Jonathan Aitken On Why We Should Stay Positive Despite Brexit

Former Cabinet Minister, now ordained, on his life and times

Former MP and Cabinet Minister, the Rev. Jonathan Aitken has been on quite a journey, from politician to prisoner to prison chaplain. It's been "a very rewarding and enriching one though painful and difficult at times", he says. But having gone through some much and emerged stronger he believes people should stay positive and believe there are good things ahead, despite political and world instability, including Brexit.

"I am not as pessimistic as many people seem to be, partly because I have lived long enough to know these symptoms of decline and distress in society come and go. For example when I was elected as MP in 1974, unemployment was 2 million, the inflation rate was 18 per cent, and things were much worse than today when we have a satisfactory economy and full employment.

"We don't have political stability because of Brexit, which is upsetting a lot of people but that will sooner or later resolve itself with some sort of relationship or no relationship with the EU, so I believe there is a perfectly good and happy future for the British people.

Jonathan Aitken was visiting Chiswick to give a talk at St Paul's Church, Grove Park, about his life and times and his charity work with several prisoner's charities, including Tempus Novo, the Offender Rehabilitation Charity he founded along with two former prison officers. This charity recently won The Criminal Justice Charity of The Year Award.

He told chiswickw4.com:"I did see life at Westminster for 24 years and then Ministerial life, then I had my huge crash, entirely my own fault, and learned a lot from going to prison. It wasn't a bad time,though not an easy one. I made some real friends and learned a great deal about the lives of people I would hve not known about otherwise.

"A day or two after I started a young fellow prisoner said to me, that he had a letter from his solicitor but he could not read it, so I read it for him. It was a letter to say his family were to be evicted for non payment of rent on their council flat. I read it out to him and it sent him up the wall, screaming and shouting. Well as it turned out he could not have had a more expert source of advice as I had been doing these sort of cases as an MP for 20 years. So I was able to write a letter for him asking for a way of paying by instalments and they managed to sort him out.

"Well he went around telling the others about me and I soon found I had a very receptive audiance. You see this man was he was symptomatic of one of the big problems in our prisons which is that roughly one third of those in prison have inadquate reading and writing skills, so as a result of this advertising on my behalf, every single night there was a queue of people wanting letters written, often on quite intimate subjects.

"That got me into the life of the prison and the understanding of their problems. Simultaneously I was having a spiritiual journey. Like the monks I found cells are good places to pray, and I got myself into Prayer Group and it went on from there to where I am today, which is that I work as a prison chaplain."

Asked if he thought his message to people was one of redemption he said: "I hope so. People do change as I myself changed. I went to the one place in Britain which was worse than prison in terms of plumbing and had worse food and that was an Anglican theological college in Oxford.

"Prison is all of humanity in a very raw and awful form. Sometimes the inmates are remorseful, there are some are not mentally well, which is why we have so many suicides and self harmers and the drugs problems.

"The biggest area where change and reform and new energy is needed is not inside the prison (though it's needed there) but when the prisoners come out. On the whole, prisons are doing a bit better, 18 months ago there was shortage of prison officers but the government has suddenly found £500 million to recruit new prison officers and 3,000 new prison officers have been recruited in the last 12 months or so and they are making a big difference. They have new attitudes, greater empathy, greater compassion and its going down very well.

"There's still a huge amount of work needed, prisons are often dangerous places, there are too many drugs etc. The biggest worry is that of the every 100 prisoners released, about 70 will reoffend and be back inside in two years, that's a great failure of the rehabilitation policy.

"Tempus Novo, the charity which I helped set up and which is run by two former prison officers have taken 105 prisoners off the wings of Leeds prison and into jobs. It's about individual mentoring, personal pastoral care, and it does work. The biggest thing one could do is talk abbout it and encourage more employers to at least offer a chance of a job interview to ex offenders. At the moment one of the great frustrations is that you meet some young ex prisoners who have applied for so many jobs and haven't even got a single interview. The reason is, if he's truthful about his past, is that he finds that he won't be taken on by some cautious HR manager. We would like to see the growth of Second Chance employers.

"When I was writing these letters as a fellow prisoner, I heard the back stories of these men and I was stunned by how many of these had very rocky starts in life. First of all, one third of them had spent early time in institutional care, and a high proportion came from broken families and a tremendous number of them didn't know or had never met their fathers. Athough a bad background and difficult start isn't an excuse for crime, it can of course hold people back."

Jonathan is the author of seventeen books including award-winning biographies of John Newton (the author of Amazing Grace ), Richard Nixon and Margaret Thatcher. He is also a well-known broadcaster and columnist for the Times and other newspapers.

Jonathan Aitken pictured here at St Paul's Church, with James, a young prison officer, and Torin Douglas

Simon Rodway adds: "There was a good attendance at St Paul’s Church, Grove Park on May 16th to hear a fascinating talk by the Rev. Jonathan Aitken. We are grateful for the initiative taken by Jenny Powell to organise this and to Fr. Michael Riley for agreeing to the talk being held in his Church. The evening was chaired by Torin Douglas in his usual efficient and careful way, which enabled the audience to feel part of the event. In introducing Jonathan, Torin highlighted how, in his early life, Jonathan was in hospital for 3 years with TB and later became a war correspondent.

"I was immensely impressed by Jonathan’s delivery, which was impromptu and without a single note. He entered the House of Commons in 1974 and climbed the ladder to become a cabinet minister. In 1999 he faced a very different life when he received an 18 month prison sentence after pleading guilty to perjury. He served 7 months in prison, including time at Belmarsh. He talked at length about his experiences there and of his induction into prison life and, like most prisoners, was seen by a psychiatrist who talked about possible suicide.

“Jono”, as he was known, soon became popular with other prisoners as he was able to read and write letters for them. One of the prisoners announced that it was fantastic to have another prisoner who could do joined up writing! He said that one third of prisoners could not read or write. In appreciation of his help to other prisoners, one prisoner came to his cell and offered him a special present, a pile of porn magazines, and was rather upset when Jonathan explained that he wasn’t interested in porn.

"Jonathan talked about his path of faith and how he started praying with the prisoner who offered him a present, and he later set up a prayer group, which was well attended. He spoke of how adversity was a gateway to greater faith and the difficulty of prisoners repenting. He told us that 60% of the prisoners re-offended. He felt that the insight he gained inside prison and his faith becoming greater, inspired him to train for the ministry. He had recently visited Feltham young offenders’ prison and recognised the need to encourage young people into faith. After ordination, Jonathan became a chaplain at Pentonville prison and also a curate at St Matthew’s Church Westminster.

"Jonathan Aitken was particularly adept at answering the questions from the audience and appeared to be really interested in suggestions made to him. There was a young prison officer in the audience, whom he invited to speak. This young man spoke enthusiastically about the needs of those in prison and gave us hope for the future.

"This was an especially inspiring evening and demonstrated how good can come out of adversity."
.

May 3, 2019