No, Keir, we do not all have the right to self-determination

'Why do we not care to acknowledge them? The cattle, the body count. We still don't like to admit the war was even partly our fault because so many of our people died. A photograph on every mantlepiece. And all this mourning has veiled the truth. It's not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember. Because you should realise the Cenotaph and the Last Post and all that stuff is concerned, there's no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it.'

Alan Bennett, The History Boys




The current Leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer, is under fire again for undermining attempts at standing up to racism.

Since becoming the leader of the Labour Party in April, Starmer has found himself under fire for this quite a few times. He has referred to the Black Lives Matter protests as a 'moment', equated brutal police officers in Israel with Jews in general and used the release of a report into anti-Semitism to wage a cynical war against socialism. But in the last couple of days, this has increased with two utter public relations car crashes.

The first comes from an appearance on Nick Ferrari's LBC radio show (though given Ferrari's political persuasion, what exactly Starmer was doing on his programme in the first place is anyone's guess). You can listen to the full recording here, but I shall type up what was said as well.

A caller using the name Gemma (though apparently this is not her real name - more on that in a moment) phoned in and said this, in defence of booing footballers who take the knee for Black Lives Matter:

'If anything, the racial inequality is now against the indigenous people of Britain. We are set to become a minority by 2066. Taking the knee, bringing the political sphere into the football arena... we just have to look across to the Middle East. Israel has a state law that they are the only people in that country to have self-determination. Well, why can't I, as a white British female, have that same right?'

Starmer responded with:

'Gemma, we all have those rights. This is about recognising some injustice that has gone on for a very, very long time, and I think people were genuinely moved this year and want to make sure that that injustice is dealt with. People will look at it in different ways, but I think the vast majority of people do want a more equal society.'

The bits I've underlined are not typos, they are the parts of Starmer's response that I consider the very worst (as opposed to the rest of it, which is simply stating the bleeding obvious in as diluted a way as possible).

Tom Clark at Another Angry Voice reports that Gemma's real name is Jody Swingler, and that she's an extreme-right activist living in Ibiza. Which is an interesting development, and important to note, because I do not believe that her views actually speak for the British public. I mention that purely for the sake of noting this tactic of pretending to be normal members of the public that the far right has started using, because I actually don't consider Swingler or her ilk to be worth my time or energy fighting. What is more important though, is the weakness of Keir Starmer's response.

The Nation State law in Israel, which came in in 2018, is profoundly racist and has been criticised strongly by human rights groups across the globe. The law seeks to ensure that certain people who live in that region are considered more worthy of fair treatment, the right to speak their own language and basic humanity than others. In this response, Starmer implied that not only does the UK currently have an equivalent law (which is not true) but also that such a law would be desirable here!

I'm a white British male, and we are not destined to become an ethnic minority by 2066. I have fact-checked this claim; there is only one person who has ever made it, and even then I'm not sure exactly where he's got this data from. But more importantly, even if we were becoming a minority, what is actually wrong with that? I grew up in quite a diverse area, and in a few of my school classes there were more black or Asian people than white people. I don't remember being especially bothered by this, or indeed particularly noticing it. As a matter of fact, it has actually led me to subconsciously associate diversity with security - one reason I struggled in the few years I lived in a small town in Essex is that I don't like being in a room filled only with white people. I find that groups like that tend to be quite narrow-minded, and to lack the difference in experience and knowledge that a more diverse group brings. And surely we should all share experience and knowledge with each other? Isn't that the point of being alive?

Starmer's next mistake was the line 'People will look at it in different ways'. That is obvious because that always happens, but there's an implication there that all of the different ways to look at it are legitimate. They are not. This woman's ideas stem solely from racism, pure and simple. Starmer knows this as it's painfully obvious, and he should have called it out. There was no criticism from him, there was an attempt to make out that we rightly have a law like Israel's (which we don't, and it would be wrong if we did) and it really went very badly for him as he ended up kowtowing to a Nazi-esque troll.

Another fairly disturbing development for Starmer is this troublesome piece, about how Labour shadow frontbencher Bill Esterson (who has Jewish ancestry) was reprimanded after commenting on Twitter that Boris Johnson was 'leading us to a dangerous place' that he implied was reminiscent of Nazi Germany. This was described by Conservative chair Amanda Milling as 'shocking' and 'an outrageous insult'.

This is indicative of a very serious problem in our society - the idea that absolutely nothing can be compared to Nazi Germany unless it literally embodies the very worst parts of it. The quote at the top of the page is from The History Boys - a film my partner and I watched the other night and which I intensely disliked, although that one line was quite a good one (it refers to WWI instead of WWII, but it applies just as much). Because we do not take the time to remember, not really. What we remember is a selective interpretation of history, one in which we weren't complicit and one that does not equip us with the tools to prevent it happening again. From the way we talk about the Holocaust, anyone could be forgiven for thinking that the gas chambers at Auschwitz sprang up overnight. Of course, it didn't happen like that. It never happens like that. What actually happened, over the course of the 1930s, was a very slow erosion of the rights of Jewish people, and with it public attitudes - so that by the time the Holocaust came about, all the groundwork had been laid for it not to be a significant imaginative leap.

I remain hopeful that we'll never see an abuse of human rights as great as that again, and I believe it's absolutely possible (and indeed an imperative) to stop things if they ever look like they might be going that way. But there are some things in our society that are reminiscent of how the Holocaust started (our treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, for instance) and by talking about Nazi Germany as if nothing can ever be compared to it, we are ignoring the way that these things start. It is commonly said that if you put a frog in a pot of water and increase the temperature very slowly, the frog will not notice the increase in temperature until it is too late to prevent itself being boiled alive. Apparently there's some scepticism about whether this is true, but the metaphor certainly works for human beings. If we allow things to slowly progress, by the time (God forbid) it ever reaches that point, we'll be beyond the stage of objecting to it. It is done this way deliberately, and it's a very common way of shutting down progress to say that it's somehow offensive to the victims of the previous thing to talk about preventing it happening again. The same cynical technique is used to shut down debate on gun laws in the USA - whenever there's a school shooting, we're told that it's insulting to the families to exploit their grief for political opportunity, and that we should wait for a more appropriate time to have that conversation. But there never is an appropriate time, is there? Because if there isn't another one for a while it won't be a major concern anymore, and when there is one the same argument is thrown back over and over again. And this is how so many innocent people, many of them children, many of them ethnic minorities, have been murdered in the USA without anything being done to stop it.

