Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Tamlyn Shimizu: Welcome to Smart in the City, the BABLE podcast, where we bring together top actors in the smart city arena, sparking dialogues and interactions around the stakeholders and themes most prevalent for today's citizens and tomorrow's generations.
I am your host, Tamlyn Shimizu, and I hope you will enjoy this episode and gain knowledge and connections to accelerate the change for a better urban life.
Smart in the city is brought to you by BABLE Smart cities. We enable processes from research and strategy development to co creation and implementation. To learn more about us, please visit the BABLE platform at BABLE Smartcities EU so welcome back to another episode of Smart in the city. While we often talk about implementations and technology and deep dive into certain topics, it's also really, really helpful to have episodes where we actually take a bit of a step back and look at societal and systematic influences on our cities and our citizens. So that's why I'm really excited for this episode. Today. I have two amazing guests for you, and if you've been listening to the podcast for a little while, you already know one of them. And so I'll introduce him first to you. His name is Marvin Reyes. He's a former mayor of Bristol, the first directly elected mayor of black heritage in a major european city. Welcome, Marvin.
[00:01:30] Marvin Rees: How are you doing?
[00:01:31] Tamlyn Shimizu: I should say welcome back. So when you spoke to us last, you were actually the sitting mayor of Bristol, and now you're moving on and we're going to talk all about what you're doing now because it's also very exciting.
And with him today, Joanne Anderson, who is the former mayor of Liverpool, the first directly elected woman mayor of black heritage in a major european city. So welcome, Joanne.
[00:01:55] Joanne Anderson: Thank you.
[00:01:56] Tamlyn Shimizu: I'm really excited to get started, but we like to get warmed up a little bit before we get into the really heavy stuff. So last time, Marvin, you were asked to describe Bristol in three words.
So maybe this time, though, I would like you each to describe Bristol and Liverpool using only three emojis. So you have to pick three emojis to describe.
Marvin, you want to go first as a pro here?
[00:02:29] Marvin Rees: Oh, I need a range of emojis for me to be able to see, to choose.
[00:02:34] Tamlyn Shimizu: You're not a big, an avid emoji user?
[00:02:37] Marvin Rees: I do, I do. I drop them in. I'm just skimming through now.
[00:02:41] Tamlyn Shimizu: Okay.
[00:02:42] Marvin Rees: Is there an Earth emoji?
[00:02:44] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yes, there is an Earth emoji.
[00:02:46] Marvin Rees: Well, I think cities are planetary things now. It just exists within national boundaries. So I'll choose an Earth emoji.
[00:02:54] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good.
[00:02:59] Marvin Rees: I'll choose an emoji that I make up that indicates contradiction. Can I do that? I don't know what that would be.
[00:03:06] Tamlyn Shimizu: I don't know either. What's a good emoji for that? Maybe just, I don't know, an exploding head or something.
[00:03:14] Marvin Rees: I've just created a global market for someone to invent that now.
[00:03:18] Tamlyn Shimizu: There you go.
[00:03:20] Marvin Rees: Yeah. An emoji with.
With a camera for creativity so known as a very creative city.
[00:03:28] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good, very good. Now, Joanne, would you like to describe Liverpool in three emojis?
[00:03:34] Joanne Anderson: I'm not very good at this at all. I'm going to go back in Liverpool's history and do some fairly obvious ones because emojis will be difficult for me. Ships, we were nothing but a sleepy little village at one point. Fish and village ships is important to our history. Singing with UNESCO World's heritage of music.
So singing emoji, music note or a mic. Yeah. And then football. And I think Marvin will probably agree with that with me with the football for Liverpool.
[00:04:10] Marvin Rees: Yeah. That's why I envy you, Joanne. You got Liverpool and you big win for singing. You brought Eurovision to Liverpool as well, didn't you?
[00:04:20] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:04:20] Joanne Anderson: Yes. Yeah.
[00:04:22] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. Very good, very good.
[00:04:25] Joanne Anderson: Marvin's were a bit more thoughtful there with the a. I'm slightly embarrassed by that.
[00:04:31] Tamlyn Shimizu: All good selections in my book, so very good job.
Good. So I want to get to know you guys a bit more. You have really interesting stories. I've already, you know, heard or read a little bit about you, but maybe, Marvin, you can remind people a little bit first about your background, your story, what led you to wherever you are today and what influenced you the most.
[00:04:58] Marvin Rees: I feel like I'm just going to jump in off the deep end here. But if we're talking about what led me to where I am today, it is my background.
I was born in 1972 to my white mother and I use these terms, they're very brutal terms but I use them because they're important. Unmarried.
I had a brown baby in 1972 before having my sister four years later.
Lived in a refuge for a bit with her as a kid growing up and just navigating 1970s and 1980s Britain with the kind of overt racism and then the kind of subtle shift, increase of institutional racism that run alongside it. But the reason I go straight to that is because I've just done a book and what I reflected, what I realized during my reflections in putting that book together, that actually my political motivation is not just about me growing up as a mixed race kid in the seventies and eighties. I would have just my mum's experience as a poor white woman with brown babies and watching the way they all treated her because of her class and because she had these brown babies, I think, right. So that really burns inside me and comes out in the way I approach the politics and what I think is important and why I'm in it.
[00:06:14] Tamlyn Shimizu: And that really influenced you to want to run for office or what was your intrinsic motivation, I guess.
[00:06:22] Marvin Rees: But I'd always wanted to do something. I don't know from a child, I just wanted to do something to make the world better. When I was at university, I got quite self righteous, like some kind of activism, didn't get into that, but I thought, don't do anything mainstream. It's corrupt and corrupting and cannot be saved. So I've always got to be on the sidelines, always got to be on the margin. Shouting in. But it was. Simon Woolley challenged me from Operation Black vote, said, you're great at describing how bad the world is, but what you're actually doing about it. And I had a, you know, I made an art format of describing how bad and hopeless the world was, but I wasn't building any houses or doing anything about education or offering any practical hope. So I decided, yeah, let's cross the line and get involved.
