I wrote this email to Conservative David TC Davies, who has recently become my local MP. Given the party he represents and his previous record I am somewhat sceptical about his likelihood of impressing me on this - but maybe he'll surprise me, stranger things have happened!
My name is George Harold Millman. I'm an actor, scriptwriter and political activist.
Firstly, I'd like to say hello to you. I've only recently moved into your constituency and I'm delighted to make your acquaintance - we haven't met, but I believe you know my partner Owen, who is a prominent disability rights campaigner in the Abergavenny area. I have no doubt I'll be writing to you often about various political matters that I'm concerned about (just to keep things transparent, I also generally publish letters to my MP and their responses on my blog, The Rebel Without A Clause).
This first letter I'm writing to you is in relation to the debate that the Labour MP Apsana Begum has secured for this coming Thursday, 8th February, concerning humanitarian aid and children in Gaza. I wanted to ask if you're planning to attend? I sincerely hope that you are.
This year marks ten years that I've been actively involved in the campaign for the freedom of Palestinians. It's a matter that is very close to my heart, and I've been dismayed to see how the situation seems to have become actively worse since 2014, which is when I first realised the extent of it. I am additionally horrified by how much Western powers have turned a blind eye to the scale of the situation for Palestinians since October, and how this has manifested itself in ways such as withholding funding for UNWRA, the UN agency charged with making life a bit more bearable for civilians in the region.
I'll be truthful in that I haven't been at all impressed with your party's actions in relation to this subject - however, I know from experience that my opinions of a party as a whole are not necessarily the same as my opinions of individual MPs (I have been just as disappointed by Labour on this as I have with the Conservatives, and yet this naturally doesn't extend to Apsana Begum, who seems to be really going above and beyond to help). I really hope that I'll be able to see the same from you.
My name is George Harold Millman. I'm an actor, scriptwriter and political activist.
I am writing to you concerning the current situation in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere in Palestine, and particularly in relation to two matters. Firstly, I was very disturbed by a recent video, filmed on 25 January, in which you were confronted by a number of protesters during a speech in your constituency. The protesters were ejected by security whilst you looked on and said 'thank you' repeatedly.
I'm always upset to see people treated in this way when trying to express dissatisfaction with their elected representatives, even if that dissatisfaction is being expressed in a confrontational way - I think that the public would generally be more satisfied with their politicians if they felt that said politicians were listening to them and respectful of them. However, there was one particular protester for whom I was particularly shocked and disturbed by your reaction. His name is Dalloul al-Neder, and recently his family in Palestine were killed in the ongoing Israeli campaign against the Palestinian people.
Dalloul was trying to show pictures of his family members who had been killed. You had the opportunity to demonstrate the Labour Party as a party of the people, and yourself as a politician of great empathy and compassion. But you did not do this. You stood there, emotionless and silent, and watched him being removed from the venue. I want to ask, in as polite a way as I can, how you were capable of showing this little feeling when faced with a fellow human being in pain? You are a mother and a grandmother; I'd like you to think about how you would feel if you had been killed, and one of your grieving relatives was treated like this when trying to talk about you. Even if as a senior Labour politician you weren't able to help him in that precise moment, you could have asked him to stay and talk to you afterwards so that you could listen to him talk and represent his feelings back to the heart of the Labour Party - or at the very least, asked security not to be so rough with him. Why did you not do that?
In your reaction to Dalloul, you demonstrated to me that you are not who I thought you were. When Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the Labour Party, you were always my favourite member of the Shadow Cabinet. I thought you were a phenomenal Shadow Education Secretary at that time, and I even remember confessing to friends around that point that I respected you more even more than I respected Jeremy. When Keir Starmer took over as leader in 2020, I quickly came to realise that I couldn't support a lot of his actions as leader - but I took some solace in the fact that we still had you as Deputy Leader. As a working-class woman who left school with no qualifications, was a teenage mum and had a lot of experience working with the trade unions, I had no doubt that you'd be a wonderfully warm and tough Deputy Leader, keeping the party in shape and reminding those in the top positions that ultimately you're a party of the many, not the few. I have truly never been as ashamed of having faith in any politician - I think the only other time since I've been politically active was with Nick Clegg over university tuition fees in 2010, but I actually think the callousness of your reaction to Dalloul al-Neder is greater than anything I saw from Clegg. In Clegg, I just see a very poor strategist who perhaps didn't fully understand the harm that he was doing. In your case, I know that you do understand. Following this confrontation, it was revealed on social that you have actually met Dalloul in the past; in 2019, you visited his shop, posed for a picture with him and told him that you believed in the unequivocal freedom of Palestinians. Did you ever truly believe that, or did you just say in in 2019 because that was Labour's position at the time?
Talking of Labour's position at the time, I want to ask more generally what Labour's position over this genocide is (and I use the word genocide consciously, as I believe that what we're seeing is a genocide). On a recent talk show, you were asked if the Labour Party believes that what we're seeing is a genocide. You responded that you don't know, but that the ICJ made a good case for that fact. I would have preferred you to say publicly that it is a genocide; however, I do respect your diplomatic answer in this case, especially as we have an international court case to work alongside. I am at least glad that you acknowledged that it could be. However, your Labour colleague Kate Osamor, the MP for Edmonton, was recently suspended from the party after she included Gaza in a list of genocides in a letter for Holocaust Memorial Day (alongside Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia). If, as you inferred on that talk show, what we're seeing is perhaps a genocide and that we need to remain open to the possibility it might be, does this not mean that Labour MPs should be free to say that they believe it is if they so wish? Are Labour MPs free to say this? If not, why not, if this position is in line with the ICJ's findings?
