One conversation at a time.

Interesting watching the Queen being trotted out at exactly the same time as it is announced that Boris Johnson has been taken into hospital. I’ve watched The Crown. I can imagine the Whitehall and Palace conversations that took place to get that to happen.

These are interesting times in terms of how we view the state and their role in protecting us and helping us pull together in a crisis. Clearly there are risks that it could all fall apart.

But would it? And what is “it”?

I always felt that the “real” BBC was the organic networks of individuals who turned up in the same place at the same time to achieve something challenging and complex – and not the often deluded group of individuals in the centre and “at the top” who thought they were running things. In fact on many occasions the interventions of that group of individuals damaged the organism.

The “real” United Kingdom is the complex organic networks of people who inhabit these islands, and the glue that holds us together is the day to day conversations that we have with each other. The increased tolerance, generosity, and bravery we are seeing is not happening because anyone told us to behave that way. It is because we know it is the right thing to do.

As ever we have way more power than we have been led to believe. We exercise that power in the day to day conversations that we have with our families, our friends and our networks – online or off.

If we are thoughtful about those conversations we will be all right.