Why I, as an LGBTQ+ actor/writer/producer, truly resent the idea that straight actors shouldn't play LGBTQ+ parts

This week, I had the utterly horrible experience of accusing a good friend of mine of homophobia. This person is someone I haven't known that long, but whom I have worked quite closely with over the last year and whom I value and respect.

I also knew that they didn't mean to be homophobic, which makes it a lot harder to call someone out. I think most people with a protected characteristic have had the experience of having to say to someone, 'I still like you, you're still my friend, but what you just said was bang out of order and I'd like an apology.' It doesn't get easier with time.

But this time it was even more difficult than that, both for me and for them. Because not only did they not mean to be homophobic, but they were actively trying not to be. This person had listened to what LGBTQ+ friends had said to them, and had made a decision specifically in the interests of not coming across as homophobic - and then ended up on the wrong end of a homophobia accusation because of that decision. This conversation was in relation to an upcoming stage play that my partner and I had offered them a part in, and about whether they, as a heterosexual person, could play the role of a character who has a relationship with someone of the same sex as themselves.

This is currently quite a contentious issue within the world of casting, as discussed at length in this video and also in this one. My friend's argument involved an assertion that they would not be able to find honesty and relatability with this character without being in a sexual minority themselves - but I didn't really have the impression that they truly believed this, and I still don't. It's my opinion that they had listened to so many strong voices, many from within the LGBTQ+ community itself, saying that it's offensive for a straight actor to take on the part of an LGBTQ+ character that they felt they had no choice but to turn down the part. It was this aspect - knowing that deep down they could see that what they were saying was wrong - that made me so uncomfortable when calling this out. It was a really upsetting conversation, both for me and my friend - but I absolutely and unequivocally stand by the way I handled it. Because no matter where it comes from, segregating actors and their characters into sexual categories in this way causes great harm to LGBTQ+ creatives and LGBTQ+ representation in stories, and here is why.

As an actor, I've never discussed my sexual orientation in the workplace - not because I was in the closet, but because it's an aspect of my private life that never felt relevant. I have actually been known to write 'Mind your own business' on diversity questions! As it happens, these days everyone knows I'm not heterosexual because I collaborate on nearly all my projects with my same-sex partner - my sexual orientation has come to public knowledge in an organic and inoffensive way, without me either publicly coming out or anyone outing me against my will. But I'd be furious if I ever thought that my sexual orientation had had any effect whatsoever on my chances of getting a part - even if it actually made it more likely for me to be cast. I'm no one's poster child. I'm a professional actor, and the years I've spent honing my craft are more important than a benign variation in how my hypothalamus works, which is something I was born with and have no control over. It is offensive to suggest otherwise.

I've heard it suggested by quite a few people that a heterosexual actor won't be able to identify with the process of coming to terms with one's sexuality, which is important for the actor to know. I have a question to ask in response to that point: if you'd written a story about a character dealing with the aftermath of having been raped, would you, for the sake of authenticity, specifically look for an actor who actually has been raped and can identify with that character's emotional journey? I don't think anyone would feel comfortable asking an actor that or putting it on an audition call, quite rightly so. It's a completely inappropriate, personal, potentially traumatic thing to expect someone to discuss within their work (unless they themselves decide to, as with Michaela Coel and I May Destroy You, but that's a separate matter).

So if you wouldn't think that's a requirement to have in real life in order to play a role, why is it with sexual orientation? What is so fundamentally unique about LGBTQ+ people that it's presumed that cishet people are unable to identify with their journeys? Acting is not just about pretending to be something you're not. It requires great research and empathy, and because of this I think it's important that actors should play characters who have struggles that they themselves have never had; it forces you to really put yourself in that position, feel your character's emotions and understand where they are, and that can have a positive impact on how you treat people.

I speak from personal experience here; I believe that I myself am a far kinder and more caring person as a result of having acted these parts. In 2012, when I was 19, I was in a play with Bristol Old Vic Young Company where I played a teenage boy from Norway. My character was based on a photo of a young man who looked a bit like me, and who had been tragically killed in the Norway massacre the previous year. I don't think I've ever had such an intense acting role as that. I don't even know that boy's name, but I was acutely aware of the fact that I was playing an actual person of about my age who once existed, who had similar political values to me and would never have had any concept of the fact that one day someone in a different country would play him onstage. The amount of responsibility on my shoulders to give a sensitive portrayal was indescribable. The result of that is that I feel extremely emotional, on a raw and genuine level, about that terrorist attack. The sorrow I feel about it is almost akin to having known someone who died there, to the extent that I asked if I could keep the photograph of that boy afterwards. I still have it, and I sometimes take a moment to look at it and reflect. I think this has caused me to have far more empathy for people who have lost loved ones to terrorist attacks, which is a really beneficial thing for my character and for society at large. I'd recommend acting to anyone for the same reason. And it's why I'd say to any cishet actor, 'Okay, you don't understand this person's journey, you've never gone through it yourself. Would you like to learn what it feels like?'

Another problem with this 'Authentic LGBTQ+ actors can truly understand this character's journey' thing is that we aren't all on the same journey. We may overlap with each other, but we've all had completely different experiences from one another. My story is not interchangeable with the story of another LGBTQ+ person, just as straight people aren't interchangeable with one another either. If I were playing an LGBTQ+ character, I wouldn't say that I necessarily identify with their journey more than I would if I were playing a straight character. Besides which, I have found that some productions that have prided themselves on casting LGBTQ+ actors have actually featured some of the worst and most homophobic stereotypes I've ever seen. I'm thinking particularly of the Channel 4 drama It's A Sin, which dealt with the lives of a group of gay men in London in the 1980s and how their lives were destroyed by the AIDS epidemic. I enjoyed that programme, and there were some scenes I found very poignant and upsetting. However, I found them poignant and upsetting mainly because this was a real thing that happened to our community not so very long ago, and this would have happened to people I knew had I been born slightly earlier. None of the poignancy came from me feeling much of a connection with any of the characters. We've all heard of the Bechdel Test (a test of female representation on film, which is passed if there is any scene where two named female characters talk to one another about any subject that isn't 'men'); however, it occurred to me when watching It's A Sin that we really need a similar test for LGBTQ+ representation. At no point in that programme did I observe any scene where two named LGBTQ+ characters talked to one another about anything that wasn't connected to their sexual orientation. Homosexuality was their defining characteristic. The only discernible difference between any of the main characters was that one boy was a bit more introverted when all the others were loud, extroverted and promiscuous - and even that one difference only seemed to be in there for the shock value when the introverted one was the first to die. Every single time any of the characters was near a male of a similar age, they were shown to be checking him out; if heterosexual male characters were constantly shown doing this to females it would be considered sexist, but for some reason showing gay people doing it is considered okay. Well, it's not okay; it perpetuates a long-discredited idea that we'll shag anything that moves, and I'm offended that in 2021 a mainstream drama did that. What's the point of pretending to be progressive and hiring LGBTQ+ actors to play these characters if they're going to be depicted like that?

