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From Therapy to Social Change
We believe that insights and practices from the realm of therapy can contribute to a better world for all. At least, that's our hope... In an era marked by climate crisis, conflicts, and escalating inequality, any positive contribution is surely welcome. But what, more specifically, can the fields of therapy, psychology, psychiatry, and mental health offer to create a more equitable, sustainable, and flourishing world? This is the question we aim to explore in this podcast series.
Hosted by Mick Cooper, Professor of Counselling Psychology and author of 'Psychology at the Heart of Social Change' (Policy Press, 2023), as well as a father of four, and John Wilson, a Psychotherapist, Educator, and Co-Director of Onlinevents, we will engage in conversations with a diverse array of therapists, writers, and other perceptive and influential individuals.
We aim to delve into the depths of the human psyche while connecting it to current social and political issues—all with energy, enthusiasm, and a touch of humour, we hope!
Sponsored by Onlinevents: https://www.onlinevents.co.uk/
From Therapy to Social Change
Alex Sobel MP in Conversation: Being Real in the Political World
What is the reality of political life and how does it affect our MPs? Can they be the real human beings that they are? In this podcast, TaSC members Robbie Curtis and Mick Cooper talk to Labour MP Alex Sobel, as he discusses his journey from environmental and anti-fascist activism to representing an ‘unwinnable’ Labour constituency. With a much-appreciated openness, Alex sheds light on the personal and professional challenges of political life, providing a candid look at some of the mental health challenges faced by politicians in 2025. Alex talks about the stress and isolation that can come with the role, emphasizing the importance of mental well-being amidst the relentless demands of public service.
There are systemic challenges that can threaten the capacity for parliament to represent all human beings. Alex goes on to discuss parliamentary issues like lack of designated seating, irregular hours, and frequent travel that can create a non-family-friendly environment, especially for those with young children or separated families. Alex also discusses the prevalence of undiagnosed neurodiversity among MPs and the limited mental health support available. Alex advocates for more inclusive practices that accommodate the diverse needs of politicians, highlighting the importance of effective representation.
Alex underscores Leeds' significant contributions to arts and culture; and shares insights into being a Jewish MP, addressing antisemitism within political spaces and the distinction between Jewish identity and Israeli government policies. We round off the episode by tackling the broader implications of misinformation in today's digital age, stressing the crucial role of truth in preserving democratic values. This episode invites listeners to explore the multifaceted world of politics and the pressing challenges today's politicians face.
This Podcast is sponsored by Onlinevents
alex, it's so wonderful to have you, I'm so grateful that you've agreed to be on our podcast and it's great to to meet you and to see um with mick and I for the next hour or so as we go into some ideas around what it's like to be a politician in 2025, um, and some of the intersections between therapy and politics, and your experiences, um. I'll just start with a bit of a bio, if that's okay. So you were born and raised in Leeds. The only British MP whose family comes from Israel. Your father was in the Israeli military.
Robbie Curtis:He fought in the 1976 war and immediately joined the peace movement 67. Thank you, thank you, 67. And immediately joined the peace movement after the war. You attended anti-fascist and environmental protests as a teenager, in terms of more recently. So you're a former city councillor. You ran Social Enterprise Yorkshire and the Humber for eight years before becoming an MP in 2017. And you were the shadow minister for nature, recovery and the Domestic Environment from 2021 to 2023. So it's just wonderful to talk to someone like you for our podcast. So I wonder if we could just start with your experience as an MP, so from kind of becoming an MP in the first place, where your motivations came from, and then sitting in the House of Commons as a newly elected politician like what was that journey like for you?
