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?

My Facebook My Twitter

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...'

My Facebook My Twitter

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


My Facebook My Twitter

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.

My Facebook My Twitter

So what exactly went wrong for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour?

'Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth'
Attributed to Joseph Goebbels

'Corbyn is unelectable'
Numerous

A little later than planned, here's my blog analysing exactly what caused Labour's major defeat on Thursday. Such analysis is very much necessary in order to learn from the problems, and I've spent the last several days reading thoughts from all sides of the political debate to further my own understanding.

The most common explanations that come up in the media over this are 'Because the public don't like Corbyn' or 'Because the public don't want another EU referendum'. Whilst I think there's an element of truth to both of these theories, they are incredibly simplistic and don't take into account the multitude of circumstances that caused this collossal defeat. Another thing that we frequently hear is that 'Labour has moved too far to the left', which would be laughable if it wasn't so horrifying. Labour's manifesto is highly popular when presented blindly without the party attached to it; it cost the Tories their majority in 2017 and has actually caused the Tories to be slightly less bad than they otherwise would have been - there are some things in the Conservative manifesto that are weak imitations of Labour's, which is quite significant given that in 2015 Ed Miliband's manifesto tried to bring a few things from David Cameron's. Things have shifted in politics, a long way, and I want to try to make sense of exactly what that is.

There are so many reasons it's difficult to know where to start, but given that everyone is expecting me to pull out excuses, I'll be fair and start with the things I'll admit Labour is at fault for. Given that Brexit is so frequently considered to be the big political topic of our time, let's start with that.

Brexit

Labour's Brexit pledge, despite what many in the media will have you believe, was fairly straighforward: negotiate the best deal possible within six months, then put it back to the electorate in a confirmatory referendum (and remaining as the other option), with the Prime Minister staying neutral as to which option should be chosen. This was the one major change from the 2017 election, which occurred shortly after Corbyn whipped his MPs into backing Article 50 (I was very angry about this at the time, and even wrote this open letter to Corbyn to object to it, but I want it on record that I no longer believe what I wrote, and I now feel that in the circumstances triggering Article 50 was the only choice to make). I think Labour probably messed up the Brexit pledge. I used to be a People's Vote campaigner, but I've changed my mind on this. This isn't because I think a second referendum would be anti-democratic (it wouldn't) but just because I think it would be harmful. David Cameron was incredibly keen on calling referendums on things that he didn't agree with personally (the EU referendum was his third in six years) and it's not a good way to answer complex political questions that the majority of people don't have in-depth knowledge of. The first referendum was utterly toxic; why would another one be any better?

I am still a Remainer, but I honestly can't envisage any outcome of that which would make things less divisive. My way of sorting out Brexit would be to bring the country back together and find some kind of compromise that everyone can live with, and that doesn't come from us all going back to the polls in another roll of the dice. (That said, I still think Labour's position was more mature than the other parties', because Labour did at least try to see both sides of it, but it didn't work, and wasn't going to work. Whichever we voted for, we're sick of talking about bloody Brexit, and want to get it over with.)

Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to interpret 'getting it over with' as 'leaving as quickly as possible'. That's not how it's going to work. The faster we leave, the more difficult it's going to be to make the proper arrangements to get by outside the EU. Even that is assuming the Government is actually going to try to make those arrangements in a way that will benefit ordinary people the most, which given that this is Boris Johnson I have no confidence in them doing. This won't be over for a long time.

Seemingly unfeasible policies

Note the word 'seemingly'. The policies in Labour's manifesto were not unfeasible or irresponsible; the Financial Times reported that 163 prominent ecomomists backed them. Labour's 2017 plans were fully costed, as were their 2019 ones.

However, in 2017, Labour's policies were concise, clear and most importantly had been seeded. Things like free broadband and cheaper rail fares are totally feasible, and are always going to be popular with the public - or at least, a public that believes you'll actually deliver it. Prior to the announcement of an election, when did you ever hear Labour talking about many of these issues? The way they were announced came across like a bunch of pie-in-the-sky promises, and the electorate were a bit too sceptical for their own good. The election may have been in December, but a manifesto is not a Christmas list. Tom Clark of Another Angry Voice notes that the majority of people don't really understand economics in detail; a country's budget is still commonly perceived as working like a household budget, without acknowledgement of the fact that in a country's budget, public spending doesn't just lose the money; it puts it back into the economy, creating a win-win situation. You cannot make a bunch of election promises that people don't expect you to keep, even if you are entirely capable and willing to keep them.