The videos I linked at the start make some valid points about the inherent homophobia in the creation of Hollywood films (and there is a heck of a lot of homophobia in Hollywood). However, they've missed a crucial point. Nearly every instance they bring up is of actors who are extremely highly-paid and very famous. Actually, most actors are quite poor and less than 2% of us are famous. I don't really think the super-wealthy variety of actors really count in this discussion, both because they're in the extreme minority and because ultimately it doesn't really affect them in the same way it affects the rest of us. One of the videos mentions that no openly LGBTQ+ actor has ever won an Academy Award for a portrayal of an LGBTQ+ character. Okay - but what if one did? Who would that actor be? Would they be someone who finds it difficult to get parts, who worries about paying the rent, who has to negotiate auditions around their job as a cleaner at Tesco because they can't earn a living from acting? Of course not. It will be someone immensely privileged, someone who is used to whispering in important ears and being approached directly for big film roles. These people, even if they do happen to be LGBTQ+, are not the kinds of people social campaigns are designed to help. They are the establishment, they perpetuate the status quo. I highly commend an actor like Elliot Page for using his position to come out and try to make things easier for transgender youth - but it's very important to remember that the stakes weren't that high for him. He has a net worth of $8 million. Even if he never got an acting job again after coming out (which is unlikely anyway), he has the capacity to live out the rest of his life in comfort. The people I'm talking about are normal actors - people who live from one pay cheque to another, who might even have to turn down jobs because they can't get time off from their day jobs. And these people, one of which I am, have a right to be able to practise their craft without their personal identities even coming into it. I didn't ask the man who came to service my boiler about his sexual orientation or gender identity, and I don't want to know it about an actor. It's none of my business, either as a viewer or as a casting director.

You may ask, are there any protected characteristics that are exceptions to this? And the answer is, yes there are. I would never approve of blackface, and I doubt we even need a debate on that. I also would look for a character with a visible physical disability to be played by an actor who has one. But there's a specific reason for that. An actor with a visible disability can't easily play a character who doesn't have one; with already having that considerable disadvantage, it's only fair that those actors have the small number of roles they can play reserved for them. But still, it depends on the medium; I'm not sure I'd be so strict if I was casting something for the radio, because if it's just voices a disabled actor can easily play an able-bodied character, so it doesn't matter if it's the other way around as well (in The Archers on Radio 4, there's a blind actor who plays a sighted character; I think that's one of the best pieces of disabled casting around, and very few people even know about it).

And whilst we're on the subject of voice acting, The Simpsons recently realised that in the first thirty or so years of the programme, they'd rarely had any regular voice actors of colour, despite having plenty of dark-skinned characters voiced by white actors. I think that's a serious problem, and I'd have solved it by bringing in a dark-skinned actor to voice a Caucasian character. This would have said, 'Voice work is the acting world's great equaliser. It's the only room in the building where no one cares what you look like, how old you are or what sex you are. All that matters is if you can make this cartoon character come to life - look, here's a 65-year-old woman who's been doing that to a 10-year-old boy for thirty years'. But this isn't how they dealt with it. They dealt with it by recasting all the dark-skinned characters to be voiced by dark-skinned actors. This said something very different - it said, 'We've waited until now, the moment it's politically convenient, to bring in some dark-skinned actors, but we'll only allow them to play characters that are dark-skinned. Never mind that that's never been a consideration for any of the white people who've done it in the past.' Be honest with yourself - does that really sound progressive?

I've avoided directly discussing transgender portrayals up until this point, mainly because as a cisgender person it doesn't really affect me - but I think I have to discuss it, because it does tie in. Some people would argue that this is one of those exceptions, like blackface or disability. And I understand that argument, but I have a counterpoint. I did once, a long time ago, ask someone auditioning for a role if they were transgender (being more likely to give them the role if they were). That person was offended, told me I shouldn't have asked them that and declined the role. I've thought a lot about this since, and I've come to the conclusion that they were right. It was completely unacceptable for me to bring that up, I have often felt very guilty about that and I've never put someone in that position again. And I think this is important actually - trans actors and cis actors each have a right to be treated exactly as they come, to be called by the name and pronouns they wish to be called by, without the casting director even knowing if they're trans or cis. Anyone can come into my audition room; I will never ask them about that, and if they choose to tell me it won't affect the likelihood of them getting a part.

As a trans rights activist, I've heard a lot of criticism of cisgender Eddie Redmayne's portrayal of trans woman Lili Elbe in the film The Danish Girl; but very rarely have I heard any criticism of cisgender Julie Hesmondhalgh's portrayal of trans woman Hayley Cropper in the soap Coronation Street. So the question we need to ask is, why is Lili's portrayal so condemned, when Hayley's isn't? I've given the matter a lot of thought, and I've narrowed it down to three possible reasons:

1) It could just be that the scripts and acting in Coronation Street were better and more sensitive than in The Danish Girl (I haven't actually seen either, so I can't comment on that).

2) It could be that The Danish Girl is more recent (I think this is part of the reason, but I doubt it's a very big part because it only came out a year after Hayley's final appearance in Coronation Street).

3) It seems to be that there is a big difference between these two castings, which most likely provides the answer to the question. There is a problem with an actor like Eddie Redmayne playing a trans woman; and the problem is not that he's cisgender, it's that he's a man. Casting a man to play a trans woman supports a deeply offensive and inaccurate perception that trans women are just men pretending to be women (and casting a trans man to play a trans woman would be offensive for the same reason). But casting a cisgender woman to play a trans woman doesn't do that. It actually says the opposite - it says that trans women are women just as legitimately as cis women are, and to the degree that they can play one another interchangeably. In my opinion, that is an incredibly powerful statement, one that really helps us take a step forward in demanding absolute equality for transgender people, and I applaud the producers of Coronation Street, and the actor Julie Hesmondhalgh, for making it - especially as far back as 1998. That is the kind of equality the LGBTQ+ community needs, the kind that we've been asking for for decades.