But again, in the case of Bill Esterson, Keir Starmer swiftly responds that he shouldn't have said it, and that MPs should refrain from using Twitter. Keir, this would have been an amazing opportunity to stand by your colleague and show the world exactly how bad this Government is. The thing that angers me the most about all of this is that we hear consistently about how much racism, particularly anti-Semitism, there historically has been in the Labour Party, and how Starmer is apparently standing up to it. He is not. All I can see is an attempt to extend the right-wing status quo for as long as possible, disguised as an attempt to fight racism. If Keir Starmer was serious about this, he would have actually enacted the recommendations of the EHRC report, rather than cynically interfering in an independent board's decisions and turning what should have been a time for reflection into another tedious war between different wings of the party. He would not have sacked Rebecca Long-Bailey for re-tweeting an article criticising Israeli police forces. He would not be expelling pro-Palestine Jews left, right and centre. He would not have dismissed Black Lives Matter as a 'moment'. He would have disciplined Lisa Nandy for describing anti-Semitism as 'a form of racism that punches up, rather than down'. He would have disciplined Rachel Reeves for honouring the incredibly anti-Semitic Nancy Astor on Twitter. But all of these instances relate to who in Parliament are his political allies, rather than what they are actually meant to have said.

Sadly, we seem to have a Leader of the Opposition that will do anything to avoid rocking the boat, including standing against his own MPs when they speak the truth. And this man hopes to become Prime Minister one day? Give me a break.

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You scumbag, you maggot, we love Diane Abbott

 A bit unusual for me to write a whole blog just to promote a song, but I had to make an exception for this!

If you've never heard of the singer Grace Petrie, you simply must check out her music. There are many incredible political musicians out there, but this one is pretty special. I've loved her music since 2013 when I heard her on BBC Radio 4's Now Show performing her song 'All In This Together', in which she claimed to have 'tried to write a song about her favourite MP, but couldn't narrow it down'. That song is really out of date now, but I still listen to it regularly! I've seen Grace perform live and she is an exceptionally enjoyable performer.

Every year we have a tedious discussion about whether the line 'you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot' in Fairytale of New York is appropriate given its frequent use as a homophobic slur. I touched upon my view about this in this blog that I wrote last week, but I shall reiterate my viewpoint on it one more time. My view is that I have absolutely no objection to the word 'faggot' being in this song in the context in which it is used - that of the Irish version, meaning 'lazy person'. As someone in a same-sex relationship, my view is that the more we use terms like this to mean other things besides the homophobic meaning, the less effective it becomes as a homophobic slur. I believe that making words taboo only increases the ability of bigots to discriminate - we need to focus predominantly on intention, because words have no meaning by themselves. Also, I find it quite offensive that US slang is considered more important in the English-speaking world than Irish slang is.

However, irrespective of my personal view on censoring the line, I just love Grace Petrie's new cover, in which this line is now 'You scumbag, you maggot, we love Diane Abbott'. In addition to Grace's beautiful singing voice, the boldness of this line is important to stand up to an extremely insidious media narrative about this politician. Of all left-wing politicians, she is by far the one with the worst reputation - thoroughly undeserved, because Diane Abbott is an amazing human being. Occasionally she gets flustered on television, and when that happens it's talked about for weeks in an attempt to persuade the British public that she's incompetent - which sadly is often successful. But if anyone takes the time to actually take the time to read what she does via reliable sources (the link above will take you to her TheyWorkForYou page) you will see what an incredibly hard worker she is, how intelligent she is and how much she strives to improve quality of life for the least fortunate. Just as a personal anecdote, an acquaintance of mine told me a while back that in a struggle regarding the immigration status of their spouse, and said that of all the MPs they'd met, Diane Abbott was the only one who they really felt cared personally about what they were going through (which incidentally, I think is so important - when we talk about politicians, so often we focus on big global things and never consider the work that MPs do on individual cases. And I often think that's the most important thing - no matter what other flaws a politician may have, if they work hard on an individual case, something that isn't going to affect their electoral chances, that is more proof than any other that their heart is in the right place.)

In 2020, when the Labour Party is becoming increasingly right-wing, MPs like Diane Abbott are needed more than ever. I could talk about Diane Abbott until the cows come home, but the best thing you could read is this article by food writer Jack Monroe, which was originally posted on Twitter shortly before the 2017 election. Read it. Now.

You back? Okay, back to the song.

Now, I want this song to get to Christmas number one. I highly doubt that I can achieve this because my blog readership is TINY - but I thought, why not try? The worst that can happen is that I'll have at least got a few more people to buy it, which would help the artist. But more than that - if radio stations have started to say that they won't play the original (I personally disagree, but it's their right) why not give them an alternative that glorifies one of the best politicians we have? Someone who is almost never in the media unless it's something negative? As Boris Johnson destroys more and more of what we have, so many of us are fed up with the fact that our lives don't mean anything to politicians. So why not take the time to spend £1 (only if we can afford it, of course) to appreciate a politician for whom our lives actually do mean something, and help one of the most talented political artists around, and listen to a beautiful cover of everyone's favourite Christmas song, all at the same time?

Happy Christmas, everybody. I can see a better time when all our dreams come true.

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The suspension of Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi

 Any leftist in the UK following the situation within the Labour Party at the moment will be aware of the fact that there has been a lot of discussion recently regarding an alleged anti-Semitism crisis on the part of Labour members. Not being either Jewish nor a Labour member, it is certainly not within my capacity to comment on the accuracy of this, and I shall not do so. Suffice to say that as a believer in justice, I believe that all complaints of racism must be taken seriously and investigated to the full extent of the law (or at least, to the full extent of whichever anti-discrimination procedures are relevant at the time).

There has also been an awful lot of discussion on the suspension of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and seeing as I missed the chance to write about this at the time, at this stage I don't think anything that I write will add to the discussion in any productive way. I'm here to talk about something quite different, which is the suspension of Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, a senior official in the organisation Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), a network for Jews within the Labour Party.