And it wasn't a grand plan, it's just that Bristol, there was a referendum across the country to have mayors. Bristol was the only city that voted yes. And then someone said to me, oh, you should put yourself forward. I did, to be honest. And then the current took me away. I ran in twelve and lost. I ran again in 16 and I won. And I obviously reelected in 21.
[00:07:25] Tamlyn Shimizu: Really, really interesting. I'm going to dive into the book and more of your insights from there in just a moment. I want to also get to know, Joanne, I actually just met you and I would love to know about your history. What is driving you? Where did you come from? How did you end up here today?
[00:07:44] Joanne Anderson: So I'm slightly fuming that Marvin's a year younger than me. So I was born in 1971 and there's some similarities, you know, a white mother who was 17 and unmarried. And, you know, it was really interesting for me to listen to Marvin's story about people coming up and asking me, mum, can I adopt her? And I was quite shocked by that. I was like, someone coming up to you and asking to adopt your baby. It was like, yeah, they just thought, you know, unmarried mother and that, you know, you're a black child, should be adopted and my upbringing was slightly different in the sense that my dad wasn't in the background like Marvin's. I think your dad probably popped up a bit more than mine. Mine was more in the background, but I kind of hated being that stereotype of absent father. And, you know, in Liverpool we've had, funnily enough, the first may have Battersea. A black mayor of Battersea is a guy called John Archer.
I don't think he was directly elected like us, but he was actually from Liverpool and he married. His mum was white irish woman in the 18 hundreds he was born. I remember saying to my mum, isn't that strange that black men were marrying white women back then? She went, you know, you've got to remember that irish women were thought of as black back then. And so in Liverpool, there's a lot of mixed race children like me. We've got a very strong identity of Liverpool born blacks. So I didn't experience the same level of racism that Marvin experienced. But also Marvin was the man of the house and I think that would have been really difficult. I really identified that in the story. I didn't feel I needed to protect anyone growing up. But obviously, you know, in your household, Marvin, with you being the boy and the eldest boy, that's a role you would have had to play. That I don't identify with. But, you know, growing up in such as Britain in the eighties, you just told your worse very much. You know, I absolutely felt, going to school, that as a black woman, you know, I didn't need to do anything because it wouldn't amount to much.
I think the teachers were relieved if I didn't end up pregnant at 16 or I didn't end up on drugs or with a gangster that I was with them, basically, because that's kinda what their perception of a black woman's, you know, that's how the story was going to go. So I grew up in quite a highly politicized environment.
My mother was really politically active and we had a block of flats. We had flats built where we lived. They were so bad, they didn't last ten years. And actually it was a labor local council that we're in. But these were an experiments and were absolutely awful. They were made out of straw, you know, the.
They were made out of concrete. It was like a brutalist experiment. And they lasted less than a census, so they lasted less than ten years. But what I seen is my mum and her friends just harished the council till they got them knocked down and everybody got houses. So my political activism started when I was about seven or eight. And to be honest, you don't really want to be like your parents. I shied away from it for quite a long time because I just thought they were all a bit nuts, to be honest. Just always ranting and raving and demonstrating.
[00:11:03] Tamlyn Shimizu: And shouting about something really, really interesting. And so when you decided to run and run for government, what was that?
What motivated you the most to want to take office?
[00:11:21] Joanne Anderson: So I didn't want the job at all. So you ran on that?
[00:11:26] Tamlyn Shimizu: I don't want that.
[00:11:28] Joanne Anderson: Don't give me this job. I don't want it.
I ran on the. After the previous mayor was arrested, I'd become a local councillor, but only to show other black people that they could become councillors. So it was less than two years I was standing down to let someone else do it. Three women were on the shortlist in the city and got taken off. And I just think I was far enough away from the previous mayor and also everybody else. And with my political experience, my motivation and drive for doing it was. Liverpool is often quite stereotyped as a city. You know, 30% of developments across the country are made with money laundering, but it was our mayor who was arrested with that allegation and so on. I just was sick of Liverpool being stereotyped and I wanted someone honest in the role, so I threw my hat in the ring with, well, to be honest, I knew I was going to get it because I didn't want it. That's when I knew I was going to get it. And actually, someone said to me the other day, which I thought was quite interesting, I treated the role a bit like a consultant. Get in there, do a good job and get out. You know, I had no intention of staying. We all wanted riddles, the model in Liverpool, because of the previous mayor's behaviour. But once I was in the role, I realised it wasn't a model at all, it was the person in the role that made the difference. But I do say, and I say this to marvin quite a bit, I would never, ever have got through the processes and structures if it hadn't been mayoral model, you know, I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have got voted in by a labour group, ever. It was national or regional? National Labour that I'd won over. And, you know, once they sort of accepted me, it was the city who voted for me, but the labour group would never have let me in.
[00:13:19] Marvin Rees: Can I just pick up on a couple of things from what Joanna said there one is, I just say, personally, for me, what Joanne says is exactly the reason we need people like her in british politics. There was something that struck me a few years ago when I was out with Eric Garcetti, the former mayor of Los Angeles, and he was thinking about running for the. Well, people were talking about him running for the presidency. And I said, are you going to run? And he said, run if you can not run.
And I love that. It's not about sitting around plotting and scheming from your. In your prep school.
And to be honest, it even goes on people, our side. You know, they desire power. Yeah, right. But actually, what I hear in what Joe said is something that I've kind of felt about participating in politics. It's not that I go to bed thinking about it. It's that I can't not do it right.
I think that's, you know, something compelling in what she said. And likewise, I would never be political leader at Bristol through the old system of local government that the Bristol has now actually gone back to because it's had a referendum and stepped away from the mayor model. The only reason someone like me could rise is if we step out of the normal machinations of internal party factions and, you know, politics and all that type of stuff that goes on.
[00:14:43] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for contributing that as well. Marvin, I want to highlight a little bit, bit around your book. You mentioned it in your intro that you wrote a book. It's now out, I believe. Right. And it's called let's see what happens. The last mayor of Bristol.
You have really, you're telling a story within it of your life and all your different perceptions that have come out of that, and all your learnings that you have from that. Can you talk a little bit more about why you chose this approach, what the book is really about, what has really shaped that narrative the most?