Alex Sobel MP:Sure, I mean, it's a long, a long journey. So I suppose it started in your sort of you sort of mentioned in my bio. When I was a student I was involved in environmental campaigning, anti-fascist action, and then then later on in campaign against introduction of tuition fees for higher education students. Um, and you know, in that activity you go and lobby your mp and and well, I wasn't thinking about it straight away, I was a bit like we go I have to go and ask this other person to go and to this other place to ask for this thing, and you know, rather than being an advocate for it even though being an MP is still basically an advocate why can't I be the decision maker? Why can't I be the legislator? Why can't I, you know? So that was sort of led me to look at, well, I knew what my politics were, the closest affinity to them, which is the Labour Party, and so I joined the Labour Party I'm just putting these on just for a second Joined the Labour Party, and then sort of the journey really was just as an activist to begin with, but all the sort of my professional career.
Alex Sobel MP:Although my degree was in computing, my professional career was in communities, mainly in regeneration, computing. My professional career was in communities, mainly in regeneration, and so I had quite a parallel existence with, particularly with local politicians, a bit less with members of parliament, but still a little bit and actually with ministers in that area, and so over the years, obviously, I'd developed relationships. I became active within the Labour Party, the trade union movement, civil society more generally through work and voluntary activities and and that led me first to being a councillor, like you said, in in 2012 and then and then to being an MP in 2017. But I took on, you know, the seat, although if you look at it on paper now and it's a different seat with a different name from the last election when I took it on, the previous candidate in 2010 had come third. So it wasn't, you know, it wasn't some seat that had been Labour forever and you knew you were going to become an MP.
Alex Sobel MP:This was a difficult, tough constituency where actually lots of people, when I took it on for the 2015 election election which I didn't win um said labour will never win this seat again. You know it's nice for you to have a go, but you know it's not. It's not really, but I didn't believe that. I looked at the seat and the people. I'd lived here for a long time you know from. Actually, I was born in this current constituency, so, um, I, um, I had a real affinity and real feeling for the constituents. So that's sort of the journey really.
Robbie Curtis:Yeah, thanks for giving us that whole journey and I'm curious kind of the impact of that as part of your career and your mental health and your mental well-being. I imagine it's quite a big thing to represent your community where you've grown up from, but we know that politics is quite a toxic place at times and yeah, I mean any, any involvement.
Alex Sobel MP:Politics is an element of stress in your mental health. So being a candidate um is stressful as well. Election campaigns are stressful. Being a councillor particularly one if your uh portfolio holder, which I was is stressful. And then being an MP to an extent is even more stressful a little bit less on the decision making, more on the public exposure side. You know there are lots of angles to it which which create stress and stress your mental health.
Alex Sobel MP:And I think being an MP there's some, particularly if you're a member of parliament, where you're, where you, you're not able to go back to where you live, slash represent from parliament every night. So you effectively half the week you are away and on your own. You know, obviously not on your own in parliament, but still in. In some senses it is, can be, can be a lonely, lonely, lonely place and can be a hostile place. And then obviously half week back in your and it's also discombobulating. It took me years to stop being discombobulated. You know you wake up in the morning. Most people wake up in the morning. They're where they are.
Alex Sobel MP:That is not necessarily the case.
Alex Sobel MP:You're an MP, you know you could be in London, you could be at home, you could be if particularly if you're on a select committee or some other body which involves a lot of foreign travel you could be in a hotel somewhere else in the world, and you know, and that and that creates a lot of people in other professions who have that similar challenge.
Alex Sobel MP:But so you've got, and you know you've got all of these different things and I think that everything now is supercharged by social media as well. So it's about your relationship with social media. My relationship with social media has definitely changed in the seven years I've been an MP and I've probably got a more healthy relationship with it now. But it can be an utterly debilitating thing because you go on and you read sometimes hundreds of comments about you and you know, and I can tell you, when it's hundreds of comments they're definitely not positive. So you know. So you know that I mean, you know there aren't many people who, who can, can get through that without any, any impact on their mental health, even if it's just a short-term impact.
Mick Cooper:Yeah, can I ask? I mean, what's that? Like, alec? It's like reading loads of comments from people that you don't know saying really negative things about you.