Electoral pacts

This is something I think other parties hold more fault for than Labour, which I'll discuss in more detail further down the blog, but I have to express my concerns with Labour's rigidity, and unwillingness to agree to electoral pacts with other parties, thus splitting the left-wing vote. I recall in 2017, they were quite heavily criticised for not standing down in Jeremy Hunt's constituency of South West Surrey, even though Louise Irvine of National Health Action was standing against Hunt for the benefit of the NHS. Labour tends to be quite archaic about things relating to electoral reform generally (something I disagree with them quite strongly on) and I'd really like to see them do a bit more progressive with ideologically similar parties such as the Green Party.

However, I also think there was a lot outside of Labour's control that seriously sabotaged the campaign, as follows:

A huge part of the issue for Labour, for me, lies with the behaviour of the Liberal Democrats. There was once a time when their forerunners, the Liberal Party, were the official opposition to the Conservatives, and around the time of New Labour had quite a strong opposition vibe. In 2003 under the late Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrats opposed Tony Blair over the Iraq War, whilst the Conservatives largely voted in favour. However, since Nick Clegg I feel the party has become very opportunistic and quite careerist, and Jo Swinson, who in Government was more loyal to the Conservative whip than Jeremy Hunt was, is the epitome of this. During this campaign and before it, Swinson was seen to be far more critical of Labour than she was of the Conservative Party, continuously saying that she'd refuse to work with Jeremy Corbyn under any circumstances - and avoiding the question about working with Boris Johnson. The Liberal Democrats' insistence on standing on the single issue of ignoring the 2016 referendum result (despite the fact that such a thing is neither liberal nor democratic) helped Boris Johnson immeasurably in keeping the election firmly about Brexit, and disregarding all of the very important austerity reversals that Labour was promoting. Ideologically, the Liberal Democrats are (supposedly) closer to traditional Labour than they are to the Conservatives - not on this evidence they aren't. When the Conservatives were dying and unable to get anything through Parliament, Jo Swinson enthusiastically and arrogantly backed an election, ignoring the fact that her brand of politics is nearly as unpalatable.

But it's worse than that. Ben Gelblum in the London Economic writes that through tactical strategies, the Liberal Democrats had a tendency to position themselves, not Labour, as the tactical voting choice in constituencies where Labour didn't stand a chance. This strategy caused some fantastic Labour MPs in marginal seats, such as Westminster's Emma Dent Coad, lost their seats to the Conservatives - because the Liberal Democrats had falsely led voters to believe that they'd be better off voting for them, which split the anti-Tory vote. This tactical approach extended to supporting other alternative parties, such as the Green Party and Plaid Cymru, but not Labour or the SNP. Before anyone comes back with this argument, I know Labour is a bit too rigid on election pacts - I've acknowledged that earlier in this very blog. But in the circumstances, that shouldn't matter. Last week, I canvassed in the Totnes constituency for Labour candidate Louise Webberley, standing against Tory-turned-Liberal Democrat Sarah Wollaston. I was appalled to hear the amount of pressure Louise had been under to stand down for the benefit of Wollaston, from everyone to the Green Party and even from Extinction Rebellion. Wollaston was a Tory in all but name! Being opposed to Brexit doesn't change the fact that you voted through all the ghastly, horrific things the party has done in the last nine years. I was particularly disappointed by the Green Party, who I have voted for in the past and who I generally support. This was the main reason that in my own constituency I chose to re-elect Labour's Thangam Debbonaire over the Green Party's Carla Denyer, despite knowing Carla personally and having far more faith in her than in Thangam. I felt that in the circumstances, I could not support a party that was making alliances like this, even if I liked the specific candidate.