I would have called the Coronation Street casting decision 'ahead of its time'; but I don't think I can do that. Because I think these days, any production with a transgender lead character would expect the actor to reveal to the casting team, and to the general public, their gender identity - in spite of the fact that they may not feel comfortable talking about it and they are under absolutely no legal or moral obligation to do so. And the thing that I think is extremely important to note here is that this trend has not come about to protect anyone vulnerable minority person. It's come about because at the moment, diversity is fashionable. I'm all in favour of diversity, I think it's a really wonderful thing; but just as equally, we deserve better than to be pointed at by big-shot producers and directors who want to demonstrate how diverse and trendy their casts are. Many of these people were already important figures in the industry when homophobia and transphobia were even worse than they are now, and they didn't do anything about it then. I don't believe they care any more about our wellbeing now than they did before; it just so happens that right at this moment, finding spaces for us happens to suit them. And in doing that, they are separating us further from the population at large - making out that we are fundamentally different kinds of performers. Having done that, and created that perception about us in the mind of the public, what will happen in a few years' time when it's no longer in fashion? I fear it will make it easier again to discriminate against us.

Homophobia and transphobia are fluid things, and people who display these behaviours are not inherently horrible people. The overwhelming majority of people believe that they aren't prejudiced, and yet we still live in a society that very much is. So I'm still friends with the person I had that conversation with, and I have no hatred or personal dislike of anyone who says problematic things; I recognise that they're doing their best. But the fact remains that separating LGBTQ+ people into separate categories, even in the interests of wanting to help them, is not treating us the same us cishet people. That is what homophobia and transphobia are; it doesn't have to come with the intention of making these people miserable. So what I would say, to all these people arguing for more authentic casting, is, 'Will you please, please listen to me?' This is not equality. This is not accurate representation. This is pigeonholing, and as a professional in the performance industry I demand better than this.

I will just conclude by saying that as a general point, I am tired of every LGBTQ+ character being talked about as 'a representation'. We aren't there to represent our communities. The best depiction of an LGBTQ+ character I have come across in recent years is in a YA novel called The Weight of a Thousand Feathers by Brian Conaghan (conflict of interest disclaimer - I know the author Brian Conaghan through my adaptation of one of his other novels for the stage). This story is not about a gay character; it's about a character who is gay, and there's a difference. The protagonist, 17-year-old Bobby, is a carer for his mother, who has multiple sclerosis, and for his younger brother who has learning difficulties, and this is the crux of the novel. Whilst never explicitly stating it outright, the author makes Bobby's homosexuality evident to the reader, with him developing an infatuation with another boy. This is a great representation of a gay teenager because it's not trying to be a good representation; he's just a character, and if his main love interest was a girl, very little about the actual story would change. This is the kind of depiction I'd really like to see more of - and there's no limit as to who can find empathy with this kind of character in a story.

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Disabled people are treated not only like second-class citizens, but like babies

This week, I was in conversation with two disabled women, Sarah and Louise. When reflecting on her experience as a disabled woman, Sarah said, 'Disabled people are treated like...' and then paused. Louise quickly jumped in with, 'Babies!' Sarah clarified that she'd been about to say 'second-class citizens'. I said to them that from what I'd seen, I actually thought that Louise had nailed it!

The context of this conversation was a major protest that I was involved in organising in Abergavenny, over the proposed sell-off of the Tudor Street Day Centre (formally known as My Day My Life, a hub with services for adults with learning difficulties and mental health problems). My involvement in this came from the fact that before we met, my partner Owen worked at this day centre, helping some of society's most vulnerable adults get the most out of their lives. Owen found this a rewarding enough experience that this year, he has brought out the novel Vulnerable Voices, about a young man who does a similar job. The book is entirely fictitious, and features a day centre in North Yorkshire instead of South Wales, but some of the characters and incidents that occur within it are loosely inspired by real life events. The audiobook will be released soon, narrated by the actor Nico Mirallegro.

In addition to the nostalgia, the book also covers some of the darker side of that kind of job. Owen was aware of bullying and neglect that went on behind the scenes, and this is covered in his novel with characters whose depictions will be recognised by almost anyone who has worked in any kind of office - but it seems to happen all the time in the world of care. You can find myriads of news reports detailing unsavoury things that our vulnerable relatives have been through. I questioned recently why it is that the care profession, supposedly one that attracts the most compassionate people, so often attracts the precise opposite, and was drawn to the conclusion that it must be because it's one of the easiest industries to get into. More importantly, there rarely seems to be any sturdy and systematic process to stop these kinds of things happening - and the reason for that is very straightforward. Processes cost money, and processes that protect vulnerable/disabled people benefit people who are least likely to generate capital for the establishment - therefore, they are not considered worthy of the money. Compassion is not the goal; if compassion exists at all, it exists purely to create a smokescreen of a caring authority.

This is the underlying reason for the proposed sell-off and demolition of Tudor Street Day Centre. The My Day My Life service was closed as part of the 2020 lockdown, and has never been re-opened. The 'official' version of events is that other services have since come about which have provided new and better services for the former service-users; but this is untrue. Having spoken to numerous service users and their families, we have it on record from quite a few different people that there are now very few really decent services for them within the Monmouthshire area since the closure of the My Day My Life service. What's more, I understand Owen to tell me that the My Day My Life service was being undermined as far back at when he left in 2017, with alternative schemes being set up to take some of the funding and provide a lesser-quality service - i.e. to take people on day trips, but in a less person-centred and individualised way. The council claims that a review is currently being undertaken in regards to disability services within the county - but is selling off its greatest asset, which already has all the disability access sorted, in advance of this review being concluded. (Incidentally, the proposed sell-off is to a housing development trust, which the council claims is to house the homeless. This is patently not true; no one believes that any new homes built there will be affordable to homeless people, and saying they will is merely an attempt to pit one marginalised group against another.)

The protest was on Wednesday 7th December, and involved a large group of us, including many past service-users and their families, standing outside the building in Tudor Street holding placards and chanting. Joining us at the protest were local Labour councillors Tudor Thomas (Cabinet Member for Social Care, Safeguarding and Accessible Health Services) and Sara Burch (Cabinet Member for Inclusive and Active Communities). That these are their job titles is actually laughable, because neither of them behaved with the slightest interest in safeguarding, making social care health services accessible or inclusive in the slightest. They actually behaved in a consistently passive-aggressive manner; upon arrival, they set up a speaker system to lecture the crowd at our own protest, before attempting to leave without listening to any of the actual disabled people who wanted to speak.

