another generation to have the same ambitions, if not greater. So constantly, constantly raising aspirations, raising perspectives, sharing the best of what we've learned. Because after all, if you just sit silently and it becomes stodgy in your stomach, you'll have comprehensive sickness. But if you release”

   undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “You have a platform in which you may well do the most, or rather the least obvious thing about leadership. And here I'll pick on a great example from recent times. One, I think probably one of the most undeniably successful significant and states woman-like leader was Angela Merkel, leading Germany over her 16 years. And what was she noted for in that time? Not incredible speeches and platform performances because she never gave them, but for consistency, reliability, integrity, a lack of any sense of self-importance, simplicity and her comprehensive desire to benefit Syrian refugees Her purpose and expressed it by being diligent and competent. That's incredible leadership.”

   undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “I have, well, first let me, I think that leadership should come from purpose. And it shouldn't be a happenstance of the moment. We make this assumption someone's elected to or appointed to a position. That makes them a leader. No, it doesn't. Leadership comes out of purpose. So what is anyone's purpose? It should be their personal manifesto, their why, the thing they get up for every single day. And for me, I was able to make that statement of purpose at the age of 16, my dear friend at school said, what are you going to do with yourself for the rest of your life, which is a great 16-year-old question to ask? And I said, in reply, I've never forgotten it. I said, I want to speak for the poor and I want to bend the power, the prosperous, to the potential of the poor. And that became my mantra. So everything would fall under that canopy. I would only do things that brought those who are marginalized into the forefront. Now, that then gives”

   undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Exactly. And a non political way. And one of the joys of being a crossbencher, of course, is we have no control. So nobody's telling us that we have to be there, we have to vote this way, we have to go through that corridor. We have to think this, we have to say that, which applies to the conservatives, to Labour, to the Lib Dems and to the party machine. So being a crossbencher gives you genuine flexible freedom to live a life where you can input but not be limited.”

   undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Had three votes on that day, two Labour votes, one Liberal Democrat vote. And I remember going through the lobbies each one of the three times voting to support single parents. Not because we believe in thrashing out benefits for the sake of it carelessly, but because the callous way in which the cuts were being planned was unacceptable to us. We were surprised it was acceptable to the MPs, but it wasn't acceptable to us. And so we said no. And all the threats that came from number 10, we saw them off. And I think one of the wonderful things about the House of Lords is because it's not a job, because we're not paid, we get expenses, but we're not paid because there's nothing more anybody can offer us when we want to stand up for justice and stand up for the marginalized and stand up for people's dignity. We're free to do that.”

   undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Privilege, we get to irritate, question and change the actions of government I will never forget the one day, never forget the one day when we were under huge governmental pressure under the Conservative government in David Cameron's time. To accept some House of Commons regulations to do with benefits for single parents. The House of Lords wanted to resist what the Commons had accepted, which was to cut these benefits unacceptably tight.”

   undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “Bounce back and it came back by the very wonderful Shirley Williams who suggested that maybe they could do this by putting me under an independent ticket but it would have their name on it. I had to say no again because of the alignment. And then the Prime Minister Tony Blair created the Independent Appointments Commission and they came after me. So therefore it was genuinely independent. And what I've said to so many wonderful young men and women is don't be impatient to get something. Be patient to wait for the better offer and ride your time. If you build a life based on reputation, which is what I've tried to do, let your reputation speak before you rather than your demand or your insistence or the position you feel you must have. So when it came along, it came at the right time. Being in the House of Lords is a remarkable privilege.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “I will never forget the day when it was then my wonderful friend Patty Ashtown, who was leader of the Liberal Democrats. He was standing down as leader of the Liberal Democrats. And I wasn't a Liber Dem. I've never been a member of any political party. I've never paid any money to any political party. And when I could vote, I had voted every way possible. So I couldn't be labeled. When he rang up and he said that he'd been speaking to the Prime Minister and wanted to put me forward for a period, I was very touched, very honoured and very surprised. But I couldn't take the offer because one I was working at the BBC and that would have been politically impossible and unacceptable. But secondly, I didn't want the alignment to philosophies I wasn't necessarily committed to. So let it go. And if you let it go and don't become possessive of it and wait, then it”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “One of them said to me at the very end, Before you came in here today, all of you, there were 18 of us, 12 of them, before you came in here today, I didn't know that black men could achieve the things that I've seen all of you achieve and speak about. I had no vision for the possibilities. So I've seen every honour, every award, as a platform to help somebody else to stand. And that's how I want to use them”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “They look nice at home, but most of them are kind of tucked away The impact of them is like the value of my peerage to the House of Lords I can be actively involved in regulation, legislation and the accountabilities of government. But I can also create platforms of opportunity for others who are disconnected from the established power systems of our society. So each one of these awards, which is a joy to be given, each one of these awards allows me to help somebody else to have a vision for what's possible. Literally yesterday, a group of us, my friends and I, were in a youth offender's prison in Kent, in Rochester in Kent. The young men who are in there are all in there on serious crimes.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Whatever the systems of policing, the court's probation, imprisonment can do to constrain and restrain criminal activity out there, the reality is most people would rather have a voluntary experience of understanding the pain and distress caused by crime, which is why we created Neighborhood Watch. We created victim support. We created many mechanisms to allow people to know how to manage better relationships in their communities. And of course, by working with young people, the 30,000 that catch 22 works with all the time, I can pretty much guarantee very few of those young people are going to end up in the system of criminal justice. They're going to be responsible citizens for the future.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “And myself decided rather than being rivals, let's be friends. Let's become common advocates of the same cause, merging the two organizations together gave us Catch 22. I've stayed as vice president of Catch 22. I've been involved, therefore, for 35 years in this kind of adventure. Now, why is it so important? It's important because”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “Well, first of all, a quick thing on crime, which I'm very, very proud of when I never forget when Douglas Heard was the Home Secretary. He rang me up 1988. And, you know, at that point, I was just 28 years of age. And he said, would you mind creating an organization? We'll begin to fund it, which will find alternatives to imprisonment for young people who've committed crime. Of course, the minutes said something like that. My mind goes, yes, we've got to do this. And so we set up crime concern in 1988 with a $250,000 grant from the Home Office. 21 years later, when I was still chairman, we were a 25 million pound organization with 700 staff. And so I thought, well, how do we make this better? Because we could carry on doing what we're doing. But here's the Rayna Foundation. They're doing similar things to us, just a different geography in the UK. Let's put the two together. So the chairman of Raina.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Establishment of our leadership but of our day-to-day life. For that reason, pay it because it benefits others. But the BBC take it seriously, more seriously, don't splash money on wild adventures instead focus on what the public most need, accurate, detailed, objective information.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “Lot of younger men and women say to me, I'm not paying for that because I don't watch it. Well, I would argue listen, should I not pay for libraries and hospitals because I don't use them either? I've only ever once been in an NHS hospital once in my 64 years, and I don't go to libraries. I buy the books and have them at home. But I pay for public goods because public assets are for other people, not just for me. And the BBC is a public asset of intense value during the coronavirus crisis. Everybody needed the day-to-day information locally, nationally, internationally, looking at the tragedy of war in Ukraine and other parts of the world. We need a reliable sources of information not distorted, self-asserting aspects of news on social media. So the BBC is an asset of the establishment of our quality of life, not the”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “Clever steps in those directions. I noticed now constantly day in, day out, the BBC is promoting itself. I get that because it's the build up to the next Charter renewal and the next license fee consideration. So it's self-promoting. We get that. But the best promotion is what you watch just out of natural habit. And then my advice to the British public is, listen.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “I'm glad you asked me that because I have advice for the BBC and I have advice for the British public. And my advice for the BBC is constrain your output so that it better matches the expectations of the paying public. I would strongly urge either online or reduction in television services in particular, especially some of the channels which have very zero-based audiences. cut the costs by removing things that clearly the public are not interested in. I think the BBC knows exactly which channels I'm talking about and also make sure that the news agenda is because it's after all the politicians watch the news agenda, make sure that the news agenda is not populist but is serious and less opinionated and more factual. Now if the BBC takes some”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “Politics program, and it was because of the weekly politics program that the then Director General's office at the BBC got in touch with me and they said, how about you come behind the camera and become our chief lobbyist in Parliament? Because we kind of like the way you talk to the politicians. You seem to get on with them very well. And I did get on with them well. And I got on with them well, not because I was cynical of their lives and their jobs and their intentions, but because I saw the humanity in them and the deep desire to do right by their constituents and by their office of government. And I've always maintained that view that although there are individuals who seek aggrandizement through politics, the vast majority seek service.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “The honest answer, Charles, is that I never asked, can I do this? I just said, oh, you've asked me to do this, let me have a go. And I've always had that kind of assumption in me that if somebody thinks I'm capable, then maybe I can rise beyond it. So when I was asked by the chairman of TVAM to come and make a television series about school failure, and then TVAM lost its franchise a year later, year and a half later. And then he said to me, we're going to have to lose a lot of people, but I'd like you to stay on and present the six to seven hour in the morning. I thought, oh, that's an interesting opportunity. I mean, I've never done it live TV staring at a camera and talking to an audience and interviewing people. But why not? And that then laid the ground for then going to GMTV and then to the BBC where I was doing a weekly.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “Can't manage this. Now it's when you put those three factors together, you then get a listening political class. And it shouldn't be like that. It should be that you know that if you rip people's work out from under them and you give them no hope and no prospect for the next stage, where are they going to place their fear? They're going to put it out there on the street. So let's change our ways and love people through tragedy.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Well, I think sad to say, Charles, what helped was the weight of the insurance industry? Because the insurance industry leaned in on the government to say another round of this, 1986, I mean, we can't afford it. We can't afford this. You can only burn for so long and get away with it. And already millions, tens of millions has gone up in insurance claims. And of course, there's a sense, too, that those communities become fragile. And when they become fragile, of course, that becomes criminal and fearful. Children can't walk the streets safely. You set up a culture of disconnection and anguish. So I think there was, it took sad to say it, multiple impactful burnings and an insurance industry and a policing community that said”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “One city area to another, to another, to another, four or five on the same day, meeting with groups of furious individuals, bringing them together with the civil servants who had the money, helping initiate projects for employment, making sure that apprenticeships came into place, rejuvenation of housing. It was a time for refreshing, rebuilding the broken walls.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “So, you know, as Martin Luther King said, riots are the language of the unheard. And so people take to the streets and they burn things down. And you think, well, what does that create? Well, all it creates is a reaction. And in the end, the government under Margaret Thatcher's leadership sat up in 1986 and said, we can't have this again. We need somebody to be a broker for the peace. So I was asked to build connected relationships between the communities that had been wild and wandering, I wouldn't say bad, just furious and hurt and disadvantaged. And they need you to believe that there was a government, there were civil servants, there were ministers, there were politicians who had a positive view about their potential. So my job was to literally build the connected relationships. And I loved it. I really loved it, those five, six years where I would go from”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “Many of your listeners and viewers will remember the turbulences 1981, 1985, very serious riots, 21 cities in the UK went up in flames. The famous Brixton riots, but the riots that were St. Paul's, Bristol, Mosside in Manchester, Handsworth in Birmingham, even as far as Newcastle, riots in Coventry, riots in Hackney, there were large numbers of people, especially black disadvantaged communities and again mainly men who had lost their jobs. We were going through a period in the economy of a complete political rewriting and an economic rewriting, and it was necessary for modernization and technology and industrial change, but the downside was job loss, was heavy and rapid. And so many communities felt the strain of that and didn't feel government was on their side.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “Kids off to the PRU. If they want to expel them, suspend them, get them out of the way, pupil referral units have become an easy way, especially for black and Caribbean and African boys. But I'm a comprehensive supporter of teaching. I'm involved with many academy schools across London and the UK. And of course I'm a governor of a school in Kenya, in Nairobi. And of course I'm the head of a university as well in London. So teachings in my DNA. I partly wish 1988 I'd been left alone to carry on teaching, but Margaret Thatcher came knocking on the door so that was another story.”