I really hope that in the wake of this, with Jo Swinson having lost her seat along with all of the Labour and Conservative MPs who defected to the Liberal Democrats, this causes the Liberal Democrats to change their ways a bit and become more opposition material. I can't say who I would like to see lead them, but in my mind it must be someone who wasn't there from 2010-2015. I think the Liberal Democrats are still reparable (after all, Labour was hardly better than them under Miliband, but I think they have at least learned their lesson) but they have to acknowledge their past errors and move on if they have any realistic future.

However, I feel that the real culprit in this is the constant, disgusting smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn. This was a problem in 2017 as well (if it hadn't been I think Labour would have won a thumping victory in that one) but in the last two years this has been ramped up significantly, including by the supposedly impartial BBC, which this time went as far as editing an interview with Boris Johnson to make it sound as if one of his statements was greeted by applause, rather than laughter. We hear so much - 'Jeremy Corbyn is friends with terrorists!' 'Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Zionist!' 'Jeremy Corbyn shared a platform with a Holocaust survivor who believes this!' 'Jeremy Corbyn will turn us into socialists!' (People who shout the last one tend not to be quite sure what socialism is.) And I'm afraid that this is something that has been caused on purpose, including by people who are supposedly left-wing. We have Polly Toynbee and Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian talking about his supposed 'lack of charisma' (a claim anyone who has ever heard him speak can refute). We have people claiming everything from misogyny to terrorism, from being too weak to being too heavy-handed; the general aim has been to throw as much mud as possible in the hope that something sticks, even if it completely contradicts itself. When it doesn't work, they just claim that Corbyn is 'unelectable' - despite his incarnation of Labour completely turning things around in 2017 and losing the Tories their majority.

I think all of the smears have collectively had an impact, but by far the most significant one is the supposed anti-Semitism claim. I think this probably originated from Corbyn's public support of Palestine (which incidentally is NOT anti-Semitic - I've been accused of anti-Semitism myself for this, ignoring the fact that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism and that huge numbers of Jews are also on this campaign). Shaun Lawson writes this wonderful article outlining how anti-Semitic the anti-Corbyn narrative itself is - I've heard non-Jewish people publicly referring to Jewish Corbyn supporters with the slur 'self-hating Jew', without being picked up on this. I have also heard people claim that to be anti-capitalist is to be anti-Semitic, which is incredibly anti-Semitic in itself because it relies on the age-old trope of Jews being associated with banks and financial industry. Let me be clear: I have no doubt that there have most likely been occasions on which anti-Semitism in the Labour Party hasn't been handled as well as it should. Mistakes have surely been made, and they shouldn't be overlooked. But that does not mean that Labour itself is inherently anti-Semitic, especially when its main rival openly brags about its 'hostile environments' and actually congratulates itself when being accused of Islamophobia. The truth is that Labour was accused of this constantly, and the narrative didn't even take into account all of the facts - for example, Andrew Neil's 'Just apologise!' interview neither specified precisely what Corbyn was meant to be accepting responsibility for, nor took into account Corbyn's continued campaigns against anti-Semitism. His Parliamentary history includes numerous condemnations of anti-Semitism, resistence to the National Front, demands to accept Jewish refugees from Yemen... how often do you hear this reported in the media? The worst thing about this cynicism is that it undermines genuine claims of anti-Semitism. It's The Boy Who Cried Wolf in action, because not every allegation is untrue.

I hope that Labour doesn't come away from this feeling that it has to radically change its positions on things, because there's nothing wrong with Labour's actual policies - as I said above, they are realistic, costed and it's not even as if the public don't agree with them. I don't believe that the people of Scotland actually hold markedly different values than the people of England and Wales, as pundits tend to claim - apart from possibly wanting independence, but can you blame them? I don't want Scotland to leave the union at all, but if it does I will shake its hand and wish it luck - if I were a Scot, I'd hate England and Westminster as well. But in the meantime, Labour must prove an effective opposition, as it didn't under Ed Miliband. I think in some ways Labour under Corbyn did win the arguments about some of its policies, because in 2017 the electorate took some hope and positivity from the campaign, and I sincerely wish this to continue under the next leader. We cannot return to the days of abstaining on workfare. If anything does change with Labour, I hope it will be in the form of supporting an alternative to First Past The Post. The Tories actually received only around 270,000 more votes than in 2017, but our archaic system meant that this time it equated to +48 seats.

