蜜芽传媒

Good morning. I was in the gym when Theresa May made her dramatic election announcement on Tuesday, and, as I pounded the treadmill I reflected on what she said about the divisions in Westminster and the problems that meant for the forthcoming Brexit negotiations. Of course ours is not the only country pondering our divisions. France goes to the polls next weekend. And last weekend the people of Turkey voted by the narrowest of margins to boost the powers of the President.

The best analysis to the divisions facing us that I have come across is by the political journalist David Goodhart in his book, The Road to Somewhere. He argues that globalisation has divided people into two groups, those he calls Anywheres and those he calls Somewheres. Anywheres are people who feel at home all over the world; they have liberal values and relish the opportunities of ever freer trade and movement of peoples. Somewheres, on the other hand, are those who feel rooted in a particular place, they are socially conservative; they see their communities changing before their eyes, with immigration often making them no longer feel at home on their own patch. If Goodhart is right then what was really going on with Brexit, and in Turkey and potentially in France and other parts of Europe is the advance of the Somewheres.

Now I have to count myself as a natural Anywhere. I have travelled widely, I have lived in different places; my friends are clergy and academics and media people, I relish the exchange of ideas and I am at ease with people of different cultures. But according to David Goodhart鈥檚 analysis it is the Somewheres who have paid the price for all this linking up and they are no longer prepared to do so. Anywheres have assumed too easily that the future is on their side and that material prosperity will flow for all from ever freer trade and contact. But the Somewheres have laid down a challenge which is that they refuse to define their well-being solely in material terms.

If he鈥檚 right, and there鈥檚 a lively debate going on about that at the moment, it raises a whole new question to politicians round the world because it suggests that money is not everything. Just as important, perhaps more so, are belonging and identity.

The Easter faith which the Church is celebrating at the moment has elements that might appeal to both Anywheres and Somewheres. St Paul proclaims that Easter is everywhere and for everyone. As we all died, with Adam, so we will all live in Christ. But the Gospels also speak of the risen Christ appearing to particular people in particular places. The particular matters, and materialism is never enough. The great challenge for all politicians now is to generate a vision that can be owned by both Somewheres and Anywheres.

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