Just tell us all about your book, basically.
[00:15:29] Marvin Rees: Well, I mean, to be perfectly frank, when I was, when asked someone talk to me about putting something together, you know, I was really wary.
I didn't want to go anywhere near. These are the ten things you need to do to be a man. One is, who am I to say that? Right? I'll talk about what we've done if people want to hear. But, you know, I don't have that. I can't imagine Ram Emanuel over in Chicago. He's not in Chicago anymore, but picking it up. So let me see what Marvin would have done, you know, or Joanne up in Liverpool. So I just thought, let us make it story based, and also we can get into it. I mean, there are perceptions around black people in politics, right?
And I. People, people see things happen and they interpret it. So, listen, I've been on the receiving end of every trope around race, even from the political left.
They wouldn't recognize it. But there are descriptions of being physically intimidated. I mean, these are remarkable things. I literally, I mean, I don't street fight or anything like that, but apparently physically intimidating, bullying, all that. My former chief of staff would say, don't repeat their criticisms. But this is what they do. And this is the typewriter we walk. So I'm very aggressive.
Very aggressive opposition from the opposition parties. And then when you push back, they go, oh, Martin's really aggressive. He's very funny. Well, that's called Karenin. Myself and my deputy mayor would talk about as being Karen, but the reason we. I don't know if that's unfair phrase now, but it's kind of online kind of description, isn't it?
But I suppose it's like, okay, why am I in politics and what determines the way I approach it and react to it? And that's why the personal story is so important at the beginning, leading into a bit of a description of what happened in, around me when I was in office. I will say that I held back quite a bit. Again, there were things I could have written. I could have written things that I didn't include, and I could have offered interpretations of things that I didn't offer. But we got a few more years on the planet. Yeah, I'll offer them some form. In some way.
[00:17:37] Tamlyn Shimizu: You held back. You're a little bit politically correct, I guess, in the book, then.
[00:17:42] Marvin Rees: Politically correct racially wise, you know, if I push, it's aggressive, right? It's not, right. I mean, I'll tell you, I'll give you a living example. Right now, a local councillor, a former councillor, has just written online about his own party. I won't say which one, but he's said that they are a bunch of w. Right? W's online.
No description of digression or rudeness or anything like that. You know, it's just a two tier level. I'm not doing a two tier police. I'm not into all that. But it's this two tier framework for assessing what behaviors are.
So I guess the book is really about who am I?
Who is this person who occupies this position? Because again, I felt sometimes people would say, and this is what I experienced.
Now, you're a politician, you're a member of the political class.
Hold on. I'm still me. And if I've got a posh journalist, like from all the right schools now coming and talking to me like they're holding the establishment to account, I'm like, you're the establishment? What are you talking about? I managed to get through a system that didn't want me to get through it and get elected. Doesn't mean I'm a member of the political class like Cameron or Gove or Boris Johnson. It's a nonsense, but we fell into that.
[00:19:01] Joanne Anderson: You know, you talk about it well in the booth, Marvin, you say something. I have my own story. Mugged or something.
Yeah. Do you know, like you, I don't hate to talk about in these terms, but you've got all the badges, you know what I mean? You're working class backgrounds, all that kind of stuff. And then I particularly got it from the left as well, Marvin, it was like none of that matters. And I somehow become the other when actually I've grown up with all that grassroots stuff. But, you know, now that I'm in a position of power, I'm perceived as someone who's had privilege and have been easy and handed to them when actually opposite from the truth. But, yeah, I like the way you describe that in the book and it certainly happens. Certainly was the same for me. Getting mugged by your own story.
[00:19:45] Marvin Rees: Yeah. And what, and you've probably experienced as well. You get the activists we had to kill the bill protests. I had like students from the University of Bristol coming out. I'm attached to the university fair, but it's a Russell group university. So I've got Russell group students coming down like shouting from the margins against this black leadership.
Hold on, do you not see the dynamic here? But it's like hrat Brown points about these. This has been an issue for a long time. Hrat Brown, Julius Lester all pointed out these kind of contradictions within. Some of the activist cultures are so committed to be an anti establishment that they force reality into the box. They need it to be so they could play the role they wish they could play while at the same time never given up their inheritance that was on their way from the character. You don't want to give that up.
[00:20:39] Tamlyn Shimizu: Really profound. And I like a lot of the phrases you also use to describe these things, Marvin, I think you really have to let these phrases kind of sink in when you say them. I really love the way that you talk always. So thanks for describing that.
So both of you have really, I guess, been trailblazers in your city. I want to say it like that. I don't know if you describe it like that, but I believe you have been trailblazers in a lot of different ways.
Can you talk about how we can have now how we can ensure in leadership positions that it better reflects actually the diversity in our societies and that we don't fall into the trap of always having the majority represented in our governments?
How do we better encapsulate diversity?
Whoever wants to go first? Joanne?
[00:21:41] Joanne Anderson: Yeah, I feel there's been a backlash, actually, to me being I'm getting written out in my own story, for example, I'm getting other people taking credit for my work, excluding me.
I find it really hard to believe. I've known politics for a long while. I can see that it can be fickle, that once I wasn't in power and they want to be interested, I knew all that was coming. What I didn't expect is pretend like I never existed and not getting credit for work that I've done or decisions that I've made and that I find quite shocking. So in terms of having a senior, you know, black politician in the city, it's actually gone backwards. There's no black leadership in any of our institutions currently, any of our anchored institutions.
And also it's gone back just completely male dominated as well. So I actually think, and I work in equality. My day job is an equality diversity and inclusion consultant. I've done that for a long time. It's not something you tick a box with. You don't go, I've got a black leader. We've done it now. You know, it's a consistent process. So actually, I feel there's more work to be done now that I am no longer in a position of leadership within the city, that it was just before I was, you know, it was better just before I was in. There's been a backlash to it.
[00:23:09] Tamlyn Shimizu: People said that all the time. I'm originally from the US, and people said that all the time after Obama. Right. Well, there is no more racism, obviously, because now we have president, right?
And then, and then you see also this happening, trending across the world, not just in the UK as well. You saw it in the US also, this kind of backlash coming back after you had a black president, for example. And so what can we do to prevent that from going backwards?
