A Collective Voice in the Hallowed Halls of Power

Written on 23 October 2025

I feel so strange. Feel like I want to pour my heart out, but there’s only the dog here, and even if I tried with my friends, the majority wouldn’t get it.



So many people cannot understand that I do so much, earn so little and juggle caring for H. The thing is, why would I not?



I want to know how people in power perceive us. Sketch an image of who they imagine when they discuss us in such negative terms, as a burden and as lazy people who just need to have the state support removed, and poof, we will be in work and they won’t look so crap in the headlines.



On my trip back north, the final leg on the tram, a woman told me that she thinks Labour are worse than the Tories, and that she wouldn’t vote Reform but only because of Nigel Farage. How sad that is to me, that she was speaking of being unable to sleep and how she comes from Ireland, but that it's the “brown skinned people need to leave”. I reminded her of billionaires and millionaires and all of the greed. The greed of all those who cannot even imagine a genuine picture of us.



In not speaking out against racism, by failing to counter the harmful rhetoric in the media, our government are betraying its people.



Today, in the House of Lords, alongside some of the most inspiring people I know (and new people too), I reflected over the last five years and more, and I wondered if the people in the room that we would be addressingwould be able to comprehend just how lucky they are that we made the sometimes incredibly long journeys in order to ask them to help us ensure that the Child Poverty Strategy, and the actions that it lays out, turns the tide on soaring poverty and inequality in the UK.



There were not only a handful of us in that room, but there was also the collective voice of our project, Changing Realities. The breadth of knowledge that accompanied us into the hallowed halls of power is unquantifiable.



They were very lucky that we accepted that invitation and I felt incredibly proud to be there, and to speak for us all, the millions who actually deserve a place at that table.



We ARE the power in those rooms, and we need reminding of that. We need to know that whilst we might think completing surveys, adding to our diaries, the breakout rooms where sometimes grief and sometimes humour is held, that the things we say and do matter more than we could ever imagine.



And I believe it is time that we stood inside the absolute brilliance that we are. This is our truth, these are our kids, and this is about all of our futures.



Thanks so much to the team, to Ruth P and to Ruth L, for bringing our voices out of silence and into the places where we must be heard.