Before I conclude (and I realise this has been a very long blog) I'd like to say something about social media. I was really sad to see Lily Allen delete her Twitter account the other day, because she's a great campaigner and it was always a pleasure to see what she had to say. Her argument was that social media is toxic, caused the election result and other things such as the election of Donald Trump in the US. Although I think she has a point, I would say that social media is neither good nor bad. I liken it to a hammer; something that can cause someone to be severely hurt or a beautiful structure to be built, but neither is done directly by the hammer, but by the person wielding it. More importantly, we've created a world in which social media is necessary. It has some very serious flaws, but it's the one part of the media where independent voices have a chance to be heard, where Rupert Murdoch's power is curtailed. We can, and must, use it.

The establishment said that Corbyn was unelectable; I don't believe he was at the time, but sadly they've made him so, and he will go down in history as the best Prime Minister we ever nearly had.



My Facebook

My Twitter

Mourn, then organise

I was born on Tuesday, 19th October, 1993. As of the day of me writing this (13th December 2019) I have been alive 9,551 days. I can truthfully say, without being dramatic, that yesterday was the worst day of my life.

Before anyone asks, this wasn't just because of the election results - it was just one of those days where everything that can go wrong does, from a minor annoyance (my boyfriend lost his hat) to a pretty frustrating irritation (I had lunch in town, and it wasn't very nice) to something that worries me professionally (I had a phone conversation with a professional contact, and it didn't go the way I hoped it would). But of course, if Labour had won the election it would have made all of those things better. They spectacularly lost, making a pretty shit day into an utterly catastrophic one.

As I write this the evening after, I am pretty tired, having only really spent three of the last 36 hours asleep. I had prepared myself for it to be bad, but nothing had ever prepared me for it to be that bad. Before the results, I was really anxious but kind of feeling that a Labour win might happen (perhaps backed up by the SNP, but I could live with that). I had resigned myself to thinking that the Tories could cling to power again, or even increase their vote share and get a majority. But it was far, far worse than that. Labour did so badly that the Tories got what on air was referred to as 'a thumping majority'.

There are all sorts of reasons for this which I'll go into in more detail in tomorrow's blog when I'm less tired and can formulate a sentence better. This one is more about how to avoid despair.

I was absolutely gobsmacked at the result. My poor boyfriend had to cuddle me for hours, and even then I wouldn't settle. Normally I sit up all night, but this time I was convinced to go to bed at around 3am (a bit pointlessly, because of course I couldn't sleep). But thankfully, I have spent the day thinking to myself about how I'm going to deal with this.

When David Cameron's Tories were re-elected in 2015, I was in the second year of my Creative Performance degree in Colchester. My University experience was not a happy time and my memories of it are a bit blurry, but I did write these two quite positive blogs on the election. They've been interesting to re-read (they're a lot less cringe than I was expecting!) It has been fascinating to see how much has changed, but I think most of what I wrote then is still relevant to today.

I can honestly say that I'm far more frightened now than I was in 2015. In my previous blog, I said that I believed this to be the last chance to get change - and in truth, I still believe that. I know this isn't a nice thing to hear, but realistically I think we've lost the battle now. I believe that so much damage will be caused by Boris Johnson's administration over the next five years that it will be irreversible - things like dodgy trade deals, environmental destruction and boundary changes in constituencies aren't things that even the best future Government can undo. Not that I think there will BE a good future Government - with the departure of Jeremy Corbyn comes what to me feels like the departure of the Labour Party's belief that an alternative and positive politics is possible or desirable. I have been wrong in the past, many times, and I'll be wrong again in the future. I sincerely hope that this is one of those occasions on which I'm spectacularly wrong, and that one day on a subsequent blog I'll link back to this one and laugh at how doom-mongery I was at 26. I hope that will happen, more than anything else.

