Cape Town – Jennifer Nadel, co-founder of Compassion in Politics and co-author with Gillian Anderson of We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere, joins Dominic Wilhelm on the recently released Closing Distance podcast to show why compassion and trust are democracy’s fiercest allies.
“Compassion isn’t soft. It’s fierce.”
That was the message from barrister, award-winning journalist, and political reformer Jennifer Nadel in conversation with Dominic Wilhelm on the Closing Distance podcast.
Nadel, who co-founded Compassion in Politics, argues that embedding compassion at the heart of political decision-making is not a luxury, but a democratic necessity.
Nadel’s career has been defined by confronting power with honesty.
As an investigative journalist at ITN, she exposed war crimes and provided evidence to the United Nations.
As an author, she co-wrote We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere with actress Gillian Anderson, a book that urged a shift from the me-centred way of living to a we-centred one.
Nadel’s and Anderson’s manifesto championed resilience, compassion, and collective responsibility, principles that Wilhelm develops through the Global Trust Project’s focus on trust as the essential condition for closing the distance between people and societies.
Through Compassion in Politics, the cross-party group she co-founded, Nadel has championed reforms that bring empathy and integrity into the heart of public life.
Its initiatives include mental health support for MPs, culture-change campaigns such as Stop the Nastiness, and the Honesty Standard in Parliament – now being piloted in Wales to sanction politicians who deliberately deceive the public.
“We’ve normalised politics that causes avoidable suffering,” Nadel says.
“But compassion means action. It means standing up to dishonesty, refusing to turn away from hardship, and insisting that politics return to its moral compass.”
Nadel acknowledges that compassion can be dismissed as naïve, even “churchy.”
Yet she insists the opposite is true: “Compassion requires courage. It means walking into adversarial spaces and saying there is another way.”
Her work resonates with younger generations disillusioned by politics.
Only 1% of Britons under 35 believe politicians tell the truth, a statistic Nadel cites as evidence of a trust crisis that Compassion in Politics is determined to address.
“When people know that dishonesty carries real consequences, public trust can begin to be rebuilt,” she argues.
The conversation with Wilhelm underscored the alignment between compassion and trust.
While Wilhelm’s Global Trust Project works to operationalise trust in organisations and governments, Nadel insists that compassion is politics’ “magnetic north” – the principle that can guide choices back to fairness, dignity, and truth.
Her own journey adds weight to the message.
After years at the frontline of journalism and campaigning, Nadel burnt out, forcing her to rebuild her life from the inside out.
That experience, she says, clarified the urgency of compassion not only as a personal practice but as a political framework.
“For me, it always comes back to action,” she reflects.
“Compassion isn’t sentiment. It’s activism – a call to act for the world we long for, not the one we settle for.”