Here is a picture of myself, Owen and another protester confronting Councillors Thomas and Burch as they attempted to leave. Whilst this was happening, there were service users addressing the crowd on the other side of the road:

Unfortunately I didn't get to hear much of what the service users were saying, as I felt it more important to try to reason with the councillors and try to get them to listen. We did eventually persuade them to come across to the other side of the road for a few more minutes, during which time they were confrontational, dismissive of people's concerns and, in my own humble opinion, quite rude. I think their body language in the above photo says quite a lot about what their priorities were; they had intended to come purely to represent the council to Wales Online and the South West Argus who were there on the day, rather than to listen to anyone's actual needs for that building. They couldn't have hurried away fast enough after they'd barged in to give the first speeches, and then we practically had to drag them back over.

At one point, I asked Councillor Thomas if he himself had ever actually visited any of the service users at their homes, sat down with them and asked them what they thought about all of this. He admitted that he had not. Doing this is absolutely essential to any review, because one of the most truly wrong things about this is that of all marginalised groups in society, the disabled are often the least capable of speaking out and defending their human rights. This is why disability rights so often lag behind the rights of other people - because no matter how oppressed someone is, in most cases they're easily able to network with other people who have similar experiences and band together to get their voices heard. I know from personal experience that there were a lot of interested parties who were simply unable to make it to the protest, either because they were too unwell, because they couldn't find people to bring them or because their carers had already made other plans for that day. This last was actually the basis behind the 'they treat us like babies' outburst - all too often, carers make plans for their clients unilaterally, irrespective of what the clients actually wish for. I can appreciate that on occasion someone with a severe learning difficulty will be unable to make their own decisions, but in most cases it seems to me that the whole point of having carers is to help people live more independently. If they can't do that, if they're treating their clients like children and making decisions for them like a parent, I would think that is separate from their remit).

Why am I so passionate about this, when I don't even live in the area? Well, aside from the fact that I got involved by accident through my partner, I actually believe in helping communities get the best out of their public services. We hear so often about unilateral decisions from politicians, without undertaking effective consultation from the people they are meant to serve. Disabled and mentally ill people are some of the most vulnerable in society, and it's important that we stand up for them - especially when they are unable to stand up for themselves, which many of them are.

The protest has so far been quite successful, in that it has generated a call-in of the council's decision to sell off the Tudor Street building pending a meeting in early 2023, which Owen and I will be attending. In the meantime, please sign this petition against the plans. And if you'd like to read a more impartial account of Wednesday's protest, take a look at this fantastic article in WalesOnline by the journalist Jonathon Hill.

Here are some more photographs of the protest, courtesy of photographer Annie Ward:

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Ten years since Jimmy Savile, nothing has changed

 It was about this time in 2012 when, a year following his death, it was revealed that Jimmy Savile, believed to be a beloved children's entertainer, was actually a predatory sex offender and paedophile. The case sparked probably the most talked about police investigation in the whole of the 2010s decade, and resulted in the exposure of other powerful predators, such as entertainer Rolf Harris and politician Cyril Smith.

The case against Savile in particular has always been a matter of intense interest for me ever since I first learned of it. The thing that I find deeply shocking is not so much the grotesque acts of sexual violence that he committed (which are bad enough); but more, the fact that his behaviour was so widely known within the entertainment industry. It was actually known enough that he joked about it himself on television - whilst watching a selection of old clips of him back, he often alludes to his own inappropriate behaviour. He said on television, in relation to volunteering at a hospital, he said, 'I am a voluntary helper. Sometimes, when nobody’s looking, I help the lasses'. He said on repeated occasions that he was 'barred from every girls' school in the country', and once, when asked how he thought he'd be remembered after he died, he openly laughed about it and said that he didn't care - knowing very well that allegations would only come out once he was no longer alive to take responsibility. He was able to do this without any fear of repercussions, because he knew he was untouchable. The Jimmy Savile case is so unsettling not because of the terrible things he did (as horrible as it is, we all know that there are many people out there capable of these acts); it's unsettling because it was deliberately covered up.

I'd like to be able to say that we've learned from the past - but I have not seen any evidence that that is so. In this article, Mark Williams-Thomas, who played a large part in exposing Savile's crimes, says that there are still protected sex offenders who work prominently in the entertainment industry, and one in particular, almost certainly a child molester, who he has worked very hard to get prosecuted. In this film, the broadcaster Louis Theroux interviews comedian Katherine Ryan, who talks about how she called someone out for being a predator on a panel show, and that this was cut from the broadcast version (that part of the conversation is about fifteen minutes in). I have no idea if Williams-Thomas and Ryan are talking about the same person (I think probably not, as I believe Ryan would have said if the person she was talking about had abused children - though perhaps she doesn't know that aspect). But if they're talking about different people, it almost makes it worse. It means that this is continuing to happen regularly. Since 2012, a few historical cases may have been brought to justice, but nothing has really changed systematically.

I have a bit of personal experience with this. A few years ago, a friend of mine confided to me that they had been sexually assaulted by a minor celebrity. There wasn't enough evidence to charge this person, however the story got into the media and the minor celebrity's name was dragged through the mud. The outcome was that the minor celebrity was dropped from their role as a regular on a popular BBC television programme - however, the BBC claimed that it had nothing to do with the allegations and that they were merely refreshing all the regulars on this programme. I do not believe either that this was true, or that anyone truly believed it, for a few reasons: 1) It coincided almost exactly with the celebrity's name coming out in the media; 2) None of the other regulars were dropped; and 3) They have not even repeated any old episodes featuring that person since, which they had done in the past when people had left the show.

I think that if the BBC had made clear that as a result of the allegations they were completely disassociating themselves from this contributor, that would have been reasonable. I think that if they'd said that it had nothing to do with them until the contributor was charged with a crime and that therefore they were taking no action, this would also have been reasonable. There are strong arguments for each of these reactions. However, they did neither of these things. What they did instead was to disassociate themselves from someone whose name carried baggage, but in a way that didn't actually hold them accountable for anything. This seems to me to be the worst of both worlds, as it protects neither the accuser nor the accused - all it does is allow the BBC to not take any position at all. And given that the BBC has historically been so heavily involved in covering up abuses of power by people like Jimmy Savile, I think it's important that they do take a position actually.