Alex Sobel MP:I mean, it's worse when you read them from people you do know. I'll tell you that, nick, the ones you don't know, you can sort of particularly from sock puppet accounts or you know, do a lot on um, international human rights, and so there's a lot of sock puppet accounts from some of these oppressive, autocratic regimes. I quite enjoy those because I feel like I'm getting something done. Then you know, but when it's real people, particularly constituents, people you've met, people you know, people who know you, actually, you know you and your values and your views then they're attacking you for a vote in parliament, particularly, particularly where it's where you haven't voted like. So they, they presume that the reason you haven't voted it is because you don't believe in the thing.
Alex Sobel MP:Where it might be, you might be ill, you might be on a foreign, you know it could be anything, you know. So there's a whole range of things and, and you know, I think particularly where you haven't said something about something or you haven't done something, where there's an absence. And there's lots of good reasons for that, because a lot of the time and I can give an example of I can give a very good example of this, to be honest, but a lot of the times it's because you're working on it in the background, in private, you're working from it. You don't going to resolve the issue you're talking about Going on social media and talking about everything you're doing about it is actually going to stop you getting it resolved rather than help you getting it resolved. But people obviously don't understand that.
Alex Sobel MP:So so I mean, the biggest thing that I've done to safeguard my mental health in terms of social media and I have to say, x is the most toxic platform, but I think everybody knows that already or they might soon be joined by TikTok from what we're hearing in the us at the moment um so um is to read it a lot less and then also and this is actually quite a recent thing to restrict who can comment on posts, you know, and also to to not not respond to people.
Alex Sobel MP:You know very occasionally now respond very occasionally. You know you put something out. It's a broadcast media, although obviously it's not, but treat it like a broadcast media. If you go and do a tv interview, you wouldn't go back in the interview half an hour late and start shouting at the interviewer, would you? That's not how it works. You do the interview, you go home. That's it, you know. So that's sort of how I, that's how I try and deal with social media now and that has helped it's fascinating, thank you, and I'm curious, like, how it works, like with the other mps.
Robbie Curtis:Like do you find lots of empathy, like obviously they're going through some some of the similar challenges, but is there a good working culture and is there understanding amongst mps, maybe from different parties, that have working together, or how does that work I think the thing about.
Alex Sobel MP:actually, in some ways, it's easy to be in different parties because you are in opposing parties and then the only times you work with somebody is when you agree on the issue. So if you and your counterpart, in whatever other party it is, are on a different side of an issue, you're not going to work together on it because you obviously disagree, right? So you only really work with people on issues where you do agree, and actually this happened fairly recently. I've started on international issues and actually on international issues there's generally more consensus, um, although that's not entirely the case, and everything but um. I've been working with ian duncan smith a lot on human rights issues and actually if you told me 10 years ago the index was some great, you know, support of human rights, I'd said you were joking. But, um, but like, obviously, I think people it's quite well known on about china, but, but quite a number of things. I was at an event with him the other day in terms of the autonomous northeast Syria, which is a Kurdish area, and another minority area of North Syria, which has been independent for 10 years now, you know, right through the Assad regime. Obviously things have changed recently and then work with him on on quite a number of international human rights issues. So you know. So there is that.
Alex Sobel MP:But in your own party and you actually sometimes is you've got a lot of people who are your friends, that is absolutely true, and you sort of, and people who in the new intake, even as people who I've been friends with for a long time, and obviously in my own intake and other intakes, you know I was a councillor before, so obviously I know the other MPs, long standing leads. I was a councillor in another MP's constituency, obviously very close to him. You know, and that's all great and so you can and you know who to go to for support. But not everybody is supporting your own party and there is. You know there is an element of competition as well, internal competition, because you know there are, there are jobs everybody wants and actually for those jobs you are only competing with people in your own party.
Alex Sobel MP:If you want to be a select committee chair, that is allocated to a party and then people from that party run for select committee chair. If you want to be a minister in the government, then you know that is, you know, just your own party. So although there isn't. You know that's an appointment and there isn't. But there is always a little bit of that, a little bit of that competition like in a company. I suppose if you're in a company it's a little bit like that. If you're in a company, you've got a competitive company. You probably don't have personal relationships that much with your competitors, you know, but you do within your own company and you have competition, internal competition.