Labour's position on what is happening in the Gaza Strip is something that I have found it very distressing to watch, as have many others that I've spoken to. Especially given that this is an election year, I think this is something that Labour should think about very carefully. Having said that, I think Labour should take policy positions more because they're morally right than because they're vote winners - but in any case, I don't believe that Labour's current position is a vote winner. The only way I could ever consider voting Labour at the next election would be if my own local candidate was prepared to publicly condemn Israel for what they're currently doing - I do not know at the time of writing if that is the case.
Best wishes,
George Harold Millman
I wrote this to Angela Rayner MP, the Shadow Deputy Prime Minister and current Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, at the time of publication. I will update this blog with any reply I receive.
This is a blog that just a couple of years ago, it wouldn't have occurred to me to write. In fact, until recently I would have thought that a lot of what I'm going to say completely contradicted my beliefs about human society. I still hold the same beliefs I did before, which is why I need to make something very plain before we start.
I lived with more than thirty different people, many of them foreign nationals, at various different times before I was twenty. My secondary school was in a very urban area, with an enormous amount of diversity between the ethnicities and cultures of the pupils (to the extent that in some of my classes, I was in a minority as a white person). I found this an amazingly positive experience, although it did give me the impression that racism was more a thing of the past than it actually was, and that was quite a bitter pill to swallow later. I don't believe in the exclusion of anyone from our social groups based on personal characteristics. I would like the entire world to have an open borders policy, where anyone can if they wish leave the place they are living and go to live anywhere else without much hassle. I was appalled by the amount of racism we saw in the mid- to late-2010s, and deeply offended when then Prime Minister Theresa May said 'If you're a citizen of the world, you're a citizen of nowhere'. I've been disturbed by the Government's Rwanda policy, and furious that the Labour Party has not taken a firm line against the constant rhetoric that there are people who 'deserve' to be here and people who don't. The position that we all share this planet, and that no one has any more right to a particular part of it than anyone else does, is probably the most core of all my beliefs. Please keep this in mind as I write about communities; the argument I'm going to make is an important one, but I think is often misused by people who actually want to stir up conflict. This is not what I'm doing.
Although it's important to always bear in mind that we're all ultimately citizens of the world with equal rights, it has occurred to me over the last year or so that being part of your own group, which reflects your feelings and your ideals, is important as well. I'd never quite realised this before - in the past I've always been a fairly individualist person - but there are two things in particular that have caused me to think more about these things: moving from one of England's biggest cities to a small town in the Welsh countryside, and my work with OCISA.
OCISA is a campaign group that I've been engaging with frequently over the past year. The name stands for Organise Corbyn Inspired Socialist Alliance (you can take a look at their website here). It's more than a single issue campaign, but they were founded to focus on one key aim - to unseat Keir Starmer at the next election. I won't go into detail here about exactly what my issues are with the current Leader of the Labour Party (I've written about that in other blogs, such as this one and also this one) but the subject of this blog is not so much why it's being done, but how it's being done. The majority of the work being done by OCISA is taking place in the London constituency of Holborn St Pancras, which is Keir Starmer's Parliamentary seat, and the idea is to select an independent candidate that represents the feelings of the local community better than Starmer. Not living in that constituency, I have no idea how this is going or what the locals' feelings are towards their local MP - but I've heard from hearsay that there's been a fair bit of interest, so maybe it could happen. Who knows?
The point that interests me is that this is pretty much the first time that I can remember where a major political figure was discussed at all in relation to the values held by the constituents they represent. Given that electing one's local MP is the entirety of our constitutional democracy, you'd think that this would be the most important factor in discussing these people, but strangely it very rarely seems to be so. And thinking about this made me think about constituencies more generally. Until a couple of months ago, I lived in Bristol West, which is perhaps the most radically left-wing constituency in the country (it's where the Colston statue came down, and the Tories don't even bother to campaign properly there as they know they have no chance). And yet, the incumbent Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire is nowhere near as left-wing, was heavily involved in the 'chicken coup' against Jeremy Corbyn in 2016, and is now part of Keir Starmer's Shadow Cabinet. You can find a lot of my indignant emails to Thangam in the backlog of my blog - truthfully, I really regret voting Labour in 2019, in spite of the fact that I hoped they would win nationwide, because it resulted in an MP that absolutely does not share my values, or even the reasons I supported her own party at the time.
I've heard quite a lot of people, many of whom share my political views, saying that the constituency system is outdated, and that we should directly elect the Prime Minister in the same way that US citizens directly elect the President. Although I partially agree and would like to see a more democratic means of selecting a Prime Minister, I'm not sure the solution is to abolish constituencies entirely. When I lived in Bristol West I felt that there really was a strong community spirit that I felt a part of - these were people who shared my feelings, my values, my fears and my desires, and were willing to listen to me when we differed (and I them). It was the establishment that didn't respect these things. I actually think that the problem is that constituencies have been undermined, and I think the key to that is in our party setup. Whichever party your MP happens to belong to, the feelings in your own community are unlikely to be the main criteria for their decisions on how to vote, who to meet with or what speeches to make - this is more likely to be determined by their party, which likely will not have very much association with the community in which you live. Even worse, a lot of parties put forward the people they want to be elected into the party's 'safe seats' where they're highly likely to get enough votes - they may not have even been there before, let alone understand the community's values. What, then, is the point of creating a constituency and electing someone to represent that, if they aren't really going to do so?
