Mark's Blog

I see ‘niceness’ a lot in my job, especially when I’m in and around Westminster, or the people who think they are the equivalent to the charity Kardashians.

For them, being nice is almost exclusively an act of trying to look good, and further their own ambition, rather than do good. Loads of compliments, air kissing and ass-kissing for everyone that passes by. They practice the art of being nice because it’s basically a set of behaviours that require little-to-no effort, but makes you feel good about yourself.

When they tell the waiter the food is ‘great’ even though it’s terrible, they know they’ve been nice. When they tell their friend they love their haircut even though it looks ridiculous, they know they’re being nice. In reality, these things are often just passive-aggressive, conflict-avoiding, self-serving behaviours.

The easiest way to know if you are being nice or being kind is to work out if you are expecting something in return.

Do you wave, ‘good morning’ to someone walking by and then get mad when they don’t wave back? Do you hold the door open for someone and get upset when they don’t say ‘thanks’ as they pass? If you get offended when people don’t offer you praise for being ‘nice’ then you can be certain you aren’t being kind.

Being kind to someone means that the only thing on your mind is another person’s wellbeing, without needing a return or payback. Niceness is how we try to climb the ladder, but kindness is how we lift up others.

I’ve seen loads of “niceness” this week in the repeated attempts by politicians to regain the publics’ trust after they voted against feeding hungry kids over half-term.

Many of them turned up at food banks (for photos), many of them implied that it wasn’t their fault because it’s parents responsibility to feed their kids, and that parents were feckless in not being able to do so, many of them pointed to the government initiatives that they had already voted through, to their charity work, their altruism; “I’m trying to fix things in the long term”.

When they’ve done everything they can to be nice and still don’t get their own way, they blame the very people they are trying to help: ‘I’ve done all I can do, now it’s time for tough love’. More virtue signalling; it frees them of their obligation to do the kind thing.

Marcus Rashford is right - the kind thing to do is feed hungry people. Without question or hesitation, because we can, because it’s right and because kids are hungry now and not just when it’s politically or practically convenient (when we have a new strategy or spending review or whatever). Do it and do it now…

Here is a person, only 22 years old, who believes in making a real difference to people’s lives. He’s a Premiership footballer, so he could choose to leave memories of childhood food poverty behind, but instead he’s used his past experience constructively – he gets it, and he also knows what can be done about it.

Best of all, when government failed to respond to his most recent campaign for free meals for kids during school holidays, there were no petty insults or muck-slinging, Marcus Rashford simply invited those in power and/or anyone who doesn’t agree with him, to keep the conversation going and keep working together. I couldn’t put it better than this:

My advice to the politicians and keyboard warriors who think hunger is ok: being kind will improve your mental health, it stops you worrying about what people think of you, because you look for ways to be genuinely helpful and no more. You don’t have to live your life putting on a show, you can just crack on, doing your best, doing your thing, safe in the knowledge it’s real, genuine and kind. In fact, it’s what I know people at P3 do, every day.

In the end, it’s liberating, that’s what most of us want for ourselves. I reckon most people would vote for someone like that.

Now, on with this rest of the blog, which is ever-so-slightly spooky-themed this week…

The horror of Zoom

If you thought you’d had enough of video chats this year, check out this dad’s interpretation of a nightmarish Zoom call, all made for his daughter’s Halloween costume!