I'm back.
2025 was not the first time I've gone an entire year without updating my blog - my blog history shows I didn't do an update in 2021 (actually I'm impressed that there's only been one prior to this), and there are a few other years that I've updated it very infrequently). I find it hard to update if I don't have momentum - I go through a phase of updating it regularly, then if for whatever reason it falls by the wayside I feel guilty for there being so many things in the world that I've failed to reference, and then it just starts to spiral. This has happened in the past, and undoubtedly will again.
But this is certainly the time I've felt the worst for going a long time without blogging, because in early 2024 I was writing all the time and picking up quite a lot of traffic on here, and suddenly I lost all that momentum. I'm not quite sure exactly what caused me to stop updating it in the first place - I think when my partner Owen stood for Parliament in 2024, I was so focussed on that that I got out of the habit (though I did update it a few times during the election campaign) and then after that it was hard to get that back. I did plan to update more in 2025, but 2025 turned out to be a year that took an enormously negative toll on my mental health. I got a bit more paid work hosting pub quiz nights, put on a great stage show and my oldest friend had a child - but aside from that, almost everything that happened to me just made it impossible for me to focus on the best parts of myself, culminating in a major mental breakdown I had in September that pretty much wiped me out for the last four months of the year. I breathed a great sigh of relief at new year - 2025 is over, 2026 is here and hopefully I'll be able to make this year a little better.
As for why 2025 was so awful? Well, this is the subject of this blog. There were of course so many important things in the world that I should have mentioned on here (more awful climate change effects, the situation in Palestine getting worse and worse, the never-ending list of Donald Trump's faults, increasing amounts of racism and transphobia in the UK, the hope that the launch of Your Party brought being short-lived) - plus a few good things as well (I've been quite impressed by Zack Polanski's leadership of the Green Party, for instance). But one thing I believe quite strongly is that what's happening in politics and the wider world is inextricably linked with what's happening in one's personal life, and vice versa. This is something I've become aware of more and more the older I've got - that even as a child, things that were very challenging to me on a personal level coincided with major world events that I was only semi-aware of, such as 9/11. I also think that as we become more aware of mental health and the causes of it, it is an important act of rebellion to be able to speak out when you're vulnerable and be able to express why.
So here is a list of the worst things that happened to me in 2025.
The grotesque abuse of power at The Gathering
I've written about The Gathering on here quite a bit before. The Gathering is a volunteer-run community group (which now has charity status) which my partner Owen founded in Abergavenny, where we live. The group was set up with the aim of replacing some of the services for vulnerable and disabled adults which had been cut by Monmouthshire County Council, and was a culmination of our campaigns to save Tudor Street Day Centre from demolition.
In December 2024, after having run in Abergavenny in a similar but not fully accessible building nearby, we were delighted to finally manage to get both charity status and access to Tudor Street Day Centre, the building we'd been campaigning to save for the last couple of years. It was such an exciting thing to happen - it's so rare that you feel like a political campaign has comprehensively succeeded, and for a few precious weeks it felt like we'd managed to save an important resource as a lifeline for some of the least validated people in our community.
But that was short-lived. Truthfully, I believe that the situation for the most vulnerable people in Abergavenny and the surrounding areas is even worse now than it was before we set up the campaign. This, fundamentally, is the reason we're still going with it. Many, many times people in the community have sympathetically suggested that maybe it's better for our own wellbeing just to take a step back and distance ourselves from the project. And if it hadn't been a project that we'd set up, that is most likely what we would have done. But we can't, because we're part of the cause of this. None of this would be happening had we not pushed a campaign to save this building, and it would be morally wrong now to step away and let others pick up the pieces.
It has become apparent that people with whom we worked on the campaign in good faith, who we believed had the best interests of vulnerable people at heart, actually had an entirely different agenda. To protect the innocent, and particularly the most vulnerable, I will not be mentioning anyone's names here, but I will say that there was one in particular that did greatly shock me. This was someone that Owen and I have had in our home, stood next to at fundraising events, encouraged Owen to stand for Parliament and whom Owen once even nominated for an award - and, as a result, we gave significant amounts of influence to within the group, because they were one of the people we trusted most.
Our trust has been abused. After gaining access to Tudor Street Day Centre, a number of individuals immediately proceeded with a hate campaign against Owen, and by extension against myself. At first we didn't realise how big a problem this was going to turn out to be - the first couple of instances were just snide comments, many of which by people with learning difficulties or mental health issues who we thought had probably just misunderstood or misheard something. But then there were more and more issues - frightening and aggressive emails, shouting matches at trustee meetings, and more besides. When vulnerable individuals reported unpleasant or abusive behaviour they'd experienced/witnessed, the complaints procedures were intentionally interfered with. We heard that untrue and defamatory rumours, particularly about Owen, had been spread throughout the town - there was a suggestion that in the past he'd been sacked from working there, which wasn't true and had never been true. Many similar things have happened to other people involved - essentially, to anyone trying to keep the charity running to something of a professional standard and to enforce appropriate boundaries between trustees and service-users.
