And just like that, my first month as the MP for Brighton Pavilion comes to a close! What a month it’s been — the whirlwind of the election feels like longer ago than just a few weeks. It’s been remarkable seeing Parliament up close as a newcomer. We all know its reputation as somewhere full of particular processes, rules and traditions, but it’s another thing experiencing them first-hand. Frustratingly, its timetable meant that there were only two weeks of action before Parliament broke up for recess. That feels at such odds with the urgency of the problems that we have in front of us. I was elected to hit the ground running, to take the city’s issues straight to the chamber.
So that’s what I’ve done. Alongside my Green colleagues we brought the very first Early Day Motion of this Parliament, calling for urgent action to clean our seas and rivers by bringing water companies into public ownership. I spoke on the Government’s Rail Renationalisation bill, welcoming it as an important step forward but suggesting improvements to help it succeed and strengthen.
Despite the election already feeling like a distant memory, the spirit of the campaign that I was part of here in Brighton Pavilion still feels so alive. While so many MPs may be happy just to campaign every time they need a vote, that just isn’t how Brighton or I operate. Brighton has a rich history of culture, activism and community; its MP cannot just be in Parliament, but has to be out and about in this city, living and breathing it. And I’ve been doing just that.
So I’ve joined activists from the ACORN tenants’ union, supporting their campaign to stop Brighton Council using bailiffs to collect council tax – a cruel practice that we know has a devastating impact on those affected. Groups like ACORN fill me with hope. I’ve always been a renter, and know all too well how helpless and disempowered you can feel having such a fundamental part of your life subject to someone else’s decisions. It’s always a wonderful feeling to be around people so committed to fighting for the rights of all renters.
I’ve also been out to sea, to visit our fleet of wind turbines and hear about the exciting plans to expand the wind farm, which would generate enough electricity to power the whole of Sussex. This community saw off fracking here in Sussex – and now we’re part of a real green future. That’s something I’m massively proud of.
And I went to Trans Pride! It was lovely to be back in such a joyful space, marching alongside Brighton & Hove’s Green councillors to call for respect and healthcare for the trans community who face horrific, dehumanising attacks. Ahead of trans pride, I wrote to the Health Secretary Wes Streeting to express my serious concerns about his statement on puberty blockers. I’ve heard so much pain and concern from young trans people, parents and doctors, and will keep up the pressure on this government to deliver vital trans healthcare.
When I delivered my maiden speech in Parliament, it gave me the chance to reaffirm my commitment to something that’s been so important to me throughout my career – raising up the voices of young people. It was an honour to speak about the incredible work of Brighton and Hove Citizens, which had just won a huge campaigning victory in getting a commitment from the council for Brighton schools to benefit from investment in mental health support and counselling.
In that speech I also talked about my pride in Brighton itself, a city I have fallen deeply in love with. We are a city of sanctuary, committed to a culture of hospitality and welcome for those seeking refuge from war and persecution; about the exciting counter-cultural movements that have called Brighton home; about the city’s place at the heart of the green movement.
As its MP, I have the unique privilege of bringing both the needs and the spirit of Brighton to the House of Commons. I am determined to continue being present across our city, listening to our community and understanding what it needs, so I can take that to Parliament and be your voice.
Thank you – to everyone who put their faith in me at the election and gave me the chance to speak up for our wonderful city in Parliament. I’ve had just a taste of how brilliant it’s going to be working with my constituents to stand up for Brighton and fight for a fairer, greener future both here and across the country – and I can’t wait to see what else this Parliament will bring.
Here in Brighton Pavilion, we’ve had the same MP since 2010. Tom Gray, the new Labour Party candidate, talks to Jed Novick about changing that
Did you go full Spinal Tap? Did you throw strop about the miniature bread and get all the brown M&Ms taken out?
“No, no. I’ve always been too tethered, too down to earth.”
So OK. What was the most riderish rider you ever had?
“At one point I was struggling to keep all my socks clean, because doing your laundry on tour is an absolute ache, trying to find a launderette in Cleveland… So I added socks to the rider because I was thinking it would be nice to have some fresh, clean socks.”
Did you stipulate how many?
“Yeah, five pairs of clean socks.”
Colour?
“Whatever, just grey, blue or black.”