I have quite a lot of respect for JVL; it was formed in 2017, its motto is 'Always with the oppressed, never with the oppressor' and its aims include promoting freedom of expression and democracy, acknowledging Jewish involvement in the socialist and trade union movements and opposing racism across the world, standing up against anti-Semitism and against wrongs committed against Palestinians. I'm in support of all of these things, but above all it's tremendously important to have strong Jewish voices speaking out in support of Palestine. In 2014 I worked on the Palestine demonstrations, went on some marches in Bristol and London and learned a great deal about the situation in this part of the world. In particular, this powerful speech by the activist Barnaby Raine has stayed with me for the past six years, because he talked so passionately about how much his Jewish ancestry has caused him to stand against oppression, whomever is causing it. This is the sort of voice that we don't hear enough in the media, especially not from Jews - not because not many Jews hold these views (I have met many who do in my own life) but because it doesn't fit the right media narrative. More on that in a moment.

Today, the Jewish Chronicle reported that Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi has been suspended from the Labour Party for her conduct in a CLP meeting. The article goes on to discuss that her 'crime' was to express dismay at the weaponisation of Jewish opinions. You should read the article and her comments yourself rather than just taking my word for it, but to paraphrase, quite a bit of her commentary was to do with the fact that Jews are now being seen as a group for whom it is impossible to discuss things openly without offending them - a notion that is deeply anti-Semitic in itself.

This is Naomi talking about the experiences of anti-Semitism she has faced for being a Jew with left-wing opinions (link redirects to Twitter). Have a look at what she has to say, then come back.

Finished? Okay then.

Naomi says a lot in that video, far more eloquently than I could. But I think what she's getting at is an idea that left-wing politics by itself has started to be considered anti-Semitic. There are numerous examples of this, and nearly all of them are examples of anti-Semitism themselves. In 2019, John McTernan wrote in the Financial Times (there's a paywall) that "Rhetoric about the 1 per cent and economic inequality has the same underlying theme [as anti-Semitic tropes] — a small group of very rich people who cleverly manipulate others to defend their interests. So anti-capitalism masks and normalises anti-Semitism". As Tom Clark at Another Angry Voice points out, this line of argument relies on the notion that Jews are greedy and that the left criticise greed, therefore a leftist anti-capitalist is inherently anti-Semitic. I think anyone with a degree of common logic can see that this line of thinking contains a pretty negative and untrue stereotype about Jews by itself. Another instance is this clip of Lisa Nandy on Radio 4, claiming that 'anti-Semitism is a very particular form of racism. It's the sort of racism that punches up, not down'. Again, she makes an assumption that the victims of anti-Semitism are going to be more privileged than those perpetrating it - a tired trope about Jews that she should know better than to be spreading.

But very few people expressing these sorts of views in the Labour Party seem to find themselves subject to any kind of disciplinary action at all. Those who face disciplinary action are people like Naomi, a proud Jewish activist, when they point out that it's pretty disrespectful to extend opinions held by certain Jewish lobbyist groups to be inherent to the entirety of Judaism. It's got to a point where they aren't even trying to make it plausible anymore - general secretary David Evans (who isn't Jewish) has claimed that any motions of no-confidence against himself pose a threat to Jews, without any clarity as to precisely why him keeping his job is so vital in the fight against racism!

In the fight against racism, discussion is vital. By shutting down discussion, we are unable to come together to work out an effective solution. My concern is that however well-intentioned the initial concerns about fighting anti-Semitism may have been, it has now been hijacked by those with a vested interest in maintaining Labour's top-down, anti-democracy, anti-grassroots status quo - most of them probably not even Jewish. We can tell this because since the EHRC report came out in October, the party's most prominent discussions haven't even been about its Jewish members. It has been nearly all in relation to Jeremy Corbyn, whether or not what he said in response to that report was acceptable and whether people should be allowed to discuss it. This report was meant to be the start of making the party a safer place - and any desire to do that was immediately abandoned in favour of waging another tiresome war between the left and the right. This will not achieve any additional safety for Labour's Jewish members - all it will do is a) make anti-Semitism harder to define, therefore making it harder to deal with; and b) make Labour far less likely to win the next election.

We on the left, quite rightly, abhor racism. It is right to stand against it, in all its forms. Unfortunately, the far-right (which incidentally, is exceptionally racist) has realised this, and is using it to divide us. We must not allow this narrative to win. At every accusation, we must look at exactly what is being accused and ask ourselves - is this a fair accusation? Has the person's words/actions been misinterpreted, or do they actually pose a tangible threat? How reliable is the person making the accusation? Are people with the opposite political viewpoint receiving the same due process? It is essential that we do this, because otherwise the right's go-to strategy to shut down any attempt to improve our world will be to accuse anyone it deems a political threat of racism, however spurious an allegation this might be.

Sadly for the Jewish community, it has been weaponised against its will, and if we continue down this path of hindering rational debate, any concerns Jewish Labour members have about the anti-Semitism crisis continuing are likely to come true.

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The assumption of bigotry: Doctor Who, Fairytale of New York, neurodivergence onscreen

 I love Doctor Who, although I haven't got around to watching much of it recently. From the little I've seen of the recent series though, it hasn't looked great - and my partner has assured me that both the writing and acting is pretty poor under the current show runner.

Unless you live under a rock, you probably know that the current actor playing the Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, is the first woman to take on this role since the show started in 1963. I don't personally have much of a problem with the Doctor being played by a woman, I don't think it has to be a negative - however, there are two counterpoints to this. The first is that the casting isn't a particularly feminist victory - Doctor Who was always a forward-thinking and feminist show with some great examination of gender roles (I even co-present The Man Who Never Would, the pacifist feminist Doctor Who podcast). The second, slightly more relevant point, is that it's fine to disagree with me on this. There are plenty of quite legitimate reasons to object to a woman playing the Doctor - for example, in this article Karen Walsh argues that prior to Whittaker's tenure, the Doctor was the only male superhero to defeat his enemies with words and intellect rather than physical strength, and how in this way he was a challenge to the culture of male violence and rape. I don't fully agree with everything that Walsh says, but she makes many valid points and proves that as a feminist, you can object to a female Doctor. Even if you don't have a strong moral reason for your view, even if it's just that you've always viewed the character as being male and don't want it to change, I may not personally agree but I don't think that view makes someone sexist. If you were sexist, you wouldn't enjoy a programme like Doctor Who in the first place, which has always had a huge number of amazing female characters.