For about two thirds of the last year, there has been dispute between Owen and the charity as to whether he is actually still a trustee. The trustees conducted a vote to remove him, in a way which was not covered by the charity's Governing Document and which we've been advised by a solicitor is illegal. Subsequently to this 'removal', Owen continued to receive harassing and threatening emails from someone on the trustee team, some of them late at night or when we were on holiday, none of which had been provoked or warranted in any way. This thankfully has now stopped after we reported this behaviour to the police, although we are aware that other people have received similar treatment from this person.
With this kind of thing going on, it has been hard to remain aware of how the charity is being run day-to-day, but we are in touch with many people who've given us tidbits. I can't go into detail about anything, but I have heard about a number of situations involving vulnerable people that unquestionably constitute abuse. What I know is only through the grapevine, so there are probably other instances that I don't even know about yet. It is also the case that the Charity Commission, which is meant to regulate charities and similar bodies, has proven itself profoundly unhelpful and I would argue potentially complicit in these problems, to the extent that they didn't even respond to a formal letter from Owen's solicitor.
In 2018, a woman called Alana (who in the 1990s founded an involuntary celibacy project for people of all genders unlucky in love, which eventually led on to the modern incel movement, a deeply misogynistic hate movement) described feeling as though she was the scientist who figured out nuclear fission and later discovered it was being used as a weapon for war. I have similar feelings, having co-founded a community group which now actively harms some of the most vulnerable people. This isn't a situation I have ever been in before, or that I feel able to know how to mentally deal with now. This has been the most significant thing that has harmed me in 2025 - the guilt of my involvement with this, the constant 'what if?' questions, the intimidation I feel when my partner constantly receives threatening and frightening emails and the knowledge that no matter how bad I'm having it, there are others (including my own partner) experiencing far worse.
Thankfully I do believe the worst is now over. After much pushing and arguing, it does seem as though finally the council is taking notice. The thing I'm most concerned about is whether they'll then use this as an excuse to demolish Tudor Street Day Centre again. If they do, the campaign to save it restarts.
Fallouts with the Online Quiz League
I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on the blog, but I absolutely love quizzing. I've always been an enormous quiz enthusiast, ever since I caught a bit of Weakest Link when I was a child. Quizzing is actually something I do for a living now, asking the questions at pub quizzes at pubs and bars (one of the few good things that happened to me in 2025 was an increase in the amount of this kind of work I get).
More importantly, quizzing is how I switch off from politics. Everyone who is politically active needs a hobby, and this is mine. I have many lefty friends who hate the BBC so much that they've cancelled their TV licenses, and I have great admiration for them for doing so (the BBC has enormous numbers of flaws, that will probably be the subject of a different blog); but I myself cannot do this because I rely on the quiz shows to keep me sane. Particularly if you struggle with mental health, quizzing is quite a good thing for sanity because it's so reliable and straightforward, with correct and incorrect answers. Quizzing doesn't care if you're having a bad day or if you've done something you regret; it only cares if you know the year Sir Keir Starmer became an MP (spoiler: it's 2015). More importantly, the quiz won't judge you if you don't know. That's a feeling I think we could all do with more often.
But in 2025, I had a major falling out with the people who ran the Online Quiz League, for whom I'd given up many hours of my time to voluntarily read the questions for the previous couple of years. The fallout came as a result of a throwaway comment I made on a social media post about how as a reader I wasn't necessarily all that strict about keeping people to the 15-second time limit. Before I knew it, I was suddenly subjected to an official formal warning from the people who ran the league, and more distressing than that, an enormous amount of aggressive and pretty nasty comments, including from some well-known quizzers, attacking my character, calling me arrogant and a 'bellend' and essentially a level of bullying that I wouldn't accept from a group of nine-year-olds, let alone fully grown adults.
I think most of these people had not actually witnessed any of my quizzes. I wasn't all that strict about keeping people to time because I didn't need to be, because the participants self-regulated effectively - if they hadn't I'd have done things differently. 'Not being strict about timings' manifested itself by me starting a quiz by saying 'If you're having a slow brain day it's okay, take your time' and that was pretty much it. I felt that as an accessibility rights campaigner it was only fair to give everyone the benefit of the doubt unless they were clearly abusing it, and I cannot think of a single situation in which anyone did. We behaved like adults, and I don't recall ever having a single dispute with anyone over this, or a time when the outcome of a game had changed because of the way I handled it.
Nevertheless, I wasn't really given much opportunity to explain this. The action the OQL took was punitive and aggressive, and distressed me greatly. What distressed me more was that no action was ever taken about the horrible, bullying, aggressive comments I'd received on a series of public posts. When I explained my side of the story I was told I could carry on reading the questions if I wanted. I responded by politely suggesting that we work together to create an anti-bullying policy so that such a situation could never happen again. The OQL refused to have the slightest interaction with me on this. So I left - I could not continue to represent an organisation that cared so little about the wellbeing of the people in it.