Clean socks. Grey, blue or black. And I was hoping for Nigel Tufnel.
I’m with Tom Gray, founding member of 1999 Mercury Prize winning band Gomez and now Labour Party candidate for Brighton Pavilion, a seat currently held by Caroline Lucas with a majority of nearly 20,000. Normally that would be considered a safe seat, but Caroline’s standing down and suddenly that 20,000 feels a bit vulnerable, a bit marginal.
“I think that’s because it’s Brighton Pavilion. It’s a unique place and has a unique standing in the electoral universe. It’s very particular and a very unusual group of people who live here. There’s an extraordinarily high level of education, of cultural engagement, of familiarity with international politics. There’s also a lot of money here, it’s actually quite a wealthy seat overall compared to most seats in the country, although there are areas of deprivation, real deprivation.
“Now, within that group, what you have is a huge number of people who’d consider themselves progressive. They wouldn’t say they’re Labour, they wouldn’t say they were Green, they might even have voted for the Lib Dems after Iraq. So you’re dealing with a huge number of people who are essentially unaffiliated floating progressive voters. And that is a fascinating group of people to aim yourself at.
“And so you say ‘What is it you actually want from your MP?’ Maybe you want somebody, as was clearly the case with Caroline, somebody who’s unique, a talented speaker, someone you felt reflected the insight and intelligence we have as a group of people in this constituency.”
But Caroline Lucas has gone – or will be soon. The question for Tom – and the other candidates is this. After 14 years of having the only Green MP in the country, what comes next? Or rather, who comes next?
“Maybe you think the natural successor is not a London councillor who’s been mired in local Green politics their entire life, but somebody who lives here, who comes from the creative industries, who’s been a musician and has been fighting all over the world for a change in the way that we perceive cultural workers, and who has a very distinctive voice of their own. Maybe that’s the natural successor.”
Sounds great but where could we find somebody like that?
“I couldn’t tell you. Where could we find someone like that?”
Labour’s slogan for the forthcoming (and frankly not forthcoming soon enough) election is “Let’s get Britain’s future back”. I’m a bit disappointed. I wanted it to be “Bring it on”, the title of Gomez’s first album.
“I keep saying ‘Bring it on. Let’s have that’, but I do understand why they’ve gone for that. It speaks to the fact that everything feels like it’s in terminal decline. Everything has been allowed to break and we’re pouring money into trying to solve the chaos they’ve created. They’re taking the investment out of people’s education, out of public health and housing and once you start to do that, everything falls apart. For example, A&E wards, on any given night, are 10 to 15% full of young people having mental health episodes. You think what’s gone wrong, where was the prevention? Where was the engagement? It’s no surprise to me that we’ve got a rise in car crime in big urban centers when we got rid of Sure Start 14 years ago. We took away the money and the support for underprivileged families, and when you do that, those communities start to disintegrate. It’s not hard this stuff, but you need time to fix it.
It’s not hard, this stuff. But no one has been able to do it.
“We can do it and we did do it. I joined the party in 1992. I joined the party of Neil Kinnock which became the party of John Smith and then became the party of Tony Blair, and the point is that even though my politics might have been some way to the left of Tony Blair, his government hauled millions of kids out of poverty, he gave us the minimum wage, gave us so many things that set us on the right track. Look back to 2010.
Whatever people thought of the country, waiting lists at the hospital were three months not three years. We really need to look at just that one fact and go, who’s better at doing this? The people who love and care for and believe in public services, or the Etonians who want to see the whole thing fall down?
Where did the passion for politics come from? Tom joined Labour when he was 15, the age when he should have been smoking behind the bike sheds and…
“Oh, I was doing that too”
“But it’s an interesting question. My family, on one side, it’s working class Roman Catholic from Salford, and on my mum’s side, my grandparents were Holocaust survivors, they were German Jews who ran from the Holocaust, so I’m a really weird mix.
“I grew up in Southport, a quiet suburban place and I suppose it’s just in the fibre of all of that, a real strong sense of duty to community.
That’s really what my politics are and that’s what has affected all the things that I’ve done along the way, outside of just making music for fun. But in terms of the other things, it’s always driven by asking how will we actually affect change? Can we really do something better for these people. I get very tired of gestures and conversation. I want people to be doing stuff. I’m like, What are we doing? What are we actually doing?