However, try to express a view like this in any context, and you are very likely to be accused of sexism, no matter how eloquently you explain the reasons for your conclusion. It even goes beyond discussions of the Doctor's gender - I'm in a Doctor Who fan group on Facebook, and ANY criticism of the current writing the show, even if it doesn't reference the Doctor's gender at all, is very frequently met with sexism allegations. This attitude has seeped into the actual show - as much as I have no personal gripe with a woman playing the Doctor, it should be presented as completely normal, not referenced at every opportunity. The Doctor's companion Graham, played by Bradley Walsh, is still frequently mistaken for the Doctor by other characters (including by Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), a hugely open-minded and gender-fluid sort of person for whom this reaction is totally out of character). The plot lines are constantly written with a mind to the idea that 'anyone could be the Doctor' - for instance, the most recent series featured a black female Doctor, played by Jo Martin, who was apparently a Doctor before the 1963 First Doctor. To me, this casting decision is actually pretty insulting to black people - it says that theoretically the Doctor could be black, but in reality never has been onscreen apart from in this one-off guest appearance. There's no progressive point making that statement. If you want a black Doctor, cast a black Doctor; don't try to retcon one into the backstory. But this kind of approach from the writers says something about what they're going for: they are so worried about being accused of sexism that they are trying to prove the show's progressiveness, which had always been there, to an extent that it actually goes around the opposite way and comes close to making the show quite offensive. It shouldn't need to do that - to be progressive, you don't need to be preachy about what you're doing, you just need to lead by example.

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Every Christmas, there is considerable discussion about the lyrics to the popular Christmas song 'Fairytale of New York' based on the fact that it contains the line 'You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot'. There are calls for the word 'faggot' to be censored, and counter-calls from media controversialists calling the people asking for this 'lefty snowflakes'.

The first time I came across the word 'fag' being used towards someone in a homophobic way, it was in a novel I was reading online when I was about 14. My reaction as a British boy was 'Aha! So this story is set in England a while back, and the character is a public schoolboy who is a slave to the older boys'. That was what 'fag' meant, wasn't it? As I continued reading, I came to recognise that it was actually a derogatory term for a gay man. When I later realised that it's a shortened form of 'faggot', I thought, 'LOL! That's a meatball. What a stupid insult.' My point being that the words 'fag' and 'faggot' both have numerous meanings throughout the English-speaking world. Neither of them are especially common as homophobic insults here in the UK, although they have slipped into the vocabulary through US TV shows. The most common usage of either of them in the UK is when someone says that they're 'going out for a fag', which means a cigarette.

In the context of the song 'Fairytale of New York', it refers to someone being lazy, which is an old Irish usage of the word. There's quite a strong viewpoint amongst many on the left that irrespective of what it meant originally, the fact that the word can cause homophobic offence is reason enough to censor it. There are arguments that the word can be triggering, that homophobic idiots love the excuse to say it and that people may just not understand what it means in context. I, though, struggle with this logic. Quite apart from the fact that I find it pretty insulting to suggest that the meaning of US slang is more important than the meaning of Irish slang, I do not understand why homophobic people should be allowed to determine the way in which language changes. To use a fair comparison, I have to choose a word that I've never heard used offensively, but whose make-up sounds as though it could cause offence. I choose the word 'twitcher', which is a non-insulting slang term for a birdwatcher. If I theoretically decided to shout 'TWITCHER!' at members of a marginalised group to bully them, would this taint the word forever? Would birdwatchers then have to stop using this term, even though they were using it first? I would say that in that instance, I'd have stolen a perfectly good word and hijacked it, and that the only way to stand against that would actually be to continue using it in other contexts. Truthfully, this is the most effective way to silence a bigot - to use their offensive terms frequently enough in other contexts that they sound ludicrous as an insult. I'm LGBTQ+, and vehemently anti-smoking; if someone called me a fag, I would say, 'Don't call me that, I don't like smoking.'

I'd also add that even if it were used in a homophobic context within the song, is that really so terrible? The song tells a story, and the character who sings that term is not meant to be likeable. I've heard the word as a homophobic insult on TV programmes that are shown before the watershed; if it was a song featuring a homophobe, would that necessarily be a bad thing? It doesn't mean that the person singing it would use the term in regular conversation.

Again, this is an instance where one is assumed to be a homophobic prat if they raise any objection to censoring the word 'faggot' in this song. I understand why they are; I really dislike Laurence Fox and his ilk, and I find it very uncomfortable to be expressing the same view as him. However, I think it is possible to legitimately hold the view that censoring in this case isn't very helpful without being either homophobic or a wind-up merchant. But the way people react to my view on this has taken me aback. A few years ago, I actually lost someone I'd thought was a close friend over this discussion, and I was astonished to find myself cut off over a conversation about words in a pop song.

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The final example is one regarding a film being brought out by the musician Sia, which features an autistic character who is played by a non-autistic actor. This has prompted a huge backlash, and many angry online posts saying that 'autism is not a costume' and 'neurodivergent actors have to have chances to play these roles'. I had never heard of Sia prior to about a week ago, but having seen the way she has behaved over this issue, I certainly won't be supporting her or watching her film when it comes out. Stating that a neurodivergent person wouldn't be able to cope with the filming process and telling neurodivergent actors on social media that 'maybe you're just a bad actor' is not cool, and makes an assumption that neurodivergent people aren't able to do a decent job at acting. I do not support Sia in this.

But... I do not believe that neurodivergent characters necessarily must always be played by neurodivergent actors, for the complete opposite reason of thinking they can't cope or can't act. Quite the contrary - I believe that a neurodivergent actor is just as capable of stepping into a character's shoes as a neurotypical actor would be, and therefore should be given the same opportunities. In actual fact, this idea that 'neurodivergent character must = neurodivergent actor' is pretty harmful to neurodivergent actors. It degrades their skills, implies that they are only capable of playing roles exactly like them and given that there are fewer neurodivergent roles than there are neurotypical roles, poses a tangible threat to their careers. A few years ago there was a similar discussion going on about LGBTQ+ characters, and whether they should be played by LGBTQ+ actors. I'm an LGBTQ+ actor; I've played LGBTQ+ roles, I've played heterosexual roles, and I haven't found my own sexual orientation remotely relevant to either.