[00:23:40] Marvin Rees: Can I just come off the back of what Joanna said as well? So that is when you get a number of sources saying the same thing. Whether you understand it or not, you have to listen.
One is, I felt that backlash.
[00:24:00] Joanne Anderson: I.
[00:24:00] Marvin Rees: Mean, I was in charge I mean, I think the councillors in Bristol didn't want the mayoral system anyway. To be perfectly frank, they were against it from the beginning.
But certainly I felt that as soon as I stood up in the council, in that political culture, it was almost like a biological response of a body trying to reject a foreign object, right? That's how I felt daily. Now, I don't carry that around and wear it on a t shirt, but it felt like I said, it felt biological.
And then, yeah, you move on and they all rally around trying to shore up the scar tissue afterwards and erase, you know, erase the memory of you, you know, in a place and night. Joanne left on a huge goal, winning Eurovision that we went for and we didn't get it in Bristol. That was huge for the city. We, you know, in Bristol we won Channel four here. We got one of the biggest regeneration schemes in Europe, built thousands of homes. We've got a global reputation. We're at the mayor's migration council. I mean, all the things I've been doing since leaving office have been a legacy of an overhang, you know, of my time in mayor. The number of people that come have come knocking.
So there was that feeling of it in there. It's very powerful. How we make that different is a real challenge.
I always start by saying, you got to do it on purpose.
We don't get change because you get a lot of emotionally sympathetic and politically progressive people in a room together who trying to feel good about each other and then expect good things to happen. Good things only happen because you do them on purpose.
And remember, emotionally sympathetic and politically progressive people can also engage in behaviors and support structures that systemically exclude black and brown people and people from the wrong backgrounds, working class backgrounds in them as well.
And I think quite often I've been in environments where people would almost kind of say, well, I'm nice, I can't be a problem, but they can.
So the intentionality is important.
[00:26:25] Joanne Anderson: Marvin, did you. One thing I kind of noticed was people who, you know, I'm not a fan of the term unconscious bias. I just think it gives an excuse quite a lot. But I could see it on people's faces sometimes. They were just like the audacity of this black woman, you know, in this position of power. And these are people who would have seen themselves as, you know, anti racist and all those things. But once I was in a position of power, it was almost. I could almost see it and touch it in their expressions, this unconscious bias as, who does she think she is?
And I come across that quite a lot. And none of that gets talked about or dealt with because it's not out there. Not blatantly obvious. No one's saying, I don't think you should be in that position because you're black. No one's. Well, some people were saying it online, but no one was saying it to my face.
It's hard to deal with that when it's not. There's a lack of honesty around it, lack of honesty about people feel.
[00:27:32] Marvin Rees: I tell you what that immediately leads me to reflect on Tran, is I often felt I was the wrong kind of black for some of those people. I felt that if I was walking around, having just come out of prison, failed in school with my jeans halfway down my bum, or I was a refugee, then they'd be okay.
But because I was standing up with a suit, a shirt, being dignified, occupying my leadership position, not because I was welcome, but because I'm going to occupy it, they weren't happy with that, and they didn't know how to cope. Now, that could seem quite innocent, but actually, again, there are echoes in history. If you look at the relationship between Frederick Douglass and Garrison. Garrison was the white abolitionist. He didn't want Frederick Douglass speaking with dignity. And Frederick Douglass's essay called on prejudice, I think he wrote it in 1852. He makes a very powerful point. He says, white people have never had a problem with physical proximity to black people. Racist white people.
They had them wet nurse their children.
They had sex with them. They had them as house servants. They had them dressed better than the poorest white people. What white people had a problem with was black people who stood up with dignity.
[00:28:46] Joanne Anderson: Yeah. And the equality.
[00:28:51] Marvin Rees: I felt. That essay, which I read when I was about 21, really echoed with me throughout my time as mayor. These people, if I was a victim, if I was in a gang, if I was stabbed, they'd be happy. They could cope with me and a number of anti racist people who rally around the migration issue. And I'm for that, right, with city sanctuary, my family.
But they don't have any jamaican friends, right? They can't, who've been here for, like, three or four generations because we're not victims. So it's the paternalistic or what you call it, condescending kind of anti racism. And I think also certainly myself and Asher spoke about a number of people come to Bristol, and they want to be activists. They want to take on the system or smash the system where they can't get their heads around, they can't get their hands around neoliberalism so they come and shout at the council.
[00:29:41] Joanne Anderson: Yeah.
[00:29:42] Marvin Rees: And then when they walk through the door, they're confronted with two black. A black mayor and a black deputy mayor. Now, what do they do with that? So now they're really angry about it, because the channel they wanted, through which they wanted to announce their anti establishment credentials, is now represented by, to them, two black people. And they got. They get annoyed by that and shout anyway, to the point where at one point, and you'd have fun if you saw David de la Suga's documentary, I had 50 white people at the front of city hall demand an apology for slavery from the council, from me.
They were all white. 50 white people.
My deputy mayor, my deputy mayor, who's white, was on camera, he looks out the window and he turns to the camera, he says, there's 50 white people out there asking a black man to apologise for slavery.
[00:30:29] Joanne Anderson: Yeah. No, no. You know, the black community as well. The role that they play in it, I think, is quite interesting because you feel.
You feel like you're no longer allowed to be black in the black community as well. Once you. It's like you've crossed some invisible line. So not only do you get the wrong black for white people, you become the black for black people, too. It can be really quite a difficult position to be in.
[00:30:59] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very interesting discussion. I want to also touch on a little bit around the fact that despite all of your achievements as really pioneering mayors, people of color, those from minority backgrounds, still struggle to secure seats in parliament.
You've both pointed this out to me as well. So, given your own experiences and other experiences that have also emerged in recent years times, why do you think this is happening? Why is this representation still not happening? And what steps can be taken to ensure that we could, in the future, get more black people, for example, in the highest levels of UK politics.
[00:31:45] Joanne Anderson: I don't know where my party stands on race equality. I'll be perfectly honest, I haven't seen or heard or any drive to talk about those values of why I've been a Labour member only, like. Well, not. I joined the Labour party in 2015, but I've always voted Labour. It was about the values of equality and race equality. Being that I was always very.