With all the talk about trying to elect an independent in Holborn St Pancras, I've started thinking about other constituencies. In 2019 I found it really hard to decide who to vote for, because I wanted to support Labour and Jeremy Corbyn but I also really didn't want to re-elect Thangam Debbonaire - in the end I did vote Labour, but in hindsight I think it was the wrong decision. I haven't lived in my new place long enough to have decided yet who to vote for or even to be quite sure who's standing, but if there is an independent candidate I may well consider voting for them (only if I like their views, of course). In fact, I think it would be good if every constituency elected an independent candidate. An entire House of Commons filled with independents dedicated to their own constituencies would, in my view, be far better for representing the overall mood of the UK. This is an idea that a lot of people immediately dismiss, citing that it would lack stability, be harder to create a Government of continuity, and so on. Perhaps it would. But in the end, isn't that the whole idea behind the Parliamentary set-up in the first place? If it's not for the values of individual constituencies to be reflected independently of one another, what actually is the point of any of it? We may as well have an entirely new system if we're not going to do what I'm suggesting.
All this comes back to the fact that individual communities of people (not just within the boundaries of Parliamentary constituencies) have very distinctive personalities. I think it's important that these are nurtured, and that the people within them talk to one another and establish what they hold dear. How does this square with my strongly-held beliefs that we are global citizens that shouldn't segregate ourselves? Well, just because a community link exists between people, that doesn't mean that they're closing themselves off to newcomers. I've experienced this myself in my recent move. I've been absolutely blown away by how welcome my partner and I have been made to feel in this Welsh town we've moved to. Although we've only been here a few months, we already have loads of new friends (still keeping in touch with the old ones, of course) and we're really getting a feel for the vibe of this new community. My partner has set up a charity to campaign for the rights of the most vulnerable (particularly those with learning difficulties and mental health problems); we've already had many people telling us how much this project fits into the town, and how grateful people are for it.
Finally, I think that communities have been under attack, and it's not hard to see why. For the whole of my lifetime, and probably a lot longer, there's a strong emphasis from the capitalist class on making people individual and competitive. I don't believe that this is how human beings are designed to be. Moreover, I think that the nature of community, the concept of ordinary people being there for one another and supporting one another, is a threat to establishment rule. We can only fight that by allowing our communities to grow stronger. If anything, I feel that the 'citizens of nowhere' rhetoric of right-wing politicians is entirely designed to suggest that feeling safe and secure in your community is equivalent to being afraid of new people coming in and ruining it. The opposite is true. Communities exist, but they're fluid; people come, people go, and newcomers bring their own ideas which contribute. I think that every community benefits from people coming in from outside and deciding to call it their home.
The poet Benjamin Zephaniah has died from a brain tumour, diagnosed only eight weeks before his death. He was 65.
As always when a well-known person dies unexpectedly, I was quite taken aback by this news. I don't as a rule glorify celebrities (as I've documented in this blog, I think celebrity culture is extremely toxic) and I will not be glorifying Benjamin Zephaniah either - I did not know him, I don't know what he was like as a human being, and I don't think it's my place as a complete stranger to weigh in on the grief experienced by those who he was close to.
However, I don't think it's celebrity glorification to say that I have the utmost respect for Benjamin Zephaniah's work, and I think we could all learn a bit from what he contributed to this world. He struggled at school due to dyslexia, which eventually led to him being expelled at the age of 13, unable to read or write, which makes it all the more awesome that he eventually became known for being one of the world's most inspirational writers (my partner is a YA novelist and also struggled a lot with reading and writing whilst at school, so that story has a bit of a personal connection with me).
It seems to be around that time that he started writing poetry. I personally love poetry and I think poetry is something that is taught in a really harmful way in schools actually. It's quite rare to meet a young person nowadays, particularly a young person from a working-class background, who says that they love poetry, and this is because of the way it's taught. Poetry is generally written to be performed; it's not meant to be photocopied out and read silently, with every metaphor analysed for all it's worth. Worse than that, I feel as though poetry has come to be seen as a particularly highbrow outlet, a pursuit of the upper-middle class, something that is not designed for the masses in the same way as films, television or music. I don't believe this is true or fair, and in fact I believe that poetry is one of the most grassroots forms of media out there, something that really has the potential to make a difference.
As always, the British establishment approached Benjamin with an 'If you can't beat them, join them' mentality - or possibly the other way around: 'If you can't beat them, invite them to join you and neutralise them that way'. This is a technique that has been used on many outsiders who have managed to achieve support from the sidelines. They will crush you if they can, but sometimes, if you have great support from your own local community as Benjamin Zephaniah did, this won't work. If it doesn't work, their next trick is to go in the opposite direction - to promote the person like hell, make them an absolute national treasure, and by doing so tempt them with promises of milk and honey. I believe this has worked on many, many people; I wouldn't like to speculate on who, but I think there are quite a lot of establishment figures who perhaps in their early days may have had something interesting to say. But their message has become diluted. They've been invited to the big parties, been able to shake hands with important people, and have forgotten where they from and who it is they're doing this for.
