Hilary Russell writes:
FURTHER to your obituary of Paul Goggins (Gazette, 17 January), and
Paul Vallely's article (Comment, 17 January):
neither commented on his time as National Co-ordinator of Church
Action on Poverty from 1989 to 1997. Paul built on the excellent
work started by John Battle, extending the breadth of ecumenical
involvement in CAP, developing partnerships with secular allies and
establishing the credibility of the churches' voice on UK-based
poverty.
Paul's service with CAP was marked by two events that not only
made a significant impact at the time but also prefigured his
priorities and way of working as an MP. The CAP Declaration,
Hearing the Cry of the Poor, in 1989, was put together
after an extensive period of consultation. It sprang from the
urgent concern of Christians who were witnessing our society being
driven in a direction that contradicted the Gospel. The Declaration
was endorsed by a large number of Church leaders, and attracted
wide publicity. It is not often that The Guardian talks
affirmatively in its leader column of a statement having "a genuine
ring of the Gospel". The National Poverty Hearing in 1996 followed
local poverty hearings up and down the country. It assembled an
audience of church and secular "great and good", in Church House,
Westminster, to listen to people with direct experience of poverty
and discrimination. All the hear-ings represented a complete
reversal of the conventional understanding of who the experts
are.
The Declaration and the poverty hearings were both rooted in a
gospel passion for social justice, and a recognition of the need to
learn from the expertise of the most vulnerable, in order to gain a
proper understanding of the dynamics of marginalisation and social
and economic exclusion. Yes, the rest of us need to speak out, but
first of all we need to listen, and ensure that there is a platform
for the disadvantaged themselves.
Paul sustained these values in his subsequent work. The tributes
that have been made to him since, by people of all shades of
political and religious views, show that, as Paul Vallely says, "It
made him not just a good guy, but also a very effective
politician."