When the. When the far rice come to demonstrate, or tries to demonstrate north city, it's always been white people on the left who've kicked them out and, you know, always been prepared to stand up for that. But when I was in the role, I didn't receive any support around being the first black this or the first black whatever, or the first woman, I didn't feel any support, I didn't feel any party political support and I certainly don't see it now. I don't see any push to kinda have a drive to make sure that, you know, people like those up in the regions, because we haven't been MP's, but we've run major cities, are reflected in the government, kind of based on our experience. What I see of other leaders who've been there in the past, you know, they become peers, they go to the House of Lords. This happens, that happens. Look, the Labour Party hasn't picked up the phone to me, you know, as I'm doing, I think now I don't want to be an MP, but the Labour Party don't know that and they've made no, no inclination to go, oh, how can we use Joanne further, you know, after the role that she's played in? Actually, I took the Labour party out of a really bad situation in our city. You know, the previous mayor had been arrested, incidentally, we've got the same name, which is absolutely ridiculous, but, you know, it was a really bad mess that the city was in. They pulled three women from the shortlist and didn't give an explanation. And so standing up into the role, I actually, you know, sort cleaned up a big mess for them. You know, there hasn't been a thank you, you know, in terms of.
Just in terms of what I've done, let alone how can Joanne, who stood up for our party, who's doing well for our party, how can we utilize her favor there? I haven't received any of that and I do see that happen to other white people in politics. So I'm slightly. I'm slightly, yeah, you know, that's, that's the way I see it. I don't know what we possibly stand for when it comes to race equality.
[00:34:19] Marvin Rees: I mean, I just. On Joann's story, certainly I remember one watching things happening around her in politics and actually just writing on LinkedIn in my very small way.
You do realize you have a first, right, a world first in Joanna, who's not only led and represented the city in a way that has brought credibility outside of Bristol. I was chairing core cities at the time, the network of the eleven biggest cities in the UK outside of London, but also being a global first, european first, which is incredible. And I just don't think it was appreciated. And certainly what she says, again, I would say that has been the experience for all the people who run around. So, for example, for those people who run around claiming to be anti racist and against all that, no understanding of the subtleties, which is more pernicious of the way racism works within the systems and disembodied cultures, it was when you think about two of my kind of political heroes, kind of bit standard, really, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. But both of them pointed out that, you know, when you're in front of a southern sheriff with a billy club who calls you whatever, that's easy, right? There you are. You're evil. You called me that. I know where you stand. You know where I stand. But when you go to the north where racism is not legislated, where it's disembodied, where it's so say, democratic run cities, and still you have these massive black ghettos, early death and all the rest of it, much harder to get your head around it, right? And that's, you know, but the failure of that kind of anti racist aspiration, sentiment, whatever you say, fashion, you might say, on, on our side of the political center, on the left of political center, to get their heads around it and recognize the challenges of what it means to be black in politics, it's been a real disappointment. You know, I've thought about, you know, there's this term, right, driving while black. You know, you could call it, you know, being elected while black, right. It's a different experience, being elected while black to being elected while white. I'm not saying that. What I'm not now, by the way, I'm not saying that all white people have it easy being elected, right. I'm not discounting that possibility or that reality that some people don't have access to the means. And there's a difference between Johnson and others, right. But I am saying there is an experience of being black in politics on the representation front, a point I've been making quite a bit recently is representation is important, but it's got to be representation and policy, and one without the other is very dangerous on both fronts. We've had representation that has pushed policy that is hostile to black and brown people. Right? We've had that over the last few years. Some of the most vicious, I think, and almost hateful language around diversity. Again, I'm wary of the word diversity, but diversity around migration has come from people who look like us.
At the same time, if you're going to do policy and think that's enough, where else are they going to go? And I've heard that sentiment.
We don't need to represent them, because whatever party they're going to go to, if you do policy without representation, it's dangerous because it's condescending, it excludes us and it builds weakness and it fractures those relationships. But in fact, what you also do is you're investing in the very hierarchical structures of inequality that have left us. Left. Left us on the margins.
So I want to see both where we're going as a country. I don't know.
[00:38:10] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, really tough times, I think, in many countries across the world. Also right now, I just want to.
[00:38:17] Joanne Anderson: Say on what Marvin was saying there, and I really like the way it's put, Marvin, you know, I say I work in a quality and that's new to me, that around discussion around policy and representation. And I think you can't have one without the other and it doesn't work and you feel completely patronised when it's just policy without the representation. And then I think on the representation angle, and I think we've covered it already, really, there's a sense of. It's been done. There was a black person once. There was a black person once. You know, obviously we're about. And, you know, we've got to look at the Labour party, Nashley, who's never had a female leader and never mind a black leader. And that. That worries me about the. Our party because we was, you know, in my mind, growing up anyway, the Labour Party was the party of equality, but we haven't even had a female. Lisa.
[00:39:09] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, I want to touch on that just quickly also, Joanne, because obviously a lot of your leadership and the work that you were doing as mayor is also tied in with the fact that you were the first woman mayor of Liverpool and actually of any major european city. Black mayor, a black woman mayor. And this comes with many challenges. You've briefly mentioned it, but I want to hone in on a little bit more of that on which were really the core challenges that you faced regarding that and how did you navigate them?
[00:39:48] Joanne Anderson: So there was a deputy maid who stood in when Jo was arrested, but, you know, the first elected woman. But Wendy gets kind of written out of history a little bit as well. So there's a. Two black women. Feminists have come up with the term misogyny, meaning the intersectionality of racism and sexism. And quite often, I don't know which it is, you know, in terms of some of the reactions. What I do see, though, and I've always felt it around black men, particularly in the workplace, white men are threatened by black men in a way they're not threatened by black women.
So there's a. Excuse me.
Yeah. White men can be threatened by black men in a way they can't be threatened. They're not threatened by black women anyway. So there's an element of white men taking not much notice and not being too intimidated by the process of having a black woman because in their meant, you know, in their kinds of thinking, a woman's not equal to them. So it doesn't really pay much heed.