But it didn't work on Benjamin Zephaniah. In 2003 (the same year as the invasion of Iraq), then Prime Minister Tony Blair recommended him for an OBE, which Benjamin publicly rejected with these words, which I think we could all learn something from:
'I get angry when I hear that word "empire"; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised. It is because of this concept of empire that my British education led me to believe that the history of black people started with slavery and that we were born slaves, and should therefore be grateful that we were given freedom by our caring white masters. It is because of this idea of empire that black people like myself don't even know our true names or our true historical culture. I am not one of those who are obsessed with their roots, and I'm certainly not suffering from a crisis of identity; my obsession is about the future and the political rights of all people.' (He wrote a full article about it here, if you'd like to read his opinions on this matter in more detail.)
There are so many things I respect about this, but the one that really sticks out to me is the fact that he was offered this OBE 'in strict confidence'. Clearly, someone who rejects an offer like this isn't meant to talk about it. But realistically, why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't we express publicly our dissatisfaction with the British honours system, and more importantly the outrage one may feel at said honours system trying to embrace one despite the fact that one objects to everything it represents? I feel that in speaking out, Benjamin highlighted some things that people weren't aware of, and brought this to public consciousness. I remember a few years ago, when the poet Carol Ann Duffy's Laureateship was coming to an end, my family was speculating on who would replace her, and my father said, 'It's bound to be Benjamin Zephaniah, isn't it?' I responded, 'He'd never accept it.' And this is something I just knew. I wouldn't say that I've ever been the biggest fan of Benjamin or his work (not because I dislike it, just because I've never got around to reading very much of it with everything else I want to read - although I definitely intend to remedy that in the future) but still, in spite of not knowing a great deal about him at that point, I knew enough to know that he would never agree to be Poet Laureate. I just knew, because it's common knowledge, and Benjamin made it common knowledge just by speaking out.
Benjamin Zephaniah cared about all the same things that I do. He was a vegan from the age of 13, and in favour of the promotion of disappearing British languages such as Welsh and Cornish. He was a supporter of people of colour, LGBTQ+ people, the working class, the dispossessed, the oppressed, the underrepresented... and, right now particularly importantly, he was a supporter of Palestinians.
I haven't updated my blog quite so much recently, and one reason for this is that Palestine is all I want to talk about, and I find I don't actually have the words. The last few months have seen the most horrific attack on any oppressed people that has occurred in my lifetime. The reports on what has been happening have caused me quite significant levels of distress, to a point that I haven't really got to before. It fills me with great fear to see what human beings are capable of - not just on an individual level, but on a systemic level. There's a big part of me that wants to turn it off and pretend it's not happening - but I don't think I can ethically do that. Being able to look away is a privilege, and were I to do that it wouldn't really help, because I'd know that it's still happening and that I can't stop it. At least if I continue to observe, I may be able to help, in some small way - be that by writing, or arguing with someone about it. I did have one conversation with someone the other day, not even a particular Israel supporter, who said, 'How could Hamas be that stupid?' And I responded that they weren't stupid. All of this was intended. I believe that for Hamas, Palestinians are collateral damage in the aim of humiliating Israel; but for Likud, Palestinians are not collateral damage. They are the target. What we are seeing in the Gaza Strip is nothing short of genocide, and our politicians are refusing to acknowledge that.
But the most horrific thing about all of this is that I feel guilty for even feeling distressed. I feel like my own feelings are pretty minuscule in the grand scheme of things, bearing in mind the experiences of the thousands of people in Palestine. Those who are lucky enough to still be alive, if 'lucky' is the right word, will live with this trauma for the rest of their lives, and I find that I can't even express my own feelings without feeling that I'm making it about me, rather than about them. Essentially, the only word to describe my feelings about this is 'overwhelmed'. I just really hope the international community is waking up and is able to see all of this for what it is.
But perhaps this is the ultimate power of grassroots poetry - the ability it has to say something that you were struggling to quite find the words for. For this reason I'm going to conclude this blog with one of Benjamin's poems that really made me feel something - one that at this time of year feels extremely important and poignant.
Christmas has been shot
Christmas has been shot away this year, There are too many choppers chopping up the sky Too many bullets in the air for good tidings, There will be no Christ and no mass And darkness has fallen upon the land. No one shall make a joyful noise unto the Lord Or serve the Lord with gladness, No one shall come before his presence with singing, And Palestinian Christians who want to declare The name of the Lord in Jerusalem Or glorify the boy in Bethlehem Have been told to piss off to Jordan, Syria or Iraq.
All the saints have been told To wait for the resumption of peace talks And the angels of the Lord have been told To wait until the Americans are ready Because Zion means something else now, And yes it was written that the truth shall flow From the mouths of babe and suckling, But babes and sucklings beware The soldiers have orders to kill, And the spirit of King Herod is alive. They’re not doing Christmas this year, It has been shot away ‘And anyway Christ is no messiah,’ said the soldier ‘This is our Promised Land.’
What we see over Bethlehem this year Is a spineless, skeleton of a Christmas, A Christmas that has been occupied, strangled And driven to tears, crying tear gas and burning, It’s a Christmas that has no songs or sermons Except the song of the bomber; As loud as dying As quiet as death. Welcome to the birthplace of his holiness Welcome to the humiliation of the natives, Here even flowers are shot down If they fly the local flag, You will not hear the bells of Christmas And you will not hear the women sing. ‘And let me tell you something else,’ said the soldier ‘No virgin gave birth here – we wouldn’t allow it.’