Robbie Curtis:So it's a similar sort of thing. I suppose I wonder something in that of being the ruling party, being one of the biggest parties in the uk there's so many people and so much competition and I'm curious kind of.
Robbie Curtis:I suppose, on on a back to mental well-being in general, are there systemic issues that you see is that policy is always going to suffer from some of these challenges and and kind of the support is never going to be what it could be, maybe no, I mean, I think I think I was going to make this point a bit later.
Alex Sobel MP:I might make it now. So, first of all, I think I think our parliament, the way it operates, is our cake. Um, and everybody goes oh, it's the westminster model. We have a westminster foundation of democracy where we try and talk to other people about the westminster model and adopting the westminster model. You know from other, from emerging democr, if you want to put it that way and and I'm a bit like, well, we need to, you know. I mean, I'm not saying that we shouldn't do that, but but we need to update our own model.
Alex Sobel MP:If you're going to start from somewhere, you wouldn't start from where we are in Westminster. You know that no new, no new legislature has a chamber like ours, where it's like very clear opponents, where there isn't enough room for the entire legislature to sit and there isn't a designated seat for you as a legislator. It's like first come, first serve. You know, put pmqs there are. There are on our side, not so much on the opposition side. There are quite a lot of people that can't get a seat where you can what we call bob for questions. There's another thing bobbing. Bobbing for questions. That's like nobody else in the world does that. You know. There's lots there's.
Alex Sobel MP:And then our hours. Our hours are not family friendly. Monday is a particularly bad example, and there's a logic to mondays. We start at 2 30 and the logic there is that people would want to travel from their constituencies on monday, so you've got to give them time to do that. But we finish at 10. You know so. And starting at 2 30 doesn't mean that your working day starts at 2 30. It means you basically have a working day if you include travel from 9 am to 10 pm. And there are times although not at the moment, particularly during brexit where 10 pm wasn't 10 pm, it could be 2 am, you know. So that's not a great working environment. Then you've got to be back again the following morning. You know, I'm sure the European Working Time Directorate probably got hammering during Brexit in Parliament, but it wasn't implemented. So that is not a family friendly place. We've had a little win recently where some of the half terms particularly October, but even other ones February there's some school areas where the half term doesn't line up with the parliamentary recess. I'm lucky it does in Leeds.
Alex Sobel MP:But you know what. You know if you're particularly a single parent, what do you do with your children? You know, if that's your because, because if you're a single parent, a separated relationship and family separation is also quite common. We can talk about that in Westminster and that, again, is something that I've I've gone through fairly recently. So, you know, these are all things that add to difficulty and the system's not really built for it. So, and it particularly affects our London MPs, like I say, because you know you don't go home every night and you don't see your children every day. You know it's not a normal working environment.
Alex Sobel MP:So, and the other thing I'd say is, um, and I think again, I think politics is quite conducive to this and it attracts and attracts. Politics attracts, um, this sort of people, but I'm not sure parliament's conducive to it. There is a lot of neurodiversity in parliament, the majority, vast majority, which is undiagnosed. You know, um, uh, and and, and I think there's probably a lot of undiagnosed neurodiversity just generally all around society. But I think maybe politicians don't. You know there's that whole thing about, you know, stigma and all of that, so you don't want to admit it, so you don't go for a diagnosis and all that, or you're just too busy and then obviously we have a system which isn't really very helpful, which we as politicians should be trying to fix, I think, which you know, we are trying to fix it. But there's a huge backlog of particularly, you know, adhd diagnosed, saddle adhd services awful, but there's definitely a lot of adhd in parliament.