There was a lot of white women who behaved really appallingly, you know, towards me and, you know, shafted me. And it all gets written off as politics. You know, that's just the way politics is. But I actually seen a whole level of racism and sexism that I think is unnecessary in politics. And we just, you know, people doing each other in and, you know, sort of colluding together to get one over someone. People trying to make the. Their star rise on the back of doing you in. You know, that's a particularly nasty kind of way of operating, but that. That, you know, people write that off as politics. So, yeah, in terms of. I see black men and being frozen out by white men quite a bit in a way that you don't freeze out black women. But I also feel there's a whole lot of sexism that takes place that is not about race, just that and understanding by some people that women just aren't equal.
[00:41:55] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. Really interesting perspectives you have there. And I.
I think it's actually quite. It's almost bizarre. Right. That you're like, I don't know if it was because of my race or my sex, but I experienced it sometimes.
[00:42:08] Joanne Anderson: Yeah.
[00:42:09] Tamlyn Shimizu: So, yeah, that's. Yeah. Really interesting. Thank you for.
There's this kind of term going around, right. Like culture wars that are happening.
So that's being increasingly used to describe kind of polarized debates happening in the UK. How do you perceive these culture wars? And what do you think are the underlying issues driving this division? Maybe Marvin first.
[00:42:38] Marvin Rees: So there's something behind that I've been dying to stress, by the way.
I think what I often hear is, like, the Farraj's types and those on wealthy Daily Mail ish types talk about culture wars as there being an identity politics all at the same time, as though it's been driven from the left and from black and brown people and from women. I just want to say, you know, we didn't invent these categories. Right. It's like, you know, that the whole kind of identity and hierarchy and social norms was built by rich people. Right.
And primarily rich white men. Right. I'm not asking anyone to feel guilty. I'm just asking us to do a little bit of accuracy here.
I didn't build the clubs that then excluded me. What we've started to do is kind of name it and the way it works. And again, I'm not asking anyone to feel guilty. Listen, some of my best friends were white guys that went to board in school, right? I'm not, you know, I'm not saying that, you know, they're all bad, but let's have a little bit of intellectual rigor about this and a bit of honesty. So I find it, you know, I find it frustrating for, number one, that there's that. That fundamental misrepresentation of reality that sits beyond those who keep going on about culture wars as though their culture is being destroyed. Secondly, which culture you're talking about? There is not one culture in the UK. You know, let's be clear. Are you talking about just being white or are you genuinely talking about a culture? Because if you want to know what's undermining the culture, the fact that we have global brands and global tv, that's the thing. It's globalization. You know, everyone wears Levi's, everyone's rank, you know, sort of like it's. If you want to know where the culture's gone, you know, it's not. Brit, England has never been warm beer and village green for everyone. There's always been these urban centers, like you said, Joanne, the Irish not being seen as white in those city center, in the middle of those cities, in the. In the slums, along with black people and migrants, they have. There's never been one experience, you know, of the UK. And beyond that, cultures change. That's what happens. It is a world that has always moved and cultures change and move on. And if you're trying to press stick in 1968, you may as well try and hold the tides back. It's just not the way the world was.
[00:45:06] Joanne Anderson: Now.
[00:45:06] Marvin Rees: That doesn't mean there aren't four elements and a solidity of identity that we can hold onto and group ownership.
But I think we also need to deal with the real world and recognize it's a dynamic world, always has been and always will be, trading off that as a platform to. To prey on the insecurities of people, to stoke up hatred and division, I find not just morally empty, not just under the leadership empty, but politically deplorable.
[00:45:42] Tamlyn Shimizu: What do you think, Joanne?
[00:45:45] Joanne Anderson: You say it so well, Marvin, in everything that you've just said, I often just take immigration for a moment.
People say there's too many people here and we haven't got the space and our services, blah, blah, blah, and give this argument, you know, Liverpool punches above its waist as a city because we've only got half a million people. At the turn of the century, we had 1 million people. And we were much more of an economic powerhouse in the past because of that and because of all the immigrants that rode through our shores. In Liverpool, you know, we developed as a city and we became, you know, globally known because of the influence of all these different, you know, communities, people from foreign shores. And, you know, we were economic powerhouse as a result of it. So when anyone sitting in Liverpool now going, you know, I can't have this because an immigrant's taking it. I just find it so bizarre because we only benefited from it in the past and we are less than now because of, you know, having less people and having less people being able to live in our city. So another aspect, and I can't really add much more to what Marvin said, but I recognize, you know, I could paint a story of me as, you know, you know, a single, single mother, which I was. I was born to a single mother. You know, we were kind of ostracized from society, but within that, my mum was one of ten, so I actually had loads of people. And I always say my biggest flex was my aunties had sweet shops. If you're a kid and your auntie owns a sweet shop, you're in quite a powerful position. But actually what that meant is I have got a lot of privilege. I experienced that privilege because I've just. Just from having a big family alone recognize I've got privilege. What I can't understand is people who have a lot of privilege, they're born with wealth, they go to the best schools, they have, you know, lots of family around them or, you know, are being given even introductions to the workplace. You know, their dad's a lawyer, so they got work experience as a lawyer. All them kinds of benefits that aren't recognized as privilege. I don't quite understand where what Marvin was saying about people saying something been taken away from them when they've experienced quite a lot of privilege. I think from a brace of privilege, of just having family, I can recognise that. I don't understand why other people can't recognise that they might just have a little bit more than others. So I don't pay much attention to people complaining about, you know, our city's no longer ours or, you know, our culture's being taken away from us when actually we've only benefited from having a city like ours, has only benefited from having other cultures and experience and, you know, other people moving to our city and migrating to our city.
[00:48:42] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, very cool.
[00:48:43] Marvin Rees: One thing, though. Can I just. One thing that really came home when the Colson statue was pulled down for me, though, and I've always thought it, but really came into sharp focus. But how predatory those people who are, who exploit the concerns of people like vulnerable communities in the middle of all that, right?
