The tragedy of the killing of Paul Kelly knocks all your endeavours, and brings into question your own sense of humanity. Paul, a Big Issue vendor selling in Glasgow, will be sorely missed as the outpouring of grief that followed his untimely, and cruel, death showed. Paul was what was so great and fun about our work – that he engaged with people, touched them, improved their day, helped them as he worked selling The Big Issue to help himself.
Don’t be mistaken, Big Issue vendors like Paul do touch the very soul and heart of countless people, hundreds and hundreds, as they go about their business of earning their way in life. And as the cries of pain and shame at Paul’s end show he was special, inspiring and working towards a better end than the one awarded him, alas.
The week began with this tragedy rocking us all. The week proceeded with us working at Parliament preparing for something we would have loved Paul to witness: and that is a complete reinvention of politics, with radical rebudgeting for poverty, and a struggle against the causes of poverty at the very heart of things.
On Thursday last week as we reflected on what had happened so tragically to one of our best vendors and friends in Glasgow we launched our campaign for a Future Generations Act to be enacted in the UK. We started this with a debate in the House of Lords which was carried on by 17 of our number, peers who want to see the world of the future differently.
Where arbitrariness is removed from law-making. Where future generations would be prioritised, and their needs, by avoiding making laws that had unintended consequences.
That is quite a challenge for anyone to even think about. But in Wales, as has been shown with the Welsh Future Generations Commissioner Sophie Howe, we need the future to be different from our pasts. We cannot simply have tomorrow repeating the mistakes, the uglinesses, the injustice, the climatic destruction that we live with today.