This kind of position from the BBC is very consistent. Time and again, we see them covering something up until it's unavoidable, then completely disassociating themselves from it - but only to protect themselves from the bad publicity. To take Savile as an example, they have removed episodes featuring him (or even referencing him) from their public archives. Essentially, the idea is to hide the fact that he was ever so closely involved with them. I find this really harmful - you cannot commit to doing better in the future unless you acknowledge and accept what you've done in the past. I've been writing this blog since I was 17 - I'm now 29 and there are some things I wrote in my early days which I certainly no longer believe. But I still keep them up, because they're a part of my history and it's dishonest to pretend I never wrote them. Likewise - the BBC should be clear not only that what Jimmy Savile did was terrible, but also that they themselves were complicit. They should acknowledge that, consistently, and only then can we have any faith that they will improve in the future.

I strongly suspect that the person who assaulted my friend was known about by those in the know before it got into the media - but no action was taken until it was unavoidable, and even then it was the most watered-down pathetic thing I've ever seen. The reason for this is largely because of our collective obsession with celebrity. Celebrity culture is utterly toxic. It creates a vibe that you should have a strong feeling about someone you don't know purely because they've reached a high place in society. I've come to realise in the last few years that I have no interest in celebrities. If someone is good at their job, fair enough, and if they're not that's as maybe - and neither of those things have any bearing on what I think of them personally as a human being, which I won't have any opinion on unless I happen to cross paths with them in real life.

I think that a lot of problems in our society are to do with the power of celebrity culture. I think about it a lot in relation to people like JK Rowling - who has gone from beloved children's author to transphobic pariah. I'm deeply disappointed in her, just as I'm disappointed in anyone with bigoted views, but the most important question I always ask is, why does she have such a big platform in the first place? She's just a person, who has managed to earn a lot of money through being good at writing stories, and we shouldn't know anything else about her besides that unless we happen to know her personally. But for some reason, being talented at entertainment or literature means that we allow complete strangers to have far greater an influence in our lives than they would otherwise have - and that gives them the ability to abuse that influence. Celebrity culture is such a powerful influence in Western society that it's actually quite hard to snap out of it and remember that - but I think it is important to, because it's the root cause of this protection of the powerful.

There are other Jimmy Saviles out there. If you happen to know about one of them, although I recognise that it may be quite difficult, I urge you to tell someone about it - but only if you know for certain, of course. Whether they're an actor, a TV presenter, a broadcaster, a teacher, a a janitor or a road-sweeper makes not one ounce of difference to their danger to the public.

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Five reasons why Black Friday is an international disgrace

 I have never participated in the celebration of consumerism known collectively as Black Friday. Ten years ago, I'd never even heard of it. It's been celebrated in the USA since 1952, but is a far more recent thing in the UK, only really starting around 2013.

The origin basically seems to come from the fact that in the USA, Christmas is the next major holiday once Thanksgiving is over, and Black Friday is traditionally held the day after... marking the beginning of 'Christmas shopping season'. Thanksgiving is an American holiday commemorating the Pilgrim Fathers, and has very little significance the rest of the world over. The reason Black Friday has crossed over to the UK (and many other countries as well) seems to be down to two things: 1) The rise in online shopping; and 2) Because Asda, which is owned by Walmart, decided to participate and it went from there.

I think the whole thing is foul, and I will not participate. Here are five reasons why I feel this way:

1) It's a celebration of consumerism

I don't tend to buy many Christmas presents. I don't really ask for people to buy them for me either. If someone would like to buy me something, that's up to them. And if I do buy something for someone, it's usually because I've seen something that's made me think of them, or that I know they could really use. I hate the formality of gift-giving. A gift is a non-essential special thing that you do for someone, a moment to demonstrate that you value their presence in your life and that you're interested enough in them to know what they want/need. It is NOT an opportunity for relentless marketing, advertising and selling for huge corporations to get a nice bottom line at the end of the year. The Christmas shopping season is a horrible, cynical attempt to cash in on people's kindness to one another.

People with small children are the greatest victims of this, because much of the marketing is aimed strongly at children. We have a cost of living crisis; I know anecdotally of people who can barely afford to eat, but still somehow manage to scrape together enough to buy their child the latest gadget. And how can you not, if their child is being led to believe constantly that this is how a good parent shows love to their child?

2) It's utterly hypocritical

This is more in relation to the American side, which I don't personally have much connection to, but it needs saying. The meaning of Thanksgiving is in the name - it's to do with being thankful for what you have, spending some much-needed time with your loved ones. This is the antithesis to our consumerist culture, and is an attitude that we urgently need more of in every culture. And then the next day, everyone dashes out to embrace consumerism even more wildly than they did before. What happened to being thankful for what you had?

3) It actually causes people to spend more

You know, we're in a cost-of-living crisis. If there's something you badly need, I won't begrudge you waiting until the day when you might happen to get a few quid off. But here's a great deal for you: if you don't buy it, you get 100% off! Yes, I know, almost too good to be true. There's a serious point here though - a lot of us could probably do with living more frugally, using fewer of the planet's resources, and if you don't need it, the cost being reduced is not good enough reason to buy it.

I've seen personally that it can actually cause selfishness. I used to be a door-to-door charity cold caller, and I will always recall the number of people who, in 2017, couldn't sign up to charity because, they claimed, they'd spent all their money in the sales. If you can't afford it, fair enough. But if this is about saving money, why are people suddenly more hard-up after it than they were before?

4) It can get physically dangerous

Just look at these. I'm a bit loath to share this link as the website talks about it in quite a flippant and humorous way - but every single year, there's some kind of report of a fight or someone getting hurt as a result of the Black Friday rush. That's not even counting abuse to retail staff.

5) It's bad for the environment

You know, Cop27 is over, and as usual it's Cop-Out 27, with very little in the way of commitments to phasing out fossil fuels. If we're going to do anything about this global warming thing, looks like we're going to have to do it ourselves. A festival celebrating consumerism and greed is not conducive to that. At all.

Thankfully, I've seen a lot less Black Friday stuff around this year anyway. I'm not sure if that's because the world is waking up or if it's because the cost of living crisis has got so dire that people don't have the time to think about purchasing useless items even if they are on sale, but it is at least welcome.

If you want to get some new stuff, why not take a visit to your local charity shop? Bring a bunch of your old junk whilst you're at it as well.

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I will not vote for someone hostile to immigrants

'We are not the country of Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson. In the coming weeks we must take the fight to those who challenge our values. Labour is an internationalist party and always will be.'

Keir Starmer, 2019

I had a fairly idyllic childhood in urban Bristol. I happened to grow up living with huge numbers of different people, probably from about 10-15 different countries (that's a rough estimate - not sure I can remember them all!) I had friends from pretty much every different class background, and I went to a secondary school so racially diverse that in some of my classes I, as a white person, was actually in the minority. It's only been during my adulthood that I've come to realise how privileged I was to grow up like this. It's given me the advantage of being able to relate to all kinds of people without seeing them as fundamentally different kinds of humans - which is something that most of us do, even if we don't like to admit it.