However, I will not be all doom and gloom. I've had this blog since I first got involved in political activism, when I was a fresh-faced sixth-former determined to do some good in the world. My earliest blogs are so cringe-worthy I can't bear to read them - but at least I updated it more regularly then. This last couple of years, I really haven't been good with it. I haven't really done any activism since my very highly-publicised work on transgender rights in mid-2018. I don't know quite why this is - I have often thought about it and planned to do things, but I never seem to quite get around to it. Honestly, I feel I have lost my nerve. I'm much more frightened by the police and the establishment than I once was - probably because now approaching my late twenties, I'm settling down and maturing. A good thing by all accounts, but I think I've lost a bit of my old spirit.

BUT... I'm getting it back. I have to, and so should you if you're reading this. The reason is that this Government is going to be the most horrific we've ever had. I'm sorry to be that frank, but I cannot sugar-coat it. The Conservative Party is the most spiteful and divisive it has been in living memory, and this is the most successful election it has had since the time of Margaret Thatcher. I don't know how much of what it does can be overcome, in all honesty. But we must try. If we don't, it will be even worse than it inevitably will be. Every time we make it so that someone doesn't suffer as much as they otherwise would have, we've won a battle. We can only resist this divisiveness with kindness, caring and compassion.

Thankfully I have some great contacts that I've been talking to about creating a kinder politics, and I'm going to start by throwing my hat into the ring and making a pledge to update this blog every evening. I won't promise that for certain, because we all know that in the past I've had good intentions like that and I haven't always managed to keep up to them. But I'll do my best. Mentally, I'm more focussed on what is going on and how I can help when I'm writing on here. I will keep you updated about all the work I'm doing, and other people are doing, to counter the suffering that this horrible Government is inflicting. I will send you links and keep you motivated. I'll advertise protests, and discuss how they went afterwards.

This is our life calling. I'd rather not be living in an era where our livelihoods depend on how daring we are, but that's hard luck. The Government is counting on us not being organised - let's make sure we are.

2019 election

Before we start, have a watch of my song. I wrote it myself (with a little help from my boyfriend and one of our friends), with vocals by my wonderful friend and activist China Blue Fish:

Hope you enjoyed it! Was fun to write.

It's been over a year since I've updated this blog, and the main reason is that this year I've done very little in the way of activism. I've been a little involved with Extinction Rebellion, but that is as far as I've gone. I feel quite ashamed of this, and if anything if I'd kept up with this blog it probably would have focussed and inspired me a bit more. Here's to better work in 2020!

But... I have to talk about this election.

In 2017, I was terrified. I was certain that Theresa May would get her supermajority, that climate change would destroy the world, that all our services would be destroyed... and so on. I was so terrified I honestly considered suicide during that campaign.

And then... it didn't quite happen, did it? May lost her majority, I went for a big breakfast at my favourite vegan cafe, met a lovely mental health worker and her parents and thought about all the good things in the world.

But somehow, the Tories managed to cling to power, as they do. The fact that they've been unable to fully bring in any controversial legislation over the last two years has been the only consolation... something that by rights I shouldn't be celebrating as it means we've lost two years, but given this particular party's history I'd rather have lost two years than have the world subjected to the horror of the alternative.

And now we're at it again. We have Boris Johnson in power, and a similar situation to last time around really. And again, I'm terrified. I'm slightly more hopeful than I was last time, but that hope makes me terrified again. And the thing that terrifies me most is that I honestly think that this is our last chance. If the Tories win this one, it will be boundary changes, ID at polling stations, trade deals that future Governments cannot undo, more corporatism, more austerity, more deaths... If you want to read more about this there is SO MUCH OUT THERE. Go on They Work For You, see what our cabinet has voted in favour of. Check out news articles. Hell, read Wikipedia. This stuff isn't difficult to find. It's frankly frightening.

If you're lucky enough to be one of the people who owns their own property and has a lot of money in the bank, fantastic. Think of the most vulnerable people you know. Think of the homeless person you pass on the street. Think of the child from a working family who relies on charitable donations to food banks. Think of your own children and grandchildren, because climate change will affect us all, no matter how much capital you own.