So what I'm annoyed about are the predators, and I do think they're political predators because they look for hopelessness, they look for confusion, they look for vulnerability, and they step in and they stroke it like some villain in a novel, you know, some seducer. Yeah, yeah, come on. Yeah, I'll sit with you in that. They don't really bring any solutions forward. They just. They just allow. They just ask people to wallow in their. Their insecurity.
So I would never. And I see that. So when the Colston statue got pulled down, we had a counter protest the week after. It was.
It was portrayed as far right. It wasn't far right, it knew it wasn't. But a lot of white guys there, football lads and so forth. Anyway, I went to meet the organizer, which is important, by the way, and I was able to do that. And again, I would suggest that not many politicians could have done that.
And I went round with my cousin. I'm going to use the categories here. White working class cousin of mine and my chief of staff, Whitewood. And we sat together and talked and I said, tommy, what's going on for the guys who turned up? We had a long chat. He was a very smart guy, a good guy, and he was extra pains to point out he's not far right. And I said, what's going on for the guys that turned up at the rally? He said, marv, they feel like they're losing their city. And I said, they are losing their city, but they're losing it to house prices, right, not migration. He said, yeah, I know, I get that now. Look at some of the dynamics. And I feel that so often, and actually, even within our own party, I think sometimes black people are the observers of a fight that's going on between white people.
Their area is being gentrified. Who's gentrifying it? It's middle class white people and hipsters.
That's what's pushing up the ice prices, making it unaffordable.
Excuse me.
Yeah, yeah, you know, and the loss of that. We've seen it around St. Paul's, around eastern in Bristol. And then the conversation suddenly switches to migrants, right, the migrant. And I said, if I'm looking for causality, I look for power.
People waiting to go across rubber dinghies and boats are not powerful people by definition. They're not shaping the world. There are other. So again, those predators who go around preying on the insecurities, you know, of our, say, white working class communities trying to stoke up. Hey, I'm not saying there isn't problems in those communities. I've been chased down the street by people trying to beat me up from that context. But I'm saying that while there's some agency, we also have to recognize that some of the positions and the views they end up with are driven and shaped by the predatory actions of people around them who, by the way, exploit them. And when people get sent to prison, they don't go to prison with them. Right? You see that with Trump, you see it with Farrar, you see it with, what's my man from Robinson?
[00:51:46] Joanne Anderson: Yeah.
[00:51:47] Marvin Rees: All the guys gone to prison, they've gone with him. Despite putting all the social media out there, that should be a cause for self questioning amongst those people who do put themselves on the front line at their behest, right. And then lose three, five, eight years of their lives while those guys are still off on the beach and doing trips off to the US.
[00:52:05] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. Really interesting conversations around all these topics. Thanks so much for contributing all of your thoughts there. I want to ask one last question in this main interview part, and that's because for us, we have listeners from Europe, not just from the UK, but from all of Europe mostly, but also from other regions outside of Europe who are mostly focused around working. They're practitioners working in cities, or also sometimes politicians working in cities, or maybe some listeners from technology companies.
What would be your message to these people based on the conversations that we're having today? Just to really relate it back to maybe the struggles and what our listeners are kind of working on every day.
Marvin, you want to go first?
[00:52:58] Marvin Rees: So I'll cover this. This might come from left field. Graciousness and humility, right?
[00:53:07] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:53:08] Marvin Rees: I talked about earlier on when I was a bit younger and I became quite a self righteous activist. I was going around judging everyone in politics, judging them about this, telling them they will sell outs and so forth. Right. And in the course of all that judging, I missed out on relationships that I could have had with people through which we could have got stuff done.
As mayor, I've been on this, I've watched this trend. This is a really strength. Everyone turns up with demands.
I even get people demanding an end to racism. I said, listen, actually, I had a Green councillor, she's now an MP. She said, all it takes is political will, so get on with it. I said, hey, listen, if making change only took political will, I'd have ended racism and sexism and child poverty. It takes more than political will. The world is complex and difficult, and clearly you have no idea how challenging it is to get stuff done.
If you made space for the possibility that you can find people with good intentions who want to do good stuff but are facing wicked challenges rather than coming up and making demands, whereas if they then get success, you go in the papers and say, see, I won, they lost, and if they don't, you damn them to hell. Then actually you'd make space for the kind of collaborations that we actually need sometimes activism and political opposition, which claims to be trying to do good stuff, sacrifice, impact, because they want profile and they want to be right and they want to be seen to be right, and that is problematic. So check your narcissism at the door, even if you're in activism and make space for the possibility that the person you are now going to go and make demands of is trying to do the right thing. My little caveat. Listen, I'm going to come back to race. I'm just going to put it out there.
If you're a posh white kid coming making demands of your black mare, think about the dynamics in that one, too, right?
I ate your boy.
[00:55:16] Joanne Anderson: It's. It's a great point you made, Marvin, though, because it's like people are in just for the sport of it. And I've got to say what I like about Marvin and what I like about Marvin's book. So Marvin was one of the first people to get in touch. He must have been sisters. I think it was a. It was a whirlwind that week, but I remember getting on a zoo with Marvin within a couple of days, and he offered me support. You know, whatever you need, you know, you let me know if you need anything, get in touch. Loads of men gave me unsolicited advice, men who hadn't been bold enough to stand up for the job but felt the need to tell me, you know, loads of men off me. And I remember that very early on, he didn't know me from Adam, but he offered his support. And I think what's interesting, telling your story in your book, I understand why and how you humble. I understand that much better now, even though I could see that and was on the receiving end of that. But what I really like is that your values driven. And that will be my message to others. Find people with the same values and just get on with it and do it. And that's what I like.
Marvin's background and how he explains himself or tells his story makes me understand what the Marvin, the man that was in front of me. And when you act in accordance with your values, the way I feel is I can look myself in the mirror before I go to bed nice and happy, who I am because I haven't compromised on my values. If we say we care about this, if we say we care about equality as a party, then our actions need to go towards that. So I just think, you know, to all the leaders in there, you know, act in accordance with your value, find people with common values and work together.
[00:57:06] Tamlyn Shimizu: Really good messages there. With that, we're going to move to our segment. And the segment that we chose for you today is a fun one. It's called Freaky Friday.