I'm glad that I stood up for myself. I undoubtedly did the right thing by leaving, and I did receive some really kind and supportive comments from the people I quizzed with so it was nice to know that not everyone agreed with how I was treated. But it was an absolute wrench to leave all the same, because I loved doing it, I cared (and still care) deeply about quizzing as a sport and, particularly because of all the other difficult things happening with the Gathering and so on, it was a lovely thing to do to switch off, which everyone needs at times. I miss doing it and the people I used to do it with, if not the minutiae of the running of it.
Job Centre hell
I am no longer a Universal Credit recipient. I closed my account following my meltdown in September, which happened in the Job Centre.
It probably isn't necessary to go into great detail about quite how unpleasant and uncaring the staff at Job Centres can be, because that's detailed pretty thoroughly elsewhere and I imagine anyone that reads this blog will know quite how bad it can be. If anyone reading this is struggling with their benefit claim, I recommend this website.
For most of the time I was claiming, if I say so myself I was pretty good at dealing with the dismissive and unpleasant way they deal with people there. I met their attitude with good humour whilst also being quite assertive about things I wasn't happy with (for instance, the fact that they were completely inexperienced in helping anyone in my industry). But, with the other things going on and my declining state of mental health, eventually I was unable to cope anymore. I have no embarrassment about saying that I had a nervous breakdown right in the middle of the Job Centre in front of all the staff. It was a mental health thing, and a reaction to how they were treating me and speaking to me and how absolutely awful I felt within myself.
I'm not ashamed of this - I was ill and doing my best to cope, and it's important to be able to be upfront when you're vulnerable about things. I am continuing a complaints process against the staff at Abergavenny Job Centre and against Restart (the less said about Restart the better). I will not drop my complaint until it is successful - not for my own benefit (I have no intention of ever returning) but for the benefit of anyone else who isn't as able to walk away as I am.
There was one other thing that made last year incredibly difficult - I lost someone who I'd believed was becoming one of the closest friends I'd ever had. I don't want to go into detail about who they were or what caused that to happen (and to be honest, I'm not sure I really understand a lot of it myself - I've had a number of increasingly anxiety-inducing conversations with that person about why our formerly very supportive connection had become so toxic, and I still don't think I've really heard the truth. Perhaps the person doesn't even quite know themselves.) Some of my best friendships are ones that have been on ice for a while, so I sincerely hope that one day I'll be able to reconnect with this person as well, even if it's not for a couple of years. I don't blame them for it, although sometimes it's hard not to. But what I can say is that I think if that person had been there for me a bit more, all these other things might have been a little more bearable. And I just want to raise that to highlight the importance of having close friends, especially if you're someone who's politically active. If you're blessed with strong opinions and feel compelled to share them, people like to get in touch with you, and sometimes quite nasty people. There have been way too many days that I've spent too much time arguing lost causes on social media or fighting against unfeeling bureaucrats. I can do it, and I believe I'm quite good at it - but it can be energy-sapping as well, and it's essential that at the end of it, you have someone in your life that you can go for a coffee with and who makes you feel safe. I think I perhaps mistakenly put too many eggs in one basket, in that I relied too much on one specific person for this, and felt utterly lost and bewildered when they weren't there anymore. It's had a lasting effect on my self-esteem and my ability to form friendships. I guess you live and you learn... I probably won't rely quite so heavily on one person again. But just as equally, I think we can all think of times when we haven't been as good a friend to someone else as we ideally should be, and I raise this to urge anyone to reach out to someone like that, especially if you think that person might be struggling with life.
So there we are. A really hard year that took a great toll on my mental health, and now it's January in a year that I really hope will turn out to be an improvement. And I'd love to be able to say that I'm better, but I'm not. I still have many days when I have no energy, evenings when I feel worked up and angry, and moments in the day when emotion hits me and I just spontaneously want to cry. But thankfully, I can say that I'm getting better, and I'm finding things to do in my day that will help. Writing this blog is one of them, and I hope to write more going forward.
I will no longer publish blogs on, or update, my Twitter account - I tried to keep it going for a bit, but I've accepted that Elon Musk has ruined it now. I'm considering getting BlueSky, I know a lot of left-wing commentary types are on it. I also signed up for a SubStack account a while back that I haven't used since - maybe I'll look into that! If anyone has any ideas for ways to make progress, let me know.
But I would just l
ike to finish with a poem I wrote a few days ago. I wrote this to keep me going one evening when suddenly the emotion hit me, as described above. I find poetry a really therapeutic way to process your emotions and I've written a fair bit over the last couple of years. This one is only very short, but I think we can all use it to keep ourselves going when life is tough:
You know what you are doing
You know what must be done
It’s hard to remain steadfast
When you want to scream and run
You know what you are doing
The future’s on its way
As long as you keep stoic
For just another day