The most common counterpoint to this that is given back to me is that we don't live in a fair world, and that even though LGBTQ+ actors and neurodiverse actors are capable of playing parts different to them, in reality they are very rarely given them. This is true, and is a serious problem - but what I don't see is why the producers even need to know this information about someone auditioning. I've auditioned for many parts, and I don't tend to talk very much about my own personal life at auditions. I also audition many people for my own projects, and I don't ask these questions either - they aren't at all relevant to how well someone can play the role. Like everyone, I have unconscious biases - and therefore, the fairest way to prevent these biases from coming out is to deny myself any knowledge of anything that may provoke it.  Another counterpoint I get is 'But if you've been through it, you'll understand it and be able to play it better.' Firstly, I don't think this is always true; having this in common with a character doesn't mean you'll be remotely like them, your experiences really depend on where you are from and what sort of people you grew up with. But more importantly, on the occasions that this is true, it will surely be obvious when you're auditioning for a part? We don't think like this when casting any other types of roles. We don't think, 'For this film about a war veteran suffering from PTSD, we need an actor who is a war veteran who suffers from PTSD... where can we find one of them?' 

I'm not a big fan of celebrity culture. When I watch a film, I don't think I need to know anything about how the actor playing the main character lives when they're at home. Why does anyone need to know that if we don't know the actor personally? But this is again, a viewpoint that you cannot express without being accused of ableism. I'd argue that it's the opposite of ableism - it's asking for equal treatment and the avoidance of pigeonholing.

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So there we are. Three different complex topics, three different controversial views, three different accusations - sexism, homophobia, ableism. Are any of these views sexist, homophobic or ableist? My opinion is that all of them have a strong case for standing up against sexism, homophobia and ableism (I don't actually fully agree with the Doctor Who one, but I can see why people do.)

My question is, why is it that we've got to such a point in society that the moment someone says anything controversial, we immediately assume that they're being offensive? I wouldn't feel qualified to go into detail about the precise reasons, but I think it's a combination of a few different things. As media has moved more online and onto social media, I feel that many news articles are perhaps slightly less analytical than perhaps they once were; there's more of an emphasis on manufacturing a sense of outrage, without exploring the reasons for it. The ideas have to be clear in a headline, so that someone scrolling can get the basic picture without bothering to read the whole thing - therefore, the sides are portrayed as far more black-and-white than they actually are (and all of the above subjects have additional elements making them even more complex that I didn't even bother to go into for this blog).

As someone working in the creative industry, the last topic is quite a personal one to me, but the first two I'm not hugely bothered about - I've got my opinion, it doesn't matter that much to me what others think. But by talking about these quite small topics, it makes me realise how hostile we're becoming to alternative points of view on the left. It's why we struggle to achieve political success a lot of the time - the right is less moralistic than us, the right can let go of differences and pull together and be united whilst the considerably larger left is still fighting amongst itself. And there is no more obvious example than of Brexit. There are left-wing people who voted Remain, there are left-wing people who voted Leave; I voted Remain, but there were good reasons for voting for both, and our failure to discuss and accept our differing reasons for this has led to Brexit being orchestrated by a radically right-wing Government that will not benefit any of us.

We are meant to be on the same side - and truthfully, I think that the vast majority of the public would be on the same side if our points were clearer and less divisive. If we wish that to happen, we must stop accusing one another of things on spurious evidence and listen to what each other are actually saying.

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Let's change the world

'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has'

Attributed to Margaret Mead, Anthropologist



As this year draws towards its final month, I think most of us have this sinking feeling of 'I've done absolutely nothing this year'. There's an element of this at the close of every year - in January we feel really positive and plan out how this new year will be different, the year we make things work for us, the year it comes together - come December, it rarely has. This one is different though - the COVID pandemic has shaken up all of our lives so much that most of us cannot remember a year that has failed to go to plan so spectacularly. I myself remember last December, the one positive I could find in the election result was that I'd be shaken up so much that I'd be back out on the streets each weekend - something I'd been finding myself doing less and less. And of course, this hasn't happened.

It's not just COVID. Brexit happened at the end of January, and the fallout from that is just around the corner - as chaotic as it always was, conveniently forgotten in the confusion about the pandemic rules. Day by day, our rights are taken from us. Here in the UK we have a profoundly undemocratic system, with an opposition that doesn't seem remotely inclined to change it even if it were able to (and there is very little improvement on this even in other countries). In the middle of the year, we had the ever so refreshing Black Lives Matter protests - but I see little evidence that racism has gone down as a result. Our planet itself is on fire. And we have a society which is so tightly grasped within the iron fist of capitalism, it seems as if we'll never escape. It feels there is so much that we must be doing, and so little that we practically can do, that it weighs quite heavily on all of our mental health.

I'm as susceptible as anyone to this - truthfully, I'm extremely mentally unstable at the moment, more so than I ever have been before, I think. However, it's important to remember that those who profit most from the status quo have a vested interest in helplessness. When we feel helpless, we allow the status quo to continue, and this doesn't help anyone. And truthfully, we're very rarely as helpless as we think we are.

This year, all things considered, I've actually been very fortunate. My partner and I have created some amazing stories together, most importantly our gritty left-wing political TV drama series, which we're just about to produce the pilot episode of. I've made some good friends this year, read some wonderful books, learned some good things, silently processed some personal trauma, gone into hiding to protect people from COVID... and been there for people who are in need. All of these things have helped either myself or other people, which is the first step to creating social change. And right now, I actually feel quite empowered to do so.

If you're concerned that you aren't doing anything that you feel is worthwhile, I will tell you that firstly, you are most likely doing more than you believe you are. Secondly, ask yourself what you would like to be doing? What matters most to you in this world, and what can you do to change it? If you're really stuck, the first and most important thing you can do to realise where your skills are most needed is to talk to someone. It's so much easier to do this with a teammate - it's why most left-wing activists know each other. Send a message to a friend - find something you both think isn't right, and say to yourselves, 'What needs to be done to change it?' It doesn't have to be a huge global thing - even being there for someone who is unwell can help, because it creates a domino effect. (That said, if you are capable of doing huge global things, such as organising huge socially-distanced protests, by all means do so!)