In my early twenties I was a student at the University of Essex, and it was this experience in particular that made me realise how flawed my view of the world had been. I had grown up naively believing that whilst incidents of racism still happened, it was predominantly all in the past and that we were swiftly moving in the right direction - even the President of the United States was a person of colour! Then I moved to Colchester, and this optimism died quite quickly. I had to walk past this extremely racist political poster every morning on my way to Uni:

Colchester is a garrison town, which tends to lend itself to quite extreme right-wing opinion. I remember a conversation with someone once where I told them about my experiences of sometimes being in the minority of white people at school, and their reaction was, 'Wow... didn't that make you feel weird and uncomfortable?' I was quite shocked by this at the time, but thinking back it actually says a lot about our knowledge of our own inherent racism; that person must have known, deep down, that the life of an ethnic minority person is often quite miserable largely because of the racist majority, therefore they presume that anyone in any minority group must feel that way. Whereas the reality, of course, is that if you grow up in a diverse community, you know nothing different and the idea of feeling uncomfortable for that kind of reason just doesn't occur to you.

This is not even taking into account that during the time I was a student, there was a lot of discourse within the media about EU membership, culminating in the 2016 EU referendum. There was a great deal of noisy opinion being shared about this by my fellow students, and the Leave vote happened a week after I graduated. I was distraught. Then later that year, the supremely racist and extreme-right Donald Trump was elected as President of the United States. I was distraught again, but in a bit more of a cynical way - I'd come to expect it by this point.

I don't wish to speak badly about Colchester, because I did make some very close friends there - it was simply that living in that town caused me to realise that far from my perception that I'd arrived just in time to see racism disappear from our culture forever, I'd just happened to grow up in one of the very few progressive bubbles that happen to exist from place to place. This is not a Colchester thing - it's a thing that exists overwhelmingly across the UK and the world at large, and I just happened to have grown up not really witnessing it. I consider myself really fortunate to have had that - but it also made me very naive, and seeing a bit of the rest of the world and the attitudes of the people who live there was an important wake-up call. We still have a fundamentally callous and racist society, and this is reflected in the attitudes of our politicians.

This week, the leader of the Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer gave a speech at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) where he said, and I quote, 'our common goal must be to help the British economy off its immigration dependency. To start investing more in training up workers who are already here' (you can watch the speech in full here). Steve Topple of the Canary points out in this article that Starmer may as well have said 'those bloody foreigners coming over here and stealing our jobs'. There were other points to this that I will go into shortly, but it's worth pointing out before I do that this kind of rhetoric is so problematic that even Nigel Farage has endorsed it, saying that it's straight out of UKIP's 2015 manifesto (let's recall, the manifesto that ultimately caused then Prime Minister David Cameron to promise a referendum on EU membership, turning an immensely complex issue into a slapdash yes/no question, and we've lived with the consequences ever since.)

Farage does acknowledge that Keir Starmer may not have meant what he said, and I have no idea if he did or not. Politics is such a dirty game at the moment that I don't think we can rely on nearly any politician to tell the truth at any given time. This article from the BBC highlights the incoherence of Starmer's position rather well - he knows that in reality, reducing immigration would be a disaster waiting to happen. He's trying to pander to two demographics people at once - firstly, figures in big business who rely on cheap labour from immigrants, and secondly, typical Conservative voters, who most likely have racist tendencies and are hoping to hear a politician promising to get rid of all those foreigners (promises that right-wing politicians have been making for decades, and it still hasn't happened). There are two problems with this: the first is that as I said above, these two positions are completely incoherent, which isn't a good look for a party leader; and the second is that these two demographics of people are probably the most destructive to our society, and by pandering to either of them Starmer is proving himself to be a cynical and morally corrupt human being. The choice should not be between a) getting rid of all the foreigners or b) using the foreigners as cheap labour. Both of these positions are actually pretty racist in themselves, in that they remove the agency of immigrants and consider them to either be a nuisance or a means to an end.

I wrote the other day about how I consider Labour to be an extremely racist party, in some respects even more so than the Tories. I do not say this lightly, as I have seen how badly racist the Tories are, and I don't want to water that down at all. But for quite a few years now, Labour has been trying to out-Tory the Tories on some things. I will remind you of this mug that some genius thought it a good idea to bring out in 2015:

Remember, they lost that election very badly, and the reason they lost it badly is because this kind of thing doesn't fly. People with these kinds of horrible opinions will just flock back to the Tories (especially when the Tories are emulating UKIP). Meanwhile, this kind of rhetoric will turn away anyone who actually wants us to embrace immigration and to treat these people as legitimate human beings who are welcome here.

But even worse than the racist attitudes is the cynicism involved. Look at that quote I've put at the top. Just look at it. It was only three years ago that Keir Starmer said that. In as little as 1,291 days, Keir Starmer has gone from publicly decrying the kind of attitudes espoused by Nigel Farage to being commended by him for echoing them. And this is not an isolated incident either. Labour lost the 2019 General Election largely for being seen as sore losers for calling for another referendum on our EU membership or lack thereof. This was the only major difference between this manifesto and the far more successful 2017 one, and Starmer was the Shadow Brexit Secretary at the time, meaning he is largely to blame for the outcome. It's quite staggering to see someone so opposed to UKIP's ideals that he'd call to reverse the electoral decision UKIP was heavily involved in creating go to actively peddling the same kind of shocking rhetoric.

Keir Starmer has no consistent political viewpoints. He blows in the wind, aligns himself with whoever appears to be powerful at the time and has absolutely no shame. As Owen Jones points out in the video below, Boris Johnson may have been an awful Prime Minister, but at least his bid to become Conservative Party leader was honest; Keir Starmer deliberately misled the Labour membership about what kind of leader he was going to be, and has ridden back on all of his ten pledges. Whether he actually holds racist views, I cannot say without knowing him personally - but he is trying to align himself with people who do. This is dangerous and highly concerning.

I'm going to finish with a rather good video from Owen Jones concerning exactly what causes the current issues regarding immigration and skilled workers (which is a valid concern, even if the solution is unethical and won't work anyway) but before I go I'll just clarify why so many foreign people choose to come to the UK, as opposed to other countries. The reason is that they mostly speak English. And the reason they mostly speak English is that historically, we invaded their homelands. When we spread our language around the world as effectively as we have, the consequence is plenty of people choosing to come where they speak the language. And personally, I don't have a problem with any immigrants coming here whatsoever - but if anyone does, they may want to get involved in climate activism, because we haven't even scratched the surface of how many refugees will be trying to escape their home countries when climate change really takes hold.