Freaky Friday.
Switch places with your co interviewee and answer a few questions in their shoes.
So, Marvin, you are Joanne. And Joanne, you are Marvin. So I want you to answer, what would you consider your proudest achievement in office and why do you think it had a lasting impact on your city? So, Joanne, do you want to go first?
[00:57:47] Marvin Rees: So I taking it back to basic. I just think being there, right. I think it's hard for people to understand the amount of vision, resilience, strength and audacity it takes to get there and to be there.
And, you know, I think it's hard to understand that and to be there as a black woman as well. And then what's the like it. Lasting legacy? Again, it's hard to quantify this, right?
But this is, this is never been done before. This is the norm. Now, a black woman can lead a big city, right? This is a big deal. That's, that's not just role modeling in that traditional sense for black people and young women like my daughter. Right. This is for white people, too. Right.
Because I dare say that if you put pictures, a range of photographs on a wall ten years ago and asked which one was the mayor, no one would have picked out the photo of Joanne.
And now they could.
[00:59:01] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. That's really powerful. Thank you. And, Marvin, what would you say is your proudest achievement in office, and why do you think it had a lasting impact on your city?
[00:59:17] Joanne Anderson: So you know what? I'm just not close enough to Bristol to know the detail.
I don't think I've been since I was a kid. And obviously Marvin talks about how's and regeneration and all those things he achieved, but actually what I seen and what I perceived, Marvin was a global mayor, and his message around the environment he carries across the globe on behalf of not just Bristol, but the UK.
And so regardless of Marvin's experience by, you know, parties or discrimination experience or racism, he still rose to that position of representing the UK on a global stage, the city of Bristol and the rest of us. And his message was always consistent around the environment and what we need to do. And so I don't see that from other leaders of, you know, cities or I'm not aware of it. And so, again, just what Marvin was saying about Joanne, about being there, that, again, it's really important to us in the black community to see, you know, what to say. You cannot be what you cannot see. We have to be able to see that in order to feel that we can achieve that, too. So Marvin, on that global stage, representing us in a very positive way with a very positive message, will have a lasting impact on me as a black person, on my son and everybody else and black people. So, yeah, that's how I say the other thing. Very personal that I know that Marvin did to Joanne.
There's a lot of politics around black people and mixed relationships with white people. And there's been a lot recently on social media about black men. Nothing defending black women. And, you know, I'm going to use quite a ghetto as here, but in a brother way, I was protected and supported by Marvin. I very much felt his, you know, allyship as a black man, protecting me as a black woman. He got into fights I didn't know about. Sometimes I think someone was coming after me on Twitter, and he helped me, and I never read any of it. But, you know, in terms of just having that brotherly support as a black woman was really important to me. And black men get criticism that that doesn't happen. And actually, you know, my ex husband was white as well. I don't, I don't go into that stigma that just because someone worries a white person, they're no one no longer interested in, you know, protecting black women or, you know, a black woman who goes out with a white man doesn't like black men. You know, it's a bit of a nonsense, all that, but I certainly felt that brotherly protection, that allyship as a black mandeh with a black woman. I've forgotten who I am now. I've slipped back into Joanna, too.
[01:01:59] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. No, it's okay. It's okay. You can go back into your. Into your proper places now. So you two are quite a duo, I must say. It's really been a pleasure talking to you. And the last question I have for you is a question that we ask every single guest. We have haven't talked that much about, you know, about this topic, actually, in this episode, but of course, underline and goes into this so much. So the question that we ask every guest on this is to you, what is a smart city? And, Marvin, I might remind you of your answer last time, which is a smart city for me, is one in which people are connected, included in a life works. So do you want to elaborate or change your answer from last time and then maybe Joanne can build off of that?
[01:02:49] Marvin Rees: I suppose I'd elaborate a little bit. Life needs to work, and so the tech isn't there for tech's sake. It's to make life work.
And life works when people are connected. And I don't just mean in physical proximity. I mean, you know, being able to share in a story that means an inclusive, inclusive economy, opportunity, life chances. So I think that's why I really emphasize it's got to make a place work for people to be connected.
[01:03:23] Tamlyn Shimizu: Absolutely. Joanne, do you agree? Do you want to alter your definition?
[01:03:28] Joanne Anderson: To be smart is to know something, isn't it? And I think a city that knows its residents, it knows its wants and needs and delivers on that. That's what I consider a smart city. You know, co design and services within the city I think is necessary. Too much has been done that someone else has thought they're smart and they know it, and they don't actually reside in the city. We had a lot of local government officers who didn't actually live in Liverpool. How can you design that city? You know, how can you make those decisions around people's lives without co designed with the people who live there? So for me, a smart city is one that knows its residents wants and.
[01:04:07] Tamlyn Shimizu: Needs and delivers on that very, very good definition. Also, it's always one of the most curious answers to see how everyone's backgrounds and stories shape how they perceive that, the definition of that. So thank you so much. With that, I want to ask Marvin, where can we find your book? For those that are curious, I saw.
[01:04:27] Marvin Rees: On Amazon it's been in bookshops. I know Waterstones had a few.
So it's published by Picador. So again, if you if you struggle with Amazon, I guess you can reach out to Picador.
[01:04:41] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, perfect.
[01:04:43] Joanne Anderson: It's also on audible. So I did listen to quite a few chapters in one day and woke up in the night thinking, have I been with Marvin today?
[01:04:54] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very cool. Very cool. Yeah. Thank you also for that.
With that. That's all I have for you today, unfortunately. I could chat with you, I think, for many hours about these topics.
But thank you both. Really sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I really, really enjoyed this conversation and really actually just learning from you and learning from your experiences. So thank you for coming on.
[01:05:18] Joanne Anderson: Thank you for having us.
[01:05:19] Marvin Rees: Thank you very much.
[01:05:21] Tamlyn Shimizu: Thank you so much. And also thanks to our listeners. It was an incredible episode, so I hope you enjoyed it. And don't forget, you can always find out more about initiatives, projects, solutions, implementations, everything above when you create a free account on BABLE smartcities. Eudez so thank you so much.
Thank you all for listening. I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life.