For me, I've had a few ideas for projects I want to work on. Besides my TV drama (which focusses very much on the kind of dialogue I'm talking about) I want to do more to make our society more democratic. I've had some ideas about how to do so, which I'll try to outline in subsequent blogs; I feel that most people are relatively capable and fair-minded, and if we could all engage in a bit more constructive dialogue we can build some amazing things.

Human beings are exceptionally good at adapting to their own circumstances, but exceptionally bad at envisioning themselves out of whatever circumstances they happen to be in. If you wake up and you're feeling really well and organised, there is this feeling of 'if I can just keep up this good mood, my life is sorted!' And the same is the case when you're feeling down - 'I've realised that everything is going wrong, I might as well accept this now'. This occurs in politics as well. On the left, we felt terrible when the Conservatives won their super-majority in December last year - it literally felt like the end of the world. If Jeremy Corbyn had won, there'd be this euphoria that we'd won, and that all the cruelty and oppression is a thing of the past. And in truth, neither of these things are true. Things fluctuate, and always have done from the beginning of time. A big part of wisdom is the ability to recognise one's own ability to influence that.

Change is inevitable. All things change, and we should not try to keep them the same because that is fighting a losing battle. But what we do have an impact on is how things change. The truth is that there are a lot of people out there who will have you believe that you're just a pawn in this game called life. This is not true - whoever is reading this, you have already impacted the world hugely, even if it's just having caused someone to meet or inadvertently said something which gave somebody an idea. It's very difficult to see the impact we're having in perspective because we never know how the world would look if we weren't here - but the impact is there. As for what you do with your influence, that is up to you. But you should not underestimate your own potential to create social change. Everyone who has ever achieved anything has been told at some point that their struggle is fruitless - normally by those who seek to lose out from it.

So I'll leave you with this - what are you going to do to change the world?

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The problem with Potter

'If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.' Sirius Black, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 27

In 2015, I was briefly a YouTube celebrity. I decided that over the summer, I was going to record myself reading Harry Potter, upload my recordings and promote myself as a voice actor that way. As it turned out, recording them took significantly longer than a summer, and then I was copyrighted and had to take them all down (though I continued to make them and send them out to my mailing list). But I was actually quite excited when that happened; the main reason was because my videos were significantly more popular than I'd expected (I don't think I'd have been flagged otherwise, they were starting to become high on the search results).

Anyway... with the dedication it took for me to do this, you've probably guessed by now that I am a massive Potterhead. Not so much the films, but I've read all of the books numerous times, I like to quiz my friends about obscure bits of Potter knowledge, I immerse myself in that world (I'm a Ravenclaw) and until a couple of years ago I really admired JK Rowling as a writer. I remember talking about this when I introduced myself on the first day of Uni. It wasn't just because of HP, but also I loved The Casual Vacancy and was really getting into the Strike books. For me, JK Rowling could do no wrong.

It's quite astonishing how suddenly she seems to have taken such a U-turn that she can almost do no right. For me, my disappointment in her started in 2015 when she opposed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions action against Israel. She explains her reasoning in the linked article, but many of my comrades were astonished by this; I remember one of them saying that they always felt certain that they were on the same side as Dumbledore. This issue with Rowling's politics then significantly increased in the public's mind with her vicious opposition to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party. I myself never understood this; to me, the flaws of centrist politics are outlined very clearly in the characterisation of Cornelius Fudge, who is weak but relatively competent up until the rise of Voldemort, before descending into absolute chaos in the attempt to maintain order. This is the centrist curse - it works when circumstances are mild enough to get away with it, and is hopeless during any sort of crisis. This was something I felt JK Rowling understood (and was reaffirmed by her depiction of the character Barry Fairbrother in The Casual Vacancy) so I was baffled by her insistence that Ed Miliband or Owen Smith would be a preferable opposition. Truth be told, I am still baffled by this.

I actually understand her anger towards the transgender community more than I do her opinions about centrist leaders, though I am astounded by how far she is apparently willing to take it. Before I grew close to some transgender friends and became a trans rights activist, I used to have some issues with transphobia myself - thankfully I met some amazing people who made me realise my errors. So when I meet transphobic people, I think I'm mostly quite good at understanding why they think the way they do and directing them to the resources that will help educate them. We should all do that, I think, as long as we have the energy and patience. However, everyone has the right to their own opinion, and most of us can avoid bullying people as a result. We can avoid blocking children who adore our work because they challenged us on something. We can avoid supporting people whose contracts have not been renewed because of hate speech on social media. We can avoid weaponising our own experiences of domestic abuse to make a point about something completely irrelevant (as much as I recognise how difficult it must have been to speak out about this, the person who abused her was not a transwoman, therefore it has no relevance to the subject at hand). We can avoid cutting off all contact with someone we'd previously claimed to revere because they called us out, even if we think they were wrong to do so.

I think JK Rowling is a very unwell person actually. I'm not going to speculate on the state of her mental health because it wouldn't be fair to; however, I think something important to mention is that there is no one on the planet who is able to empathise with what this woman has experienced in her life. I remember Daniel Radcliffe was asked in an interview once about the relations between himself and his co-stars, and he said, 'There is the knowledge that no one else in the world knows what we've been through' (paraphrased - I can't remember the correct quote). Radcliffe summed this up; he has lived an astonishing life, but he can lean on his co-stars who have experienced the same thing, and anyway they were all young enough that it was normalised for them. Rowling doesn't have this. There is no one else who achieved success on that level at the age that she was at the time of the release of the first Harry Potter book, having lived a fairly normal life before that point. I don't think the emotional strain of living with this kind of thing is something that any of us are able to relate to. I should also make clear that I am by no means defending her; whatever you've been through, it doesn't give you any excuse to bully and victimise people. Lots of us have been through horrible things and DON'T behave like that. That said, I think it's really important to always try to establish people's reasons for doing a certain thing - because if we don't, how can we ever improve the world?

So, the question remains, how do we handle our opinions of her work? Do we stop reading them, try to disassociate her from them or read them anyway? I know people who have totally extended their dislike of Rowling personally to her books, and I understand why someone might do that; if these books were a haven that made you feel safe, why would they continue to feel like that if the author is making you feel the opposite? I also know people who continue to enjoy the books, but try to forget that she wrote them. Whilst I understand that this is the best of both worlds, I don't think that's very helpful. She did write them, there's a lot of her personality and her life in them, and if you like them that means there is something about her that you like, even as there is much that you don't.