“So if people have just had enough, what I would say to people is you have to understand the scale of… look, when was the last time in British history, that we swung from a party with a working majority, to a party of a different stripe with a working majority? When was the last time that happened?”
If you read the papers and listen to the news, a Labour victory at the next election is almost inevitable. All you hear is talk of 20plus point leads in polls, but Tom’s right. It’s a major swing, a bigger swing than Tony Blair achieved in 1997. “People just seem to think it’s inevitable and I keep saying there is nothing inevitable about what we’re trying to achieve. But it really feels like the safety of the country hangs in the balance, the sanity of the country hangs in the balance. Everything hangs in the balance of this election and it’s so important that we fix this stuff.”
Labour still have, for many people, the ghost of the past hanging over them. For a long time, certainly at the time of the last election, the party was unelectable. By making Corbyn leader, they opened the door for Boris Johnson with his 80 seat majority and, arguably, for the disaster that is Brexit. The more you think about it – and incidentally, it was 1970. The last time a swing of this size happened was 54 years ago – winning the next election isn’t inevitable. Maybe right now we should look at what’s needed now rather than talk about mistakes made in the past. “If you’re not going to do something or change something, why be involved? I could be a member of the Green Party. Some of their policies are OK, but the truth is, the reason I’m in politics is not because I want to wear a badge that suits my ideology. I’m in politics, because I want to make things better. I want to do stuff. I don’t understand the politics of not doing stuff.
T
om Gray moved to Brighton in 1997 – “I came here for a gig and never left. I was sofa surfing for a year or so and had a permanent address by ‘99. I’d grown up in Merseyside and even in the creative areas, it felt you could feel physically threatened quite a lot. Whereas in Brighton it didn’t really have that. It felt safer. As soon as I came here, I felt ‘I’ve found my people’. Everyone’s cool with everyone. You can dress how you like, everyone’s comfortable with it. I couldn’t believe it existed. I was 20 years old and had spent most of my life in Liverpool and Leeds and, believe me, it’s very different.”
According to his Wikipedia page – and where else do you look to find out about people? – “Tom Gray is a Mercury Prize-winning British songwriter, composer, and activist. He is a founding member of the rock band Gomez, the founder of the Broken Record campaign, and the elected Chair of the Ivors Academy. He is an elected Council Member of PRS For Music and sits on the board of UK Music. He is a UK Labour Party activist based in Brighton & Hove, and a member of the Musicians’ Union. He was the recipient of the 2022 Unsung Hero Award presented by the Music Producer’s Guild UK”.
If that’s not enough, he’s also writing a stage musical now around “Danny, Champion of The World”, a Roald Dahl story about a boy and his dad who go nicking pheasants off the rich landowner up the road. It’s great. It’s my kind of stuff, sticking it to authority. But the main thing is it’s just a really beautiful story of a non toxic male relationship between a man and a son. You very rarely see that depicted and I think that’s why I’m really attracted to it.”
We talked long about local issues, housing, the environment – he doesn’t fly, Gomez toured carbon neutral – but what I was really interested in was this.
What was that like, winning the Mercury Prize. You were up against Massive Attack’s Mezzanine.
“I mean, they were robbed,” he laughs.
Do you still remember when the envelope was opened?
“Just. I was 20. I had no way of understanding what was happening. I was too young. I was just like, ‘Wow, we made a tape and it won the Mercury Prize’. How do you process that?
Do you remember that feeling, the night?
“Yeah, we lost the Mercury Prize that night.”
Do you remember where?
He laughs, again. Clearly it was a good night.
That whole music thing, was it great?
“Oh, come on. I loved it. I’ve had an absolutely charmed life. Honestly, I’ve been so lucky to have been able to make stuff and be involved with brilliant people. The reason I stopped touring was that my son started going to school, and I wanted to take him to school. That’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to travelli the world any more.
You did a lot of all that travelling the world?
“Mate, we were massive in North America. We had our biggest album in America with our fifth album, when no one was thinking about us here, that’s when we were starting to have radio hits in America. In 2007 we were in the top 30 grossing acts in America, playing 240 shows a year and playing big theatres all over North America, Australia, Asia, Japan.”
Does one moment stand out?