I will not vote for anyone who is remotely hostile to immigration. It's harmful rhetoric, largely untrue and deliberately misrepresents the causes of people's problems.

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The expansion of Bristol Airport

Note: Much of the information in this blog has been taken from this article in the Bristol Post by Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer, although I've re-written it in my own words.

 At Cop27 in Egypt, the Secretary-General of the UN, António Guterres, warned that 'we are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator'.

It probably isn't necessary for me to outline exactly how and why that's the case because I think most people already know it all (although if you don't, there's tons of information online if you can bear to read it). From what I've seen, Cop27 is shaping up to be just like Cop26 - less action on fossil fuels, lots of talks of 'historic' agreements and a lot more of what Greta Thunberg calls 'blah blah blah'.

I want to talk about something more immediate, which is the proposed expansion of Bristol Airport. I live in Bristol and have flown from Bristol Airport in the past (although, apart from once in an emergency, I have not flown since 2015 as I cannot ethically justify it in the middle of a climate crisis). Bristol Airport has been pushing to expand its capacity for four years now, there have been campaigns to stop this from happening from the beginning and in 2020, North Somerset Council listened to the objection and rejected the planning application.

This was then overturned by the Government's Planning Inspectorate (which, incidentally, demonstrates how little power local councils have these days over corporations... corporations know how to play the game, they'll appeal up to the top of Government and the top of Government tends to side with them over locals and elected officials). In early November, an appeal was heard at Bristol Civil Justice Centre arguing that errors were made in the Planning Inspectorate's criteria, and the result of that is still awaiting. I took part in a protest outside the courtroom on the first day of the hearing - I was actually part of a choir of singers to raise awareness of this issue.

This campaign really matters, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it sets a precedent. There are many other airports in the UK looking to expand their output, who are eagerly awaiting the outcome of this particular case in the event that it helps to justify their own expansion. Secondly, it says something about Bristol's role as a city. In 2018, Bristol was the first city in Europe to publicly declare a climate emergency, thanks in no small part to local councillor (and now Green co-leader) Carla Denyer. I'm really proud of the conscientiousness of many of the people here in Bristol, I think it's something that much of the rest of the UK could learn from and I hope we can lead from the front in saying 'No more airport expansion' - not just here, but across the rest of the country and the world at large.

Finally though, I'd like to address the obvious discrepancy between the way we talk about transport in general. The idea of the 'personal carbon footprint', which was quite prevalent when I was growing up, has pretty much been debunked now. As I said above, I've only flown once since 2015 - but sometimes I think that the only thing this has really achieved has been avoidance of my own guilt. Save for exceptional circumstances I will not fly again until I'm sure that we've dealt with the worst of the damage and that flying can be morally justified (if that's ever the case, that is) - but is anyone truly better off as a result of me making that decision? I don't think so. I think the same number of flights have gone over the last seven years as they otherwise would have, which is quite dejecting.

This is because we emphasise two things at once which are impossible to square with one another. We encourage people to fly less often - and yet we also promote unregulated growth, which means increasing numbers of flights going. These two things are impossible to work together. Airports do not meet demand; they create demand. To truly deal with the pollution caused by air travel, we need to agree internationally that only a certain number of flights are allowed to go per year, and stick to this. If we did that, it would be easier for people to go on holiday, guilt-free. There's nothing wrong with taking the odd flight; the planet can cope with your occasional foreign holiday. What it can't cope with is the super-rich buzzing around on their private jets every week.

It's the scale of this problem we need to sort out - and this is why Bristol Airport must not be allowed to expand.

I'd also like to express my concern with the fact that damaging the environment is not in itself illegal. The case being heard in court is purely in relation to errors being made in the Government Inspectorate's process - nothing to do with the enormous amount of damage that airport expansion would cause. The latter seems to me to be far more important, and it seems that our laws are out of touch when it comes to protecting our collective home.

If you're worried about climate breakdown and its effects, I very highly recommend the YouTube channel ClimateAdam. Dr Adam Levy is a climate scientist, and very good at explaining what's happening and how you can help, in a way that is neither too complacent nor too despairing. I've only discovered his channel quite recently, but I've found it so helpful to keep myself informed of things.

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The UK Labour Party is fundamentally racist, impotent and sinister

Hello! Been a while, hasn't it? I've really had my hands full the last few months with professional commitments, despair over the ever-more-volatile state of the world and personal decisions for my future.

One of the things I've been doing recently is considering carefully the state of the UK opposition. I feel like I've been doing that pretty much every day for around ten years now (I kind of miss the days before I knew what the opposition was). One of the things primarily on my mind when I set up this blog as a lowly 17-year-old angry about tuition fees was that 'I hate the Government. EVERY Government.' What I meant by that was that I believed even then the old aphorism that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that anyone who comes to power is likely to experience the same effect. Do I still believe that? 'Yes, but...' is the answer. I think that in most cases that will be true, however I also believe that there are enough people in the world who wouldn't be corrupted by being in a leadership position. Jeremy Corbyn is one of them - I believe that had he become Prime Minister in 2017 or 2019, his general code of ethics would not have changed very much by being in that position. That is just my personal opinion; I could of course be wrong.

However, for better or worse he did not become Prime Minister. I still feel quite sad about that sometimes, but I also think it's better to move on and look to the future (something that us Corbyn-supporters are often accused - unfairly in my view - of being unable to do). However, I do need to say that if Jeremy Corbyn had been elected, irrespective of my personal views on him, things would still not have been brilliant. Far from it. Why? For the simple fact that Labour is a TERRIBLE party.

I've seen enough of the world of politics by now that I'm quite desensitised these days. Not that much shocks me. However, I admit to being very shocked by Al-Jazeera's three-part documentary on the UK Labour Party, The Labour Files. You can watch Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 on these links, and I strongly recommend doing so. It largely deals with the party's reaction to Corbyn's election as leader - but it's about so much more than that. It details how the opinions of people were deliberately misrepresented for cynical purposes; how personal details of campaigners, including things as sensitive as where their children went to school, were leaked to people with no right to that information; how incidents of racism amongst the staff were deliberately covered up; and so much more besides. Have a watch if you haven't already, but I warn you, it makes for grim viewing. It's immensely disturbing the levels of harassment that the Labour Party put sometimes quite vulnerable individuals through (and sometimes entire constituencies in a 'guilt by association' kind of way).