My decision is to unapologetically continue to enjoy JK Rowling's works. I have acknowledged many things I dislike about her - but to me, the underlying problem here is our approach to celebrity culture generally. If we like a famous person's work, we think they must be a wonderful human being, and if we find out something we dislike it sours our previous view that butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. This isn't how the world works. As we walk through the world, we see a brief snapshot of the people we come across; we decide whether or not we like them, but most of them have qualities that would make us come to the opposite view if we'd seen those first. I don't like JK Rowling, I don't dislike JK Rowling; the reason for that is that I do not know JK Rowling, and if I ever met her I would give her a clean slate and make my judgement then, based on how she behaved towards me and others around me. I would speak up against anything I disliked, and see how she reacted - just as I do with everyone. But I enjoyed her work before this, and I cannot change my view on it with this additional knowledge about her. For the same reason, I still enjoy Roald Dahl's books, despite the fact he was hugely anti-Semitic. Like JK, he was neither a good man nor a bad man; just a man with flaws and some writing talent.

I would also say that some people have pointed out some problems with the Harry Potter series itself, such as anti-Semitic tropes in the depiction of goblins. There is plenty out there if you'd like to find out more about this - I've read it, and some I agree with, and some I don't. I've come to the conclusion that ultimately the books' strengths outweigh their weaknesses. I feel the same way about The Casual Vacancy. However, I am considering not continuing to read the Strike books (that she writes under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) because I am beginning to see the more unpleasant sides of her personality coming out in them. The first book, The Cuckoo's Calling, I myself did not see any problems with, but I have heard reviews objecting to her depiction of people of colour - perhaps as a white person, I just can't see it. But The Silkworm contains a bizarre depiction of a transgender person, Career of Evil contains a rather uncomfortable subplot abotu the BIID community and in Lethal White, every character who is politically against the state of Israel is portrayed badly. With these depictions of vulnerable groups, and the fact that the characters generally are a bit more caricatured, I've liked each successive Strike book less.

Ultimately, the ironic thing for me is that this generation of ours that is coming out in support of transpeople was in large part created by JK Rowling. Her books tell us something that she herself is not. To quote Dumbledore, 'Not something [s]he intended to do, I'm sure...'

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Open letter to Thangam Debbonaire MP concerning Labour's Green New Deal and my concerns about the possibility of veering away from it

Dear Thangam,

My name is George Harold Millman. I am an actor, playwright and political activist, and I write about politics under the blog name The Rebel Without A Clause. I am writing to you to share my concerns with the current direction that the Labour Party appears to be headed, specifically with regards to the green agenda.

In December, I voted to re-elect you to Parliament. I had never voted Labour before, and as a matter of fact your opponent in the Green Party is a personal friend with whom I used to stand on picket lines and who I wanted to support. Nevertheless, I decided to vote Labour because I felt so strongly about Labour's manifesto. There were many parts of that manifesto that I thought were incredible, and I'm gutted that we didn't get the chance to implement it; but to me, the most amazing part of it was the Green New Deal, orchestrated by your colleague Rebecca Long-Bailey. I'm approaching my late twenties, and am incredibly anxious about the desirability of my future, the futures of any potential descendents and whether I should consider things like having children eventually in this increasingly polluted world we all share. In previous elections I had voted for the Green Party, however in 2019 I felt that Labour was actually overtaking the Green Party in terms of environmental strategy and electability. You can imagine how excited this made me! It really felt like something might be about to happen.

This is why I was so dismayed the other day, when I read an article in the Independent announcing that Keir Starmer's top team are in talks about dropping Labour's 2030 net zero carbon target. To me, this is surely not an option. Extreme weather patterns are happening all over the world - we have had an extreme heatwave in the last week, and on the other end of the scale, a friend in Leeds tells me that he has bizarrely experienced snow in June. We are getting close to this being irreversible now; some studies suggest it is already irreversible, and whilst I am trying to be optimistic we cannot afford to let go of any targets in relation to climate change.

One defence I read in a social media comment of the possibility of dropping this target is that meeting it by 2030 will be a lot more difficult within five years than in ten, so on the assumption that Labour cannot enter Government until 2024 this may be an unrealistic target. This is a point I accept, however I am not convinced by it. If we have five more years of devastating Tory rule, that makes it MORE important that we stick to our climate targets, not less. It is a fact that it will be harder under this Government to get on with keeping the Earth sustainable; I realise that. But 'more difficult' does not mean impossible. The Tories meekly adopt policies that they think are popular enough... they've even been talking about free broadband. Whilst it's undoubtedly annoying to see them passing off these things as their own, what's far more important is that the work gets done, and every day should be spent making sure it is done.

I am worried about the direction that the Labour Party is going in. I am worried that Keir's attempts to make the party more popular with the media will result in him making too many concessions to the right, because the media will never support someone who actually wants to end the capitalist system that is destroying our planet. The thing that is particularly causing this concern is what has happened with Rebecca. I'm not going to talk about whether the anti-Semitism allegation she faced last week was fair (although incidentally, the article she shared doesn't meet the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism). To me, what is of more importance here is that Keir moved her from her job in Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to Education. Why would you move the architect of the strongest part of Labour's 2019 manifesto from the position in which she had done that work? Keeping her in that position would have shown Keir's commitment to keeping the Green New Deal, and I don't understand what the logic of moving her was, even before that article.

I urge you to do everything you can as my representative to make sure that the Labour Party remains uncompromisingly in support of the Green New Deal, pressures the Conservative Government into taking all action necessarily to prevent things like expanding airports and the continued use of fossil fuels, and also makes this commitment clear in regards to whom it appoints to the Shadow Cabinet and how it discusses such things in the media.

This was my primary concern in the 2019 election. Whilst I support Labour, I am not ideologically committed to voting Labour every time, and I will be much more likely to do so again next time with continued strength on environmental matters.

Yours sincerely,

George Harold Millman


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Why I don't respect Philip Schofield

This will likely be one of my more controversial blogs, as even the people with whom I normally agree have said quite the opposite of what I'm going to say on this subject. However, it needs saying and I really hope people can see where I'm coming from here.