And then, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, vote Labour.

I'm voting Labour in this election. I have never done so before - I've always gone for the Green Party. As the son of a prominent Green campaigner, I feel quite bad not doing so this time, particularly in Bristol West where the Green Party has a good chance of winning, and candidate Carla Denyer (who I know personally) is far superior to incumbent Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire. But unfortunately, on this occasion, I feel that the Green Party as a whole has let Carla down too much for me to vote for her. There are many reasons for this, but the central one is that in many seats the Green Party has stood down for the Liberal Democrats, and vice versa. I don't feel that the Liberal Democrats are at all trustworthy, especially under Jo Swinson - they weren't a valid alternative in 2010, and they aren't a valid alternative now. At this election, my opinion is that there is only one valid alternative, and that is Labour under Jeremy Corbyn.

We can do this. It's not too late. Tomorrow's election has not happened yet, and there is still time to make your voice heard. Don't just vote. Ring friends, text, message them on Facebook, or go the old-fashioned way and talk in person. If polls are telling you Labour are a lost cause - ask yourself, are the polls always right? Forty years since Thatcher came to power, we MUST stand together and fight the system, because if Boris Johnson is still Prime Minister on Friday, we are in for some very, very dark nights. Read the Tories' history. Ask yourself, why would they promise to do better if they haven't done for the past nine years? Then read Labour's manifesto, or listen to my song again. Even if they only achieve half of what they promise, that's still better than the Tories achieving half again of the cruelty they've inflicted on the most vulnerable.

Below is a post from one of my favourite singers, Grace Petrie, addressing the most frequent criticisms of Labour and its leader. May God have mercy on our souls.



'Here we are, days from the election of a lifetime and folks still have questions for me about Corbyn. In the interest of not boring them in person, I have decided to bore them in writing. This is not an exhaustive list of the criticisms I hear, but I hope my perspective might offer some clarity if you are someone who is struggling to reconcile wanting to vote for Labour with support for Corbyn. I offer this in genuine good faith, not the belief that I am right about everything or anything, but that if you want my opinion, and some have asked for it, here it is.



Q. Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite?

A. Before anything else, let me say that nothing has ever shaken my faith in the Corbyn project as strongly as this accusation. I have never dismissed it. I have never (and I would never) call it a smear. My personal politics, I deeply hope, would instruct anyone who knows me to accept that there is no political movement I would support if there was a racist or any type of bigot at its helm and I have interrogated this as rigorously as I can and read from a spectrum of different perspectives to reach an opinion. That opinion that I believe in my heart is: no, he is not an anti-Semite. If he was, he has been so deeply undercover for so many decades that he’s done the cause of anti-semitism much more harm than good, from signing motions condemning it as far back 1990 to organising the clean up of Finsbury Park synagogue after an anti-semitic attack in 2002, long before the notion of leadership was a glint in his eye. Do I believe that he has always been as vigilant at recognising anti-semitism as he could and should have been? No. But I can hardly criticise that knowing that five years ago, I would not have been as good at spotting the codes and tropes and dog whistles that anti-semites use as I am now. I was uneducated. I have looked to educate myself further and I will continue to. I believe Corbyn has and is doing the same because I believe he wants to understand and fight racism. I do not believe that, in his numerous condemnations of anti-semitism, he is secretly courting those who pursue it. I do not believe that he means harm to Jewish people in Britain BUT - and this bit IS SO IMPORTANT - if anything happens under a Labour or Corbyn government that would pose any risk to Jewish people in anyway, they have my total solidarity and my unconditional, unmitigated promise that I will be the first person to oppose it whoever and wherever it comes from. I would and will be your comrade in this fight whoever your oppressor is. In my heart, I don’t believe Corbyn poses a threat to you. That is my sincere and well examined view.