The message that I took from this is that the Labour Party is incredibly racist. The rules regarding leadership candidacy have changed recently (presumably to prevent any socialist ever getting in again); the current rules would have precluded every person of colour who has ever stood for Labour leadership from standing, as well as four of the six women who have ever stood (including Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy, the two women who stood last time). To put this into perspective, the current Conservative Prime Minister is a person of colour, as were quite a few of the people who stood in July's Tory leadership race. Far be it from me to point at the Conservative Party as a beacon of progressive politics, but it's arguable that we have actually reached a point where it's easier to be a woman or a person of colour in the Conservative Party than it is in Labour!

Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party was absolutely dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism. Another thing that us Corbyn supporters are often accused of is turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism, so I want to make something else extremely clear. Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party exists. It existed prior to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, it existed during it and it continues to exist now that he's gone. I was a bit too naive during the 2015 election period to recognise the anti-Semitic characterisation of Ed Miliband; but on reflection, I do not believe there would have been anything to say about the way a non-Jewish leader had eaten a bacon sandwich. Under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, the complaints procedure was deliberately sabotaged by Labour's senior staff, making it harder for Jewish people within the party. Under the current administration, huge numbers of Jews have been suspended/expelled from the party allegedly for anti-Semitic behaviour. Although I do believe it to be possible to discriminate against one's own oppressed group (women can be misogynistic, black people can be racist, gay people can be homophobic) I have never before heard of people persecuted ON THIS SCALE supposedly for oppressing people who share their own protected characteristic. This seems to me that the definition of 'anti-Semitism' has been redefined by the Labour Party for a political purpose (largely by people who aren't even Jewish) and that there is a 'right' and a 'wrong' sort of Jew depending on a political belief. If that's the case, it is one of the most disgracefully racist things I have ever heard of.

This is not even taking into account the other various forms of racism present in the Labour Party. Diane Abbott (who received almost half of all abusive tweets to female MPs during the 2017 election campaign) highlighted in this article that she received no apology nor any reassurance of any action being taken after the Forde Report revealed much racism and misogyny aimed at her by party staff. Apsana Begum, the first hijab-wearing MP, has experienced such extreme levels of systematic misogyny and racism from Labour Party staff that she had to be signed off sick for her mental health - and even then, Labour initiated a trigger ballot process during her time off to potentially cause her to lose her seat. There has been no apology from Labour for this behaviour, nor any recognition that it has even done anything wrong.

It's also worth noting the reticence from the Labour Party to support strike action. UK workers are facing increasing demands on their time for very little pay, and have been for some time. Rail workers are striking, as are nurses. Quite rightly so. Does the Labour Party (a party largely founded on union action) support these strikes in the slightest? No, it doesn't. It even went as far as to deselect MP Sam Tarry (the then Shadow Minister for Buses and Local Transport, as well as the partner of Deputy Leader Angela Rayner) after appearing on picket lines. If the Labour Party cannot even back workers standing up for their rights and fairer pay, something so crucial to its identity that it's referred to in its name, it's very hard to see what it actually stands for.

The fact that the UK Labour Party is in such an awful state is particularly bitter right now, for two reasons: 1) Because in such awful times we desperately need it to be better; and 2) Because actually, the Government is falling apart at the seams. We currently have the third Prime Minister we've had THIS YEAR. We've gone in less than sixty days from massive tax breaks to incredibly high tax hikes. The Government has run out of ideas. It has no objective other than keeping itself in power until the next election. It should be a foregone conclusion that it will suffer a thumping defeat at the next election whenever it comes...

Except it isn't. Because with Labour in such a dire state, the only way it can win an election is if people think, 'Well, they can't be worse than the Tories!' And, to be fair, it's entirely possible that Labour will win like that, with the Tories being as dire as they are. But what happens after that? Do we trust a party with such an economical relationship with the truth, with a history of such racism and misogyny and a profound unwillingness to stand up for working to really do anything to deal with the huge challenges the UK and the world faces today? Particularly with climate catastrophe on the horizon?

If Labour wins the next election, all that will happen is mild amelioration for a couple of years. During which time the Tories will rebrand, eventually get back in and the whole process will start over again... except even worse than that, because I believe (although this is just personal opinion) that Labour is now even worse than it was during the Tony Blair years. Anyone relying on the Labour Party to sort out their problems is in for a very bitter disappointment. I'm sorry to be so cynical, but this is the truth.

So, what can we do? Here are some ideas if you're feeling depressed (it's a depressing subject):

1) Think very hard about who you're voting for. Remember it's not just about the party or the leader, it's about your local candidate and whether you have faith in them to represent you in Parliament. I will not vote Labour next time because I do not have faith in my local candidate - however, there are still some Labour candidates for whom it's worth voting. The website They Work For You is a brilliant tool to determine whether a certain candidate is or isn't worth supporting - loads of information about their votes, speeches and general Parliamentary behaviour to determine if they represent what you want. If you don't have a decent Labour candidate, research your other candidates... we have an awful electoral system where most votes don't count, but if you have to vote for someone who won't win it's still worth it in some respects. If it's a closer call than expected, your local candidate may feel that they have to take on some of the characteristics of their opponent in order to win again next time.

2) Find a way of protesting. Protesting doesn't mean you have to sit in the middle of the M25 (although I admire people who do that, and they'll most likely be the subject of a future blog). Even if it's just trying to keep a day centre open in your community, that's still activism. Help with someone's rent, sign petitions, find something you can do to make someone's life a bit easier... we have to look after each other because we simply cannot rely on the state (ANY of the state) to do it for us. Even if you know an activist who's experiencing a bit of burn-out, a cup of tea and a chat can work wonders for someone's ability to carry on when the going is tough. (And just a note - a year ago, nine activists were jailed for telling the Government to insulate Britain. Now, the Government has pledged £6 billion to help do just that. Direct action does work.)

3) Don't despair. It's really hard not to sometimes, and I'm as guilty of that as anyone. But it isn't productive. So many times in the past people have felt similar to this, and so many times we've come through it. Someone once told me that the reason human beings have survived so long is that we're really quick to adapt to new circumstances - but we cannot ever imagine ourselves out of our present ones. If things are going badly, we cannot ever imagine them going well again. If things are going well, it feels like all the bad stuff is in the past and we've won. The truth is, we never win and we never lose, because things fluctuate, always have and always will. Just because things are bad at the moment, doesn't mean it's impossible to come through it and change things. It being impossible is what they want us to think. Don't fall for it.