“There were loads of times when you’d just think ‘This is ridiculous’, but I had a moment on stage in Glastonbury in ‘99. The sun was setting behind the audience and I could see it and they couldn’t see it. So I just stopped the gig and got everyone to turn round and look at that and like 80,000 people turned round faced away from the stage and looked at the sunset. And you just heard everyone go ‘Wow’. There’s not many times in your life where you get to do that.”
Brighton has the only Green MP in the country and that’s always felt nice. But is this time different? Did we vote for Party or person? Sian Berry tells Jed Novick the name has changed but the message is the same
We’re sitting in the Green Party HQ just by the station. There’s more people than spaces and where there aren’t people there are cardboard boxes, all spilling leaflets everywhere. Everyone smiles, says “Hello”, asks how I am.
“Hi Jed, do you want a drink?” says Matt, the man makes all this work. He gives me a glass of water, which suddenly feels a bit awkward because there’s nowhere to put the glass down. The atmosphere is vibrant, chaotic but exciting. It feels like a changing room just before the Cup Final. You can feel the positivity, the energy, there’s also a nervousness that comes partly from being the favourites but, to continue the already tenuous football analogy, the star striker who’s scored the goals that’s got them here has left. There’s a new striker, but… Can she do it?
The shadow of Caroline Lucas hangs heavy. It’s not a surprise. The Green Party and Caroline have been synonymous for as long as anyone can remember. She’s been the Green MP, the Green face. She’s one of the most recognisable faces in British politics, one of the few politicians that transcend politics. She grew a marginal with a 1,252 majority in 2010 to a 20,000 majority. And now she’s gone.
That must be a strange feeling, taking over from someone who’s an icon, a celebrity.
“And she’s loved and rightly so. She’s my mentor as well. She’s always encouraged me throughout my career.” says Sian Berry, Caroline’s successor. “And yeah, everyone is sorry to see her go, absolutely. I’m not thinking that I’m inheriting anything. I’m working for every single vote. I’m trying to meet as many people so they know me and they will vote for me. But what I’m finding is that people are sorry to see her go, but would be even sorrier to see her go and lose their Green voice. So people are very, very willing to back me, even though I’m newer to them than Caroline and remember Caroline was new to them once. She’s become this icon over 14 years.”
Sian talks like the Green office feels. Excited and full of “let’s go” energy. She doesn’t so much talk as watch as words cascade out of her mouth. So yes, excited and full of energy, but also ready. She’s been embedded in activist politics since the early 2000s, which is where she came on Caroline’s radar.
“I’d been running a campaign, the Alliance against Urban Four by Fours. We campaigned outside the vegan shoe shop in the North Laine and did a stall where we were giving out these fake parking tickets which looked like Brighton Hove parking tickets, but said words like dirty and dangerous, and instead of a penalty charge notice, they would say poor vehicle choice, and then it would give information.”
Were you those people who went around letting people’s tyres down?
“Oh, the tyre people. No, that’s not legal, whereas sticking a fake parking ticket under someone’s windscreen is actually legal, and it started a really useful debate in the media. We also had big policy asks, so we wanted the government to change things like vehicle tax, so that if you bought a bigger or heavier vehicle or a more polluting vehicle, you would pay more. And Gordon Brown did do that.”
Sian’s background was in marketing as a medical writer and so knew how to tell a story, “but it was all paid for by big pharmaceutical companies, so I had to stop doing that” and after the 4×4 campaign found herself campaign coordinator for the Greens. She’s stood for Parliament before – “as a Green, you’re often asked to stand in unwinnable places, just to get the point across” – the first time she was up against Glenda Jackson, the last time was in 2017 against, of all people, Keir Starmer.
Say you get elected. Can you do much as one Green MP? Caroline’s personal fame allowed her a level of attention, but… Not for the first time I feel Sian getting a little bored with the Caroline comparisons. And fair enough.
“I’m really looking forward to getting the Green voice out, onto the national agenda. We deserve much more time debating with the other parties in the spotlight, because we have a legitimate point of view, and lots of people support it, and it ought to be heard.”
You could be the new voice of Question Time.
“We deserve so many more slots on Question Time. I think if you add up every appearance a Green has ever made…”
You could change your name to Nigel. They’d never stop asking you.