Q. Corbyn’s spending will tank the economy?

A. No it won’t! The manifesto is fully costed. You would be amazed how much more money we would have if insanely rich people were paying taxes properly, but in any case - how many people have you walked past sleeping on the streets this winter? Do you honestly regard that as a “working economy”? Do you think that the thousands of children living in poverty is a moral, justifiable price to pay for what you might think of as balancing the books? Even though we invented the books, we invented money, and we did so as a way to organise our resources? Do you think that we are organising our resources successfully if there are people dying in our streets for lack of food? Real human people? While there are people at the top of society who have more money than they will ever need, and aren’t contributing fairly to the collective pot? The economy is ALREADY broken.


Q. Britain wants a centrist option! Labour under Corbyn are too left-wing!

A. I mean - Ed Miliband was hardly a communist, and he only managed 232 seats in 2015, opposing a deeply hard-right Conservative in David Cameron. Corbyn’s most media-ready challenger was viewed by many as bright young Blairite Chuka Umunna, who you may remember split off to form Change UK as a credible centrist option in February. (Yes, February this year. I know. 10 months is a long time in politics.) Change UK instantly evaporated in the polls and Umunna jumped ship again to join what we are contractually obliged to call Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats, whose brand of nuke-happy centrism doesn’t seem to be winning the hearts and minds that many commentators might have predicted. Meanwhile Labour under Corbyn has gained 150,000 members. For context, at the height of Blairism in 1997 the party had 400,000 members. We are now on 485,000. The numbers of people inspired to canvass for Labour in this campaign are unprecedented. So you must forgive me for not believing that there lies within the heart of the British electorate a thirst for centrism that never turned out for Miliband and doesn’t seem to be turning out for Jo Swinson (or Tim Farron).

But even if that were true - this Labour Party isn’t even that leftwing! Ask yourself where you got ideas of “hard leftism” from. We are talking about funding the NHS, ensuring that social care meets need, giving schools the funds they need to run properly, and taking ownership of public services so that they are not run incompetently for the grotesque profit of private billionaires, but efficiently with public service as their aim. Tell me what is too hardline about that for you?


Q. Look, I like the policies but he’s just unelectable. How can he win?

A. An honest question in return. Who is more electable? Jeremy Corbyn has spent over 35 years in parliament, and with every single element of the British establishment digging for dirt for four long years, nothing so much as a dubious expense claim has been discovered in his closet that they can find to attack him with. He doesn’t drink. He’s vegetarian. He makes jam. He speaks Spanish to his cat. He has been on the right side of every political issue that he has faced. The worst they can find on him is he doesn’t watch the Queen’s speech at Christmas (spending it instead by volunteering at a homeless shelter), and they have fought tooth and nail to make a news story of it. Meanwhile Boris Johnson, the most racist, homophobic, obnoxious, philandering, dishonest, untrustworthy mess to ever embarrass Britain on the global stage is more publicly liked. Do you see nothing wrong with this picture?


Please make no mistake that anyone who only wants power in order to radically change who it belongs to will be subjected to every bit of misinformation, vilification and distortion Corbyn has been. Yes, even Jess Phillips! “Electability” is a made up concept and is decided by the media. The game is rigged to protect the interests of the rich and anyone who poses a threat to that will be discredited in a co-ordinated and deliberate manner. This is something that we all basically accept as true AND YET! I see so many people saying they see through all that “but, but, but a different leader....” THE GAME IS RIGGED. The only type of leader they would give an easy ride to would be one on their side; in short, one not worth electing.


Q. So how can we possibly win with all that against us?

A. Because we are bigger than the establishment. Because we can be louder than the media. Because we all have a voice and we can use it to be heard above the system that is relying on us not working that out. Because 4 million people signed up to vote. Because we can control the narrative if we decide to take it away from the papers and the BBC. Because people power is what the Labour movement was built on and you still have 6 days to bring the idea to every doorstep in this country not just that things could be better - but that they SHOULD be better. That we live with absolutely incredible levels of corruption and we have thought it’s normal for so long that we have forgotten to imagine a better life.


I don’t know what is going to happen on Thursday but I know it is the choice of a century, the choice between kindness and compassion and giving a fuck about each other, versus fear and division and turning our backs on the people in the street, trying to forget that they could be us. That they ARE us. Whatever happens, whatever the result, I need to know, for the sake of every one who needs this change much more than I do, that I did everything that I could.


Vote Labour pls.'