Sorry gentiles It looks like it’s gonna be a cold Christmas, Ain’t no spirit of the Lord moving over the manger Just a nuclear power Flying in from Tel Aviv via Washington DC. The power of the almighty has come for sure To suck Christmas dry And to blow Christmas away. There will be no mercy And no rejoicing And no worshipping any little Black Palestinian boy, And no crosses And no three wise women or men And no Arab shepherds, Because Christmas has been done in Christmas is coughing and choking Christmas has been hit by bullets from the west, So if you want to do Christmas this year Take a bible, Sit indoors, And do your own thing, Just don’t do it in Bethlehem.
This response from Thangam Debbonaire is in response to this letter that I sent her on 21 October 2023, asking her to sign a motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Her response came on 7th November, but due to personal commitments it has taken me until now to respond.
Thangam's email:
Dear George
Thank you for your email and for sharing your thoughts about the horrific situation in Gaza and also for telling me about your campaigning. I appreciate you coming directly to me with your concerns. I share your desperate desire for an end to the conflict, which cannot come a moment too soon.
I have set out some thoughts here on the crisis, and in particular on what we in the UK can and should be doing to alleviate the suffering in Gaza and chart a path to peace.
You may have already seen Keir Starmer’s speech last week setting out his position in detail and the rationale behind it—again, focusing on finding a viable path to peace. Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s article this weekend calls on Israel in strong terms to end siege conditions and respect international law, as well as reiterating Labour’s commitment to work towards a two-state solution.
As a member of the Shadow Cabinet I do not sign EDMs (these almost never result in a debate) as I am able to work directly with my Shadow Cabinet colleagues to engage the government on their response to the crisis, and engage with the Labour leadership on our position as this crisis continues to evolve. I will certainly keep your points in mind as I do so.
Thank you again for taking the time to share your views,
Yours, Thangam
My reply:
Dear Thangam,
Thank you for your response. I will start with an apology for the fact that it's taken me so long to respond myself. I've been tied up with moving house over the last couple of weeks (more on that in my final paragraph) and I haven't had the spare time.
I don't wish to be rude, but frankly, what you've said is simply not good enough. I'm going to start with what you said about not signing EDMs because you're a member of the Shadow Cabinet. Firstly, whether an EDM results in a debate is not always really the point - obviously it's great if they do, but in a case such as this, when what is at stake is essentially whether our elected representatives will stand up to genocide, these motions are quite important to demonstrate the values of the people we elect. Even if they can't actually prevent what has been happening and continues to happen in Gaza, merely the signing of something unequivocally condemning it would show me as a citizen that you care and are willing to say so. Furthermore, there is a member of the Shadow Cabinet who has signed (or at least, someone who was a member at the time they signed) - your Labour colleague Imran Hussain, the MP for Bradford East who until earlier this month was Shadow Minister for the New Deal for Working People. Earlier this month, Imran resigned from the Shadow Cabinet in protest over Labour's current position on the Gaza ceasefire, saying, and I quote, 'It has become clear that my view on the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza differs substantially from the position [Keir Starmer] ha[s]adopted. I believe the party needs to go further and call for a ceasefire.'
If this is not your position, why is it not your position? I've read your comments on the link you sent, and I am not impressed at all. Keir Starmer is not finding a viable path to peace. Hamas may be awful, but support for extremism in every country in the world (including in ours) tends to come as a result of people rightly, rationally and intelligently being very unhappy in their circumstances. Palestinians are right to be unhappy with the circumstances they are in, and have been kept in, increasingly so, since 1967. The Labour Party's position has not been to recognise these circumstances for what they are. It will not criticise the Government of Israel in its own right. The closest it ever comes is to say that the elected leaders in both Israel and Palestine are bad - which I'll acknowledge is technically true, however the power that Likud and Israel hold is not in any way equivalent to the power that Palestine and Hamas hold. This has to be acknowledged if we're to have any hope of social justice.
I was told today that the Palestinian death toll has reached 14,532. More than 7,000 people are missing, believed to be trapped under the rubble. More than 4,772 men, more than 3920 women, more than 5,840 children. 205 medical staff, 64 journalists, and 26 out of 35 (74%) of hospitals out of service. The source for these numbers is the Government media office in Gaza - although I'm not sure how often it's updated, so it could be even more than that at the time of writing or by the time you read this. Just look at these figures. Look at them. Every single one of them was a real person, with a family, friends, hope and dreams, and they were murdered as part of a political choice. There is no justification whatsoever for this. Starving civilian populations from food, water and healthcare is against international law, something that Keir Starmer has failed to acknowledge when challenged - in spite of the fact that he's a former human rights lawyer. Of course, every innocent Israeli who has been killed in the crossfire was a life that had value as well just as equal to that of a Palestinian life. Qualitatively they are equal, but quantitatively they are not. There have been so many more Palestinians killed than there have Israelis. This is a glaring elephant in the room.
The prospect of a two-state solution being agreed amicably is dead in the water. You know that, and I know that. If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now. I've been campaigning on this issue for nearly ten years, and we aren't any closer to it happening than we were then - in fact, we're further away from it. Israel will not stop attacking the Gaza Strip unless they are made to by the international community. Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted as saying this year that Israel should crush any hope of Palestinian statehood. I very strongly recommend you read this interview with Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who leads the Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington, DC - it spells out very clearly what the situation is, what it isn't, and what it could be.