What specifically for the good folk of Brighton Pavilion, does Sian offer? “I aim to be the best MP I can possibly be, and use Caroline’s work as an absolute model for that. I know how much from talking to people on the doorstep, I know how much they appreciate the excellent constituency work she’s done, the excellent casework. I’ve represented people for a long time, and that combination of listening to people’s problems and helping people overcome the system if they’re having trouble with bureaucracy, if they’ve been treated unfairly, and you can help unlock the path to putting in a complaint and getting it fixed.
“The other job is to be a voice for the city and its concerns and values. I very much want to make the case for water companies to be brought into public hands, and you can see the other parties taking steps along the way now, because the water companies are just getting worse and worse. and it’s so much clearer that bringing them under the way of you know, hopefully a regional democratic control would be, would be absolutely brilliant, and we absolutely have to argue for that.
I’ve worked for years for a national charity campaigning for better transport. I love public transport. Let’s sort out the buses. Let’s get the trains working. You know, I have knowledge and how to influence that, and then housing, buying, not just building more council homes.”
Sian tells me about various schemes she’s worked on, from grants to upgrade their boilers, to councils buying houses and turning them into council houses. Real ideas that can make a real difference, and a little bit more positive than the incessant “We’ll cut taxes” rhetoric we’re hearing from the big parties.
Away from all this, what do you do when you’re not here?
“I’m been gardening a hell of a lot. It’s so nice. Honestly, we got a good garden. I’ve got a lovely patch that there’s previously been a fruit garden and looked after pretty organically. So I’m sticking I’m trying to grow as much food as possible, basically. During this period, the weeds are definitely going to have a bonanza and the slugs. But it’s, it’s, it’s so nice to at the end of the day, to just hang out there. And you know, it’s fantastic, isn’t it?
“I’m not going very far away, I’m absolutely still going to be supporting the party. I’m still not sure what I want to be doing, but rather than being the front bench spokesperson on everything, which I am at the minute, I want to find ways to focus on climate and nature. So really being able to focus on the natural world: That’s what I want to do, but I haven’t decided exactly how yet.”
I’m sitting in the back room of a pub in Preston Park, and Caroline Lucas MP – we can still say that – is doing one of her constituency surgeries. “Usually we do surgeries in the office, but from time to time we do them out in the community so people can drop by and raise issues with us rather than having to come into the office.”
I’ve started volunteering at Raystede rescue centre, I tell her. You could do that. I could have a word.
“Oh, have you? That’s very good. We’ve got a rescue dog. We got him from RSPCA in Patcham. But we did go out to Raystede, it’s a lovely place.” And that was me, sold.
She’s got solid credentials coming out of her ears. She’s – still – our only Green MP and for the last 14 years has stood up and tried to hold the government to account, but more than that, she’s got a rescue dog from the RSPCA. Sold.
At the risk of sounding old and cynical and jaded – as if – it’s fair to say that public perception of our politicians has never been lower. In the last two by-elections, the turnout was 37% and 38%. And they were probably people out walking their dogs who’d gone into the polling station to take shelter from the rain before realising what was going on. This year there’s going to be a general election and up and down the land there’ll be a collective cheer as hope flows we’ll be able to make a positive change. We can let them know what we think. We can send them back to their expenses paid duck houses. Flags will be waved. Bunting… all that. Except maybe down here in Brighton Pavilion because down here, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword.
While almost certainly the nation will kick the Tories out as the party of government, the alternative is offering precious little to get excited or inspired by. But, much more to the point, we’ll also lose Caroline Lucas as our MP because, as you’ll know, she’s standing down.
“It has been an extraordinary privilege to represent this place. And, it’s been really lovely to have conversations with people who followed what I’ve been doing and feel proud to have a Green voice in Parliament. It has been quite emotional.”
Sian Berry is going to take her place as Green candidate, and Sian is lovely and very impressive in her own way, but she’s not Caroline Lucas. Not yet, anyway.
Caroline’s been our MP since 2010, during which time she’s increased her majority from just over 1,000 to almost 20,000.
You’ve had a kind of weird position. You were an MP, the Green MP, but the Green Party, bless, is never going to get power. Were you ever tempted to join Labour because while you had a platform and got invited on Question Time a lot, but you weren’t ever going to be in the position to make policy. I can’t think of anyone else in British politics, who had that kind of position, except maybe for…
“Who are you thinking of?”
