Words matter. These are the best Dawn Foster Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Reading is a pleasure, yes, but not without effort: choosing to read novels purely because they mirror your own experience is stultifying.
If you’re in a meeting and a man talks loudly over you, rather than copying that behaviour and normalising it, what you could do is say ‘Can everybody stop doing this and instead put up a hand when we talk?’
Every rough sleeper is the product of political decisions that have created a safety net riddled with gaping holes. No one wants to sleep outdoors in sub-zero temperatures, but far too many will, while politicians continue to cut welfare provision and bludgeon councils with austeritymeasures.
Empathy is an uncomfortable force in politics.
For years I avoided loose fruit and veg – an absolute minefield – simply because it was impossible to tell how much they would come to at the till.
Codes and signals are as important as explicit messages, and the two are linked. The bore pressing someone to tell them ‘where they’re really from’ will see themselves as different to the aggressive stranger barking at someone to ‘get back to their own country,’ but the subconscious, if not explicit, message is the same.
Making it compulsory to show identification before voting risks compromising a basic human right by creating further barriers for people who may no longer have an acceptable form of ID, thanks to the often unpredictable and chaotic lifestyle homelessness can cause.
If Theresa May is a white woman who is very well-educated and very wealthy, she’s more likely to act in the interests of, say, a very wealthy white man than she is a working class poor black or immigrant woman.
Focusing on the gifted always leaves people behind, and portrays working-class people as a repellent hinterland that ‘gifted’ and ‘talented’ children need rescuing from.
There is no golden age of public spending for the working class under any form of Conservative future, only the endless pursuit of tax breaks for the comfortably-off.
Everyone should have a right to a home.
Public opinion isn’t formed independently, but driven by narratives from the political class and the media.
Supporting and publicising the campaigns of smaller unions pressures bosses to accept workers’ demands.
Whenever rent controls or increased tenants’ rights are raised, naysayers wail that doing so will cause landlords to flee the rental market. Firstly, that is a canard: if a landlord charges £1000 for a room, and you tell him from now on he can only charge £900, he won’t decide to instead earn nothing.
Joining a union makes it more powerful and in turn strengthens the rights of all workers.
There’s a thin line between mockery and endorsement.
I’m learning to believe that my epilepsy doesn’t disbar me from being considered attractive, so if I think I look palatable in A&E I’ll damn well Instagram it.
Learning that Jeremy Corbyn had a fondness for cold beans, it’s impossible not to think of him in ‘The Young Ones.’ Hippie, long-haired Neil?
Standing in mass on Sundays with 500 other people, shaking hands with the people around you, catching the eye of small children, entertaining the prospect of causing a scene, to make them laugh, is an opportunity to feel part of something bigger than yourself, and rooted in your community.
The long-term effects of privatising both rail and housing, aside from ensuring we live in a country of crumbling infrastructure (in contrast to mainland Europe), is one of diminished social and personal opportunities.
I’ve read enough dreary campus novels to know more than I ever wanted to about the punctured Oxbridge academic psyche, and feel as if I’ve been through a mid-life crisis dozens of times, purely because I’ve foolishly grabbed a paperback by an author I’ve vaguely heard of.
For men, the Right Time to become a parent seems to be any time after reaching the age of consent.
Part of the failing of mainstream history has been a reverential air often appended to the colonial era, underpinned by a rose-tinted nostalgia for a lost empire.
Christopher Isherwood’s eponymous character in ‘Mr Norris Takes the Train’ reminds me of Boris Johnson, who seems to have stumbled and bumbled into power.
It’s rare for news of even the most geriatric male celebrity becoming a father to warrant several paragraphs of panicked speculation about a ‘growing trend’ of older parents.
A smart society recognises the benefits of treating problems before they escalate, either through helping people quit smoking or moving them out of mould-blighted bedsits. A compassionate society also tries to limit human misery and suffering wherever possible.
Housing, not buying, should be a right – and available and affordable for all. Right to buy is devastating our housing system, just as rail privatisation has devastated our transport infrastructure.
Passing a beggar who asks for money causes discomfort – and so it should. The act of facing and acknowledging human suffering and hardship on this scale ought to imprint itself on a society that has such glaring divides in income and comfort.
I was one of the few journalists who was quite pro-Corbyn from the beginning.
Women can be as destructive, possessive and prone to rage as men, it turns out: but discovering that is what terrifies them, while exhilarating women.
Illness, especially chronic illness, can be very isolating. Not only does it limit how and when you can socialise, it causes you to feel unattractive.
Technology can help us connect to people and viewpoints we’d never otherwise experience: using it as a way of avoiding awkward but straightforward conversations that are part of everyday life just increases our isolation and disconnection from each other.
Faith is about offering emotional and practical help to your neighbours while expecting nothing in return: you do so simply because you think it’s needed.
The luxury of time to write, and the confidence to do so, make it easier for the more affluent and when the most decorated novels all begin to resemble each other the tacitly accepted view of what a good novel must be (and must be about) shifts imperceptibly.
Growing up poor is precisely as demeaning as you’d expect, and while forgiving bullies is easy, reliving those experiences emotionally is deeply upsetting.
Winter is always the hardest period for rough sleepers because of the climate and the post-Christmas dip in generosity towards anyone begging. And there’s a genuine risk to life for anyone having to sleep out as temperatures plummet.
The homeless often feel invisible, allowed to plummet through widening holes in the social safety net, then hidden in doorways from which people avert their eyes.
The impact of punitive government measures is long-lasting and widens inequality and social discord.
Disasters can also be averted, which is why the rigorous approach after Ronan Point was the correct response.
If we have a right to healthcare, we should also have a right to the most fundamental of human needs: shelter.
Social mobility has always been a slippery term, with nebulous markers of success: how many state school children have to achieve postgraduate degrees, or fill higher professional jobs, before society is deemed to have achieved the requisite degree of mobility to consider prejudice or injustice a thing of the past?
It should be obvious that banning begging or criminalising rough sleeping will do little to combat homelessness.
As austerity has drained the blood from public services, preventive services have been the first to suffer.
Cooking requires time, effort and fuel: increasing numbers of people I’ve visited can’t even afford to turn on the kettle for a cup of tea as they eke out every penny to feed their extortionate gas and electric meters.
Sitting on public transport is an occasionally exasperating experience if you have the temerity to attempt travelling while female.
Many people are unable to see friends and family as often as they’d like due to the cost of rail travel.
Supporting people to stay in their homes is surely a better method of reducing homelessness than acting after the fact.
Any attempt to redress the inequities and injustices that plague our society has to start with the reality that we will never live in a genuine meritocracy as long as the wealthy are able to protect their own interests.
Focusing only on street homelessness is resource-intensive, and acts after the rough sleeper has already endured significant hardship and trauma. Acting before people are homeless makes far more sense, economically and for the long-term wellbeing of a household.
Exceptional teaching requires more time and space for teachers to address the differing needs of a classroom, with assistance in staffing and funding.
