In the end, that's a blind alley - we have to get back to being able to think on our feet and react.

There's no point in just hankering for the big trade unions of the 1950s or '60s.

Some kinds of activists are more willing to try stuff out, see if works and think on their feet, but some of the people who are working on [change] find that very difficult: They've been schooled into thinking you have to come up with the perfect plan in advance. It has become a bit technocratic.

I sound like a church nut, but look at the role of the churches in the civil rights movement in the States. People are brought together in other ways that can become drivers of change.

The death of deference seems to be general at the moment, so everybody has to earn their reputation and trust all over again. You don't just get it by virtue of being a professor or a politician or anybody else.

You have a huge number of people who spend their time writing papers which show that migrants pay more to the country than they take out in benefits, and they say, "Why don't you approve of migration? Why don't you open up borders?" They're not able to empathize with how people feel about migration.

The question, "When did you last listen to a poor person properly and try to understand what's going on inside their own experience?" enables you to connect.