This week, the TV presenter Philip Schofield made headlines by coming out as gay at the age of 57. Since then, he has been constantly praised in the media, uniting voices as far apart as Piers Morgan and Owen Jones. Schofield has been called brave, an inspiration, someone who deserves a lot of respect for having the guts to come out on a public platform. Apparently, being a TV presenter acknowledging your sexuality in 2020 makes you someone the public should look up to. I should say that I wish Schofield no harm, and hope he feels happier for the rest of his life than he has done up until now.

I hope it is not offensive that when I saw this news, my initial reaction was 'So what?' I honestly don't think I was even aware that he was straight - not that I expected him to be gay necessarily, I just can't recall ever having wondered about his life away from the cameras at all. And that's my first question - why does anyone care who an actor or a TV presenter lives with or who they are into? If you're in hospital, you don't question that about the doctor or nurse patching you up, so why does it make any difference for an entertainer? It doesn't make any difference to their ability to do the job they're paid for.

But there is a broader point to this. This is 2020 - whilst there is still homophobia around, here in the West it has significantly lessened in recent years. Same-sex marriage has been legal in the UK for six years. I walk around in public hand-in-hand with my boyfriend nearly every day, and I can honestly say that we have not experienced a single piece of homophobia since we got together in July last year (there was even one occasion where we were approached by the BBC to talk about our experiences of homophobia, and we had to honestly say that we hadn't experienced any - needless to say, they didn't use our segment!)

I know that I'm going to be accused of talking from a privileged position and claiming homophobia is over, and that's probably partially true, so let me make a few things clear. It is brave to come out as gay if you are a black footballer. It is brave to come out as gay if you are working-class, live in a strong faith community or are an immigrant from a country where it isn't as accepted as it is here. It is brave to come out as transgender, non-binary, intersex or any of the less understood part of the LGBTQ+ community. It is not brave for an overpaid, overprivileged TV presenter to come out as gay in the United Kingdom in 2020. Compare this with someone like Ellen DeGeneres, Julian Clary or Paul O'Grady. These people were openly gay before it was so commonly accepted. They took risks that could have ended their careers (there are most likely people whose public careers did end over this kind of issue, whose names are forgotten). These are the people we should be considering inspirations - the people who helped to actually normalise this kind of thing, the people who made it possible for me to walk around with my boyfriend without any fear of the public's reaction. They are the ones we should be giving our undying respect to. As someone in a same-sex relationship, I actually find it quite offensive that we are giving Philip Schofield, a man who remained in the closet until the stigma was almost over, this level of praise. Whilst I'm glad he has been able to be true to himself and accept himself (as everyone should), he is not a hero and not an inspiration to the LGBTQ+ community.

The most disturbing thing about this is that there are still major issues with homophobia that are being ignored. In September last year, Jamie Grierson in the Guardian wrote that the UK Home Office has rejected more than 3,000 asylum claims from LGBTQ+ nationals from countries where same-sex acts are criminalised. Only five years ago, our Home Office was claiming that female asylum seekers couldn't be lesbians because they had children and long hair. The main reason that we still have such a medieval attitude towards homosexuality in this specifically when we've come so far in other aspects is all related to power. Homophobia is far easier to tackle than racism, because there are more gay people in positions of power in the UK than there are BAME people, therefore those people look out for their own marginalised group. If a certain aspect of homophobia doesn't affect them, it will not get sorted out. Our culture of hierarchies, class and privilege only makes radical changes when they directly affect those in power - for the same reason, female CEOs earning slightly less than male CEOs is considered far more important a feminist issue than a 17-year-old girl forced to work as a prostitute to afford to feed herself. As a left-wing socialist, I firmly believe that the least privileged in our society should always receive the most support. Last time I checked, 57-year-old wealthy white male TV presenters were not the least privileged in our society, even if they've been in the closet for years.

My final point concerns Philip Schofield's history as a TV presenter. I don't watch his shows frequently, because as a matter of fact I think he's an extremely poor interviewer. Whenever I have caught any of his features (which normally happens when I'm particularly interested in the studio guest) I find Schofield to be the opposite of impartial. He frequently presents his own opinions as factual, and the interviewee's viewpoint is seen through that lense. Granted, he doesn't do it as rudely and abruptly as some other TV personalities, but that's not really an excuse. In December, shortly before the General Election, Jeremy Corbyn was a guest on This Morning, and Schofield's approach to anti-Semitism allegations completely cheapened the whole discussion. Anti-Semitism is a huge issue, and rather than allowing it to be discussed rationally and intellecutally, Schofield adopted the sort of strategy a tabloid newspaper would, by snapping 'Just say sorry!' every time Corbyn tried to speak (the precise moment is at around 8.30 below).


By taking this line, Schofield himself was positioning himself with a partisan political stance - he implied that Corbyn had something specific to apologise for (whether he did or not is irrelevant, an interviewer should be impartial).

Meanwhile, after interviewing Boris Johnson, Schofield and his co-presenter Holly Willoughby publicly posed for this photo - hardly masking their bias as interviewers:

At Christmas, Schofield then had the absolute gall, after thinly promoting a man who has spent his whole working life trying to dismantle the NHS, to tweet this picture.

And back on the subject of LGBTQ+ freedom, Jeremy Corbyn supported gay rights before it was fashionable. He was attending Pride events and supporting the earliest openly gay MPs as early as the 1970s. Boris Johnson, on the other hand, has referred to gay men as 'tank topped bum boys'. His party introduced Section 28 in the 1980s, making it incredibly hard for teachers to support students who were struggling with their sexual identity, and ultimately creating another generation of people ashamed of coming out. Even though the Conservative Party has become a bit more open to homosexuality in recent years, the fact that it has a Prime Minister who has made derogatory comments about gay men and prominent MPs like Jacob Rees-Mogg consistently vote against progressive Bills for LGBTQ+ people, all the evidence to me shows that many of its members haven't changed their minds, and that this progressiveness is only an image. For anyone who claims to have felt vulnerable on the grounds of their sexuality to promote this party just screams of overwhelming levels of privilege.

So Philip, congratulations. All the best to you and your family, I hope you're all happy as everyone should be. But no way are you my hero.

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