I have one more thing to say, which is that in some ways this email is a goodbye message as well. As I said at the beginning, I moved house last week. I am now no longer your constituent, and as a result this will most likely be the last interaction we have. I will miss Bristol West very much. In the interests of being polite and civil, I should say that I wish you all the best in the rest of your career. But I will also say that knowing Bristol West as I do, I'm not sure it will be an easy journey for you. I've been heartened to see how many people have come out in support of Palestine, and I think a lot of people will likely be just as upset by your position as I am. I voted for you in 2019, in part because of Labour's position on the Palestine situation. I have been horrified to see how starkly that has changed, and how you individually as an MP have gone along with that. The truth is that I deeply regret voting for you. I don't think you're a bad human being, and I believe that people who are wrong can change their ways. I genuinely hope that at some point you will see quite the level of harm you are endorsing by taking the line that you have done - hopefully before it's too late.
We live in a world of war. There are no bones about that.
I was born in 1993, four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, two years after the collapse of the USSR, and the Gulf War, and the Cold War. It's against that backdrop that I, and everyone else of my generation, has grown up in. I was nearly eight when the attack on the Twin Towers happened, and I was nearly ten at the time of the announcement of the Iraq War. I vividly remember talking about this with my peers in the primary school dinner queue. I remember being taken to the anti-war protest on a Friday afternoon in Bristol City Centre (and not getting home until past ten o'clock because there were hardly any buses that day). I remember learning of our own Government's involvement in these terrible decisions; this was my introduction to politics and the concept of Government.
I remember every few subsequent years, hearing about more attacks in the Gaza Strip, feeling like I didn't understand any of it and could do nothing to help. I remember setting up camp outside the BBC in the summer of 2014, in protest against their coverage of the Gaza situation. I remember being asked by my then friend David, 'George, because you support Hamas, does that mean you support Isis?', being completely taken aback by the question and not being sure how to begin answering (I thought I was just on the side of ordinary people not being killed). I remember the heightened security at Colchester Institute, where I was studying at the time, when I returned for my second year - suddenly we all had to wear lanyards identifying us, there were constantly guards at the gates, just in case there might be a terrorist attack (although personally I always suspected that they were there more for show than because they actually had any relevant experience with domestic terrorism).
I remember my generation's excitement about Jeremy Corbyn standing for Labour leadership in 2015, in part because he actually spoke out about this constant world of war we were living in. I remember that his being so anti-war was constantly used as a smear against him by the very people that helped bring us into all these wars in the first place. I remember not understanding any of it, being completely baffled... wondering, 'Am I just too stupid to understand then?' And I remember the horror of the terrorist attack at Manchester Arena in May 2017, during a concert by singer Ariana Grande - a fun and exciting time for so many, that was destroyed in the most horrific possible way.
This has been the world in which I've had to grow up and come to terms with who I am and my identity. It's commonly stated that there is typically a lot of hostility between my generation and the baby boomer generation of the 1950s - they think we're really arrogant, up ourselves and entitled, and we tend to think the same thing about them. There are many, many complex reasons for this, and obviously I don't want to generalise because my parents are of that generation and so are many other amazing and lovely people - but I think that this war backdrop is a big part of the reason why so many people from across these generations struggle to get on well. The baby boomer generation were also born in the aftermath of a war - but from what I've seen of history, the 1950s was a real time of hope and of rebuilding. That war was still in recent memory, and had been on such a big scale that there was a collective attitude of 'never again can this be allowed to happen'. There was a feeling of wanting to give their kids a chance of life that wasn't full of war and conflict. My generation hasn't had that. We've had wars shoved at us constantly. And, unlike in the past, rises in technology, social media and news coverage have meant that this information is presented to us pretty much all the time. No wonder there's such a mental health crisis amongst the young... this is what we live with. I myself have no concept of living without continuous updates about wars, and I've struggled with severe anxiety partly as a result. (My first major mental health crisis was in 2003. I didn't know at the time that this was mental illness, and I wasn't aware of it having any particular connection to big global events - but I don't think it's a coincidence that Iraq had been invaded just a couple of months previously. Kids absorb these things, and it is reflected in their moods and behaviour.)
For these reasons, I absolutely dread events like the ones currently going on in Gaza. Obviously I dread them just on a human level - there has been so much blood shed over this, from people who are completely innocent, that I find my emotional capacity stretched to the absolute limit trying to feel for them and their loved ones. But I also dread it in a very personal way. I'm really frightened. I'm frightened by what human beings are capable of doing to one another, I'm frightened by the seeming inevitable escalation of all of this, I'm frightened by what it will all lead to and I'm frightened of where it will end. It gives me such crippling levels of fear that sometimes I can't bring myself to write about it - even though I know I have to, because writing about it does help emotionally, and I really hope that it helps educate others as well.
This is why, when people say that these most recent events are a game-changer, I find it very hard to be especially hopeful. I have been quite heartened by the amount of positive support I've seen for Palestine from people on social media - it's substantially more than usual, and I will acknowledge that it does feel like something may improve soon. But as far as I'm concerned, this is just not good enough. In the words of Bob Dylan, 'How many deaths will it take 'til he knows that too many people have died?' I think we've long surpassed that number already. It doesn't matter if Hamas' strike against Israel on October 7th ultimately proves successful and we eventually get peace in the Middle East over this - because none of this horror will ever be undone. Even in a best-case scenario, the suffering of the people living in both countries will never be over. They will live with this for the rest of their lives. And for those of us fortunate enough to live a long way away, we will continue to experience the fear and anxiety that war causes, forever most likely.