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29. “It was a school that these days we would have said was failing and closed. But anyway, that's where I went. And I had five remarkable years as the head of religious studies at that school. Absolutely loved it. And then I got called into government service after that, which is kind of weird how it all happened. But those years of teaching, and I've comprehensively always believed that teaching is probably amongst the top five most important professions in life. So many young men or women I encounter now, besides talking about a loving mum, will often refer to a great teacher. And when they refer to that great teacher who fashioned their mind, now on the downside, you see what happens when teachers become exasperated, highly stressed, and they for easily say”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “I'd had this wonderful faith realization at the age of 14. I'd made a personal commitment to follow Jesus. And I was excited and turned on and motivated by my faith. And I still am. So from 14 to now 64, nothing has changed. Fifty years have gone in between. I've just got more excited every day. So when I knew that Jesus was real and real for me and real for others, I wanted to become a teacher of those truths. But I didn't want to be a priest. I didn't want to be in a church. What I wanted to do instead was to take to the classroom, to communicate with young people about the value of faith and to help to unpick what the Bible was teaching that was relevant. And I chose a pretty rundown school.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “I saw the danger and the damage of it, and I made my determination that I would focus on the poor for the rest of my life.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “My parents said they would stay. My father had worked in the NHS in England in the 1950s and 60s, but he was adamant he was going to stay. Obviously my mother was going to stay, but my brother and I got sent away to boarding school so that we were out of it. But what it did do for me was not make me run from poverty, but run towards it. So despite going to a privileged boarding school in the northwest of England, which was lovely, building was designed by Pugin who designed the Palace of Westminster. It looks like the Palace of Westminster. Ironically, it made me more acutely focused on the needs of shattered and destitute communities. So I, at an early age, set my mind to be focused on poverty solutions. It was instinctive in me. I saw it. I witnessed it.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “So, for Jamaica, which is literally just in the shadow of the US, to choose to elect a government in favor. Of a Cuban Russian relationship was not very wise. And within a short space of time, what we had seen as this one people community, everyone at ease with themselves broke down into fractious racial economic divides. And the people who had money left very fast. My brother's brother, who was a surgeon, left his family left. So many of the people we knew as friends left. And the other thing that left was commerce, industry, jobs, employment. And we saw this one people culture, culture go into a place of fractious anguish, loss. Became a drug haven, violent, a lot of turmoil, and poverty was in everybody's face.”

    undated · Off The Agenda · Lord Dr Michael Hastings: Faith, Power & Leadership for the Common Good | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “One of the wonderful things about being in Jamaica in the 1960s was seeing an island that had been a colony that was comprehensively at peace with itself. A motto out of many one people looking as we did every single day at people from Asian cultures, European cultures, North America, Africa and the Caribbean, melding, mixing freely. Was my first. Responses from 1966 to 1970. And then this terrible thing called democracy got in the way and the people elected a government that was pro-Cuban, which meant at the time 1970 pro-USSR. And I'm sure many listeners will remember the Cuban missile crisis from the early 1960s, 1962, and they'll remember that America's sense of anguish about the USSR, we now like to call it Russia, but USSR, was very serious”

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