I can barely say it. Farage.
“Well look at the impact that Farage has had on the political system without ever being elected. I mean, it might be terrible, but it is significant. And he didn’t need to be elected to do it. So I think that that reminds us that you don’t necessarily need to have loads of MPs in order to make a difference. Obviously, I would love to have loads of MPs. “I regularly asked myself, How do I make the biggest impact? What’s the best thing to do? And of course you wonder if it would be better to be working inside another political party. But then I remember that if I were, then I would be whipped by the leader of that party to follow that party line.
“I think one of the things we need more than ever right now are MPs who are independently minded, who will stand up and do what’s best, in this case, for Brighton. Another Labour MP isn’t going to be able to do that here. They’re going to be whipped by Keir Starmer.
“But we’ve got a fantastic candidate who’s standing in my place. She’s wonderful. And she might seem sweet, as you say, but she’s also fearless and formidable, in the sense that she will hold Sadiq Khan, or Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer, whoever it is, to account. She is really good at doing that and she’s very determined and if you bring a problem – to her it’s like a dog with a bone, she will sort it out.”
And now you’re going to do something else. Presumably, you’re talking about something a bit more focused and high-powered and pressure groupy than volunteering at Raystede.
“I’m not sure yet. But I’m going to take a bit of a break, and then look around and work out how best I can use whatever
experience that I have, to work on more urgent action on the natural world.”
You must have had some nice offers. You’re high profile, popular, as near a celebrity as politicians get.
“There have been some nice offers, but I’m really anxious not to rush into something. I really do want to take a bit of time out just to think about it because right now, honestly, the job is 70 hours a week easily, if not more, and I just want to have the time to really sit with it and work things out.”
Was there a straw that broke the camel’s back?
“No, there wasn’t. There was a growing sense since the last general election, and it’s just exhausting covering everything. I think there comes a point when you think, I’ve been doing this since 2010 and, of course, I did 10 years in the European Parliament before that. So it’s just about that sense that now’s a good time to take stock”.
Is it that sense that it’s too early for retirement, that there’s still energy for another big adventure, the idea that life is a series of chapters.
“I do feel that. Exactly that, and actually, one of the things that I’ve been doing in recent months is working with a wonderful organisation called Living Well Dying Well, based in Lewes. They train you to be somebody who accompanies people at the end of life, an end of life doula, and in a way, some of that work, I suppose it’s slightly fed into the decision as well. In the sense of thinking that life’s short and one wants to make the most of it.”
When you look back, what’s the thing you’re most proud of?
“One of the things I’m really proud of is introducing a new GCSE in natural history. That might sound a bit obscure but I am passionate about our young people having as much access to nature that they can. I’m very influenced by something that an American writer, Richard Louv, said ‘We won’t protect what we don’t love. And we won’t love what we don’t know. And we won’t know what we don’t have access to and smell and touch and feel’.
“So it’s about making sure our young people have access to nature and understand it and learn to love it. It happens in many primary schools that have fantastic eco clubs and their own allotments and more – then you get to secondary school, and suddenly there’s no time left for that, everything closes down.”
Do you retain optimism?
“There’s another American writer, Rebecca Solnit, who makes a wonderful distinction between hope and optimism. She says unlike optimism, which can sometimes mean that you’re blindly optimistic and can mean you might feel like you’re just sitting there holding your lottery ticket – hope is different. Hope is like an axe that breaks down doors in an emergency. Hope is what gets you out of bed, knowing that you have to do something, even if you don’t know what the outcome is going to be. Hope gives you the vision and the commitment to go and break down those doors for a better future. So I have that.
I have that hope. I don’t have optimism in the sense that I think that if we just hang on tight, it’ll all come right. I mean, I think anyone who thinks that given the situation we’re in right now…” Her voice trails off, probably hoping we can talk about something else.
Outside of politics , what makes your heart sing?
“Walking the dog on the downs.”
Who’s your dog?
“He’s called Harry and he’s mostly Labrador, but he has something in him that makes him jump very high. And when you take him off the lead and the way he shoots, you can just feel his glee and joy – and that makes me feel full of joy as well”.
Everything you ever wanted to know about life in Brighton (OK, and Hove)
The Whistler 