Even this is assuming that we'll get peace quite soon, which was by no means guaranteed. Today someone sent me this interview with international relations analyst Scott Ritter, which was very illuminating. I learned a lot that I didn't know already about the precise nature of the political status quo in the region and also its history, so it's worth watching for that. I also found it interesting that he was formerly an Israel supporter, and in some respects still is - it's always good to see that people won't turn a blind eye to everything Israel does, even if they're naturally inclined to back that side.
However, I also found it a really uncomfortable conversation to watch, and in particular I found Ritter's attitude really distasteful. He talked about these events being a potential game-changer, and to me his tone of voice sounded excited and enthusiastic about this. I didn't think this was appropriate in the circumstances. What do you think? Here's the video so you can make up your own mind:
I really hope that he's right in saying that this will inevitably lead to a Palestinian state, and also that the USA will be successful in de-escalating the situation. I have some degree of solace in the fact that he is a good deal more knowledgable about this kind of thing than I am, so as much as I fear for the future of myself and of mankind, I feel relatively secure in thinking I can take his word for it, for now at least.
But there was a fair bit that I felt was wrong, and the bit that really stood out to me is his insistence that Palestinians want a Palestinian state so badly that they're willing to die for it. I'm sure that they are desperate for a Palestinian state - but that doesn't mean they're willing to die for it, or for their children to die for it. Moreover, being willing to die for something implies that the person is in that situation by their own free choice, having weighed up all the options. Palestinians are not. They are, as Ritter himself acknowledges, living in the world's largest open-air concentration camp, being deprived of food, water and medicines. They aren't there because they are willing to die. They are there because they are being kept there, and the reason they're desperate for a Palestinian state is that they want a better life, for themselves and their children. Constant war does not achieve that, no matter who its victors are. I found this comment, and Ritter's whole attitude here, insanely insulting.
As odd as it may seem, I am actually an optimist. I sometimes wonder if it's right to be an optimist, if this world actually warrants optimism with all these awful things that happen. But the main reason is because I am immensely proud of my own generation, and the generation that's come immediately after us. I feel like we're far more moral than many of those who have come before us, and perhaps that's the consequence of growing up in great fear of war all the time. I do think mankind has a chance of improving the world, with the ideals that we hold - although there will be great challenges ahead. But in order to make those changes, I think it's really important that we acknowledge that continuous war is just not worth it. I'm a supporter of Palestine because I always try to support the underdog. It gives me just as much grief when Hamas hurts innocent civilians as when Likud does. No one, whether they're Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish or Muslim, really wants to live like this. No one is better off as a result of living like this.
Perhaps, if you were born in 1961 and have a military background, as Scott Ritter does, it's easier to take a step back and look at things from a cold rational standpoint without much empathy for the people involved. But I can't. More than that, I won't. I think it's completely at odds with our goals to achieve peace to not remember that every single person who loses their life in conflict is someone's child, someone's parent, someone's sibling, someone's friend. It doesn't matter what the outcome is - these actions are never worth it, whomever they're committed by.
And by the way, here in the UK we're still waiting for the leaders of both our main political parties to call for a ceasefire, even after being urged by the UN. It's somewhat heartening to me that it seems senior politicians in many countries in the world are calling for this - but that's also depressing, to learn that your own country is so many miles behind. We can do better than this, and we should.
Today is 1 November, which will be the first full month of my thirties - I feel old! But still, I think thirties are probably a bit underrated - by this point in life I feel like we're all a little more settled and a little more emotionally secure.
To celebrate my entering a new decade of my life, I've decided to write something a bit more positive. A few months back I wrote this article about the declining quality of the news blog The Canary, something that has really disappointed and upset me, and to be honest still does. But recently I've been trying to find new media sources that fill the hole in my life that The Canary used to fill. And I'm delighted to say that I've recently come across five people on YouTube whose content keeps me sane, gives me hope and causes me to remain informed and aware. Each of them focus on a slightly different aspect of what I'm interested in, but of course there's a fair bit of crossover.
Without further ado, let me introduce these five people - some you may have heard of before (I don't like any of them any more than any of the others, so to be fair I'm just going to do this in alphabetical order of surname):
Rowan Ellis is a vlogger on the subjects of feminism, LGBTQ+ issues and representation in the media. She deals particularly with the depictions of female and minority characters within television drama, but her work expands on multiple strands of these subjects, including LGBTQ+ history and the way that these things are presented within schools.
As a writer of character-driven stories (particularly one who works in collaboration with their same-sex partner) I've started being quite critical about a lot of what I watch and read, and I think it's important to be so. I've found Rowan's analysis of things to be incredibly informative and engaging, and she often has takes that I myself haven't thought of. Also, I like that she has a really nice way about her - she's certainly more diplomatic than me!
If you're the kind of person who likes reading left-wing blogs like mine, you probably already know who Owen Jones is. He's a well-known journalist and writer, has been in the public eye regularly for more than ten years, regularly writing for The Guardian and The Independent (amongst others) and has books out including The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It and Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class.
I like Owen because he talks about politics and the world today, and always in a way that is clear, accessible and concise. He's incredibly knowledgable, and unafraid to use that knowledge in a way that speaks truth to power. I consume Owen's content when I want to know what's going on domestically in the UK, with the Tories and the Labour Party.
For some reason, it's become somewhat fashionable on the left to despise Owen Jones, and I've never fully understood why because I've always really appreciated his content, and find it well-researched and clearly explained. Perhaps he's a bit too mainstream for a lot of us. I understand that feeling very much - when someone apparently left-wing gets as big a platform as Owen does, it's natural to think 'What's the catch?' and maybe in a few years I'll find out something that will cause me to take back this recommendation. But for now, I really haven't seen what a lot of my fellow lefties apparently have, and that's why I firmly recommend Owen Jones' YouTube channel.
Dr Adam Levy, known professionally as ClimateAdam, is a climate scientist from Oxford University. I can't remember exactly how I came across Adam's work, but I've found it to be really helpful in discussing climate issues again.Have a look at Adam's website as well.
Like a lot of other people, I often find climate anxiety so crippling that I'm unable to talk about it. And the worst thing about this is, online searches for climate-related content often bring up precisely what you're looking for in search terms. This is the problem with the Internet - that it's too robotic. This is why health professionals often advise against googling your symptoms, because much of the time it just comes up with literal scenarios. Likewise, with climate searches - searching 'Are we doomed?' will come up with articles that say we are, because the algorithm is looking for things that match with the word 'doomed'. And if you search terms like 'optimism' or 'hope', a lot of what comes up will play down the seriousness of the problem. And then there's the problem that a lot of the research itself is presented in ways that sound particularly dramatic so that people will click on them.
I find that Adam's work provides freedom from this. He creates videos that are easily accessible, that don't play down at all how serious the problems with global warming are but also put it in perspective, in a way that doesn't induce panic and that makes the viewer feel empowered to do something about it - and being an actual climate scientist rather than a mere armchair commentator like the rest of us, his word does carry weight. Weirdly, he also has a great sense of humour. It's hard to have humour when talking about something that threatens all our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren, but Adam manages it. There's a fantastic ongoing sketch he has (in which he plays all the characters) involving a character being repeatedly punched in the face and calling for help from a nearby onlooker. The onlooker is saying, 'Don't worry, we'll make sure we cap it to twenty punches.' After a while, the onlooker says, 'Unfortunately, we've now exceeded twenty punches' - of course, completely ignoring that they could prevent the person being punched right now. This is such a great metaphor for climate change - the more punches we receive, the more damage is caused and the more difficult it will be to reverse the damage, but preventing further punches will still be more beneficial than allowing the punches to carry on.
I've decided to only consume climate-related content from two people, as everyone else is just either overly reassuring or so doom-mongery that they aren't helpful. One of the two channels is Adam's... the other is...
Leena Norms is the other person I'll listen to on climate change, because I find she always cheers me up and gives me a fresh perspective. I do remember exactly how I came across Leena - I was suggested a video by YouTube's algorithms called 'Don't join the climate movement'. As a climate activist I was very doubtful, but for some reason I decided to click it, and I was glad I did. The title was slightly facetious, but I found it really useful on the themes of hope, personal power and the fact that although the climate movement exists for a good reason, you don't have to join it if you want to change things. There are other ways. This video made such an impact on me that I think I have to embed it. Take a look, then come back:
Personal power is what Leena is all about, and I respect that very much. A lot of her work is built around creating positive change where you are, particularly when it comes to fashion and clothing - she has many videos based around building a sustainable wardrobe. But she talks about lots of other things too - she has a lot of videos on books (which I haven't actually watched yet, but I will soon) and a lot about our own personal journey on this planet, friendships, life, political feelings and remembering who you are. I find her so engaging, personally and spiritually, and I cannot recommend her highly enough.
Ed Winters, also known as Earthling Ed, is a well-known animal rights activist. You may have come across him before as his videos are often shared on social media, and his book This Is Vegan Propaganda (And Other Lies The Meat Industry Tells You) has been promoted quite heavily by retailers. Most of his videos involve debating with meat-eaters and encouraging them to follow a plant-based diet.
Although I'm a vegan and I agree very much with Ed's mission and viewpoints, this is not the reason I enjoy his videos so much. The thing that inspires me about Ed's videos is that he's an incredible debater - probably one of the best I've seen. I've found that a lot of people like to avoid debates because they like avoiding confrontation - and to me, debates are actually not meant to be confrontational. I don't think anyone should get angry during a debate. If you keep calm and rational in what you're saying, you can make so much more progress, cause the other person to learn something (and perhaps learn something yourself, as no one is right 100% of the time).
Ed's easy-going, polite, diplomatic approach really epitomises what I think debate should be like. I think whatever our opinions are on anything, we could all do with taking a leaf out of Ed's book.
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So there we have it. Rowan, Owen, Adam, Leena and Ed. Five different YouTubers, all focussing on a slightly different topic, but with significant and important levels of overlap.
Is YouTube the future? I think, possibly. My disappointment with The Canary is something that has still not been resolved - I had a very kind response from their editorial team on the day I published that article and at the time they seemed keen to talk to me and improve (which I was very pleasantly surprised about). However, I have so far not had any further communication with them, so who knows?
My mission to find out what went wrong at The Canary is not over - I'm still eager to find this out, and sort it out. However, I also wonder if any media organisation run by multiple people is doomed to lower its standards over time, because this seems to have happened to every cutting-edge organisation in history. And YouTube is hardly cutting edge - it's owned by Google and extremely corporate nowadays, with the amount of sponsorships and so on involved. However, it still gives people a chance to raise their voices and speak out - and if you're following the right people, that can be pretty useful in hearing things that will be beneficial to your own life.
I think the most important thing for any media or news source is that it isn't handled from a top-down position. It should never be the case that one person is talking and everyone else is listening. This should be about dialogue. Whatever you're following, you should feel that they're as interested in you as you are in them, and that you're part of the conversation. That is how we make a change.