Alex Sobel MP:You can just tell it in meetings and I didn't realize this, I didn't realize I didn't, or not I didn't realize I didn't't, you know, I didn't, I didn't know the signs or the symptoms or anything. But then I was one of the founding members and vice chair of the All-Pipe Parliamentary Group on ADHD and you sat in meetings talking to experts and meeting people with ADHD, you know, lived experience and you were like there's something here and I didn't realise it all these years. You know, and now it's becoming quite clear what's going on and then you start seeing it in other people. So it's, and parliaments have been to see the. You know it's not really, it's not really cottoned on to our health services in parliament, although for physical health they're really good, you know, probably the only place in the country you can get a GP appointment in half an hour. So, um, but mental health again, and neurodiversity, like like everywhere else, lagging so can you talk more about just specifically?
Alex Sobel MP:so there's a mental health service for politicians, but it's just not great, or okay there is a gp service, okay, for politicians in parliament and it's like every other gp service in the country and if you specialize service, it will refer you and, um, you can work on that, but they aren't your primary gp and they can't be, I don't think so. They have to obviously work with your gp back home and that obviously makes things a bit more complicated. But, to be honest, if you're an mp, you're much more likely to have time to see the gp in parliament. You are the gp in your constituency.
Mick Cooper:So if you're an out of London I keep going on about it if you're an out of London MP, yeah, Can I ask you because there's so many, I think, really important things that you're saying there but it sounds like part of it is that Parliament really isn't set up for kind of normal not normal, but kind of for everybody in a way that can really represent people where there's, as you say, separated relationships, separated families, people with neurodiversity it's. It's a kind of archaic model that doesn't allow it to really represent the the kind of scope of the population I think that's right.
Alex Sobel MP:I think that's right, and I'm not saying it's the only workplace by any means, but this structural, structural issues, yeah and um, and we've got obviously got two chambers. The other chamber it's a bit less of an issue because the age profile, particularly on the children and families is is much older, but now we're getting younger peers as well, so they have they. They sit even later, you know, and it's not a proper job, if you like, because they don't get a salary, they just get attendance allowance. So you know, both chambers have this problem, will increasingly have this problem, for instance, because they're getting rid of their entry peers and they replace those appointed peers. So you know. So it's a parliament, it is a parliament problem, an increasing parliament problem.
Alex Sobel MP:The new intake is a much, much higher level of um people with school age children than I've experienced in parliament. So, um, you know, and and this is a very partisan point I'm about to make but, um, in the labour party I don't know anybody who sends their children to school, where they board at the school, while in the previous parliament we had big the majority of mps, conservative mps not. A lot of them didn't. A lot of them went to state schools. I'm not saying did, but there were quite a lot of a lot of their children boarded. And that is quite different in terms of your, um, your care, your care needs for your children if they are at boarding school than if they are, you know, at a normal mine. Go to a comprehensive, actual comprehensive school, you know.
Mick Cooper:So yeah, and, as you said, you're a single parent, then it really makes it difficult absolutely, absolutely.
Alex Sobel MP:You have to negotiate between two parents. You know you need family support. Holidays where parliament is sitting is difficult, you know they, they do like you know you need family support. Holidays where parliament is sitting is difficult, you know they, they do like. You know some, in some senses they do try and accommodate you. So the attempt, the, the accommodation allowance, and again, this is where you get. So the other side of it, we get pressure from your constituents. One pressure from citizens is, you know, is expenses, um, so they do give you an increased accommodation allowance so you can, you can rent somewhere big enough for your children's stay for those holidays, which again is a bit funny because if you think about it, you know my kids will probably be in my london flat three or four weeks a year, maybe a bit more, and and and one of those weeks will be in recess anyway, you know. So I will probably do some some parliamentary type things in london while I'm there, but parliament won't be sitting, um, and that's you know, and that's the whole across the whole year. So that doesn't seem like a very good use of money. But how else do you do it? And then, and then you get, you get constituents going.
Alex Sobel MP:Oh, you know, none of the other. No, that's not true anymore, but the world was none of the other mps in london, in leeds sorry had children who lived in leeds, and so it's a bit like what your. Your accommodation is a lot higher than all the others. Why is that? Why can't you spend x mp? Is is like a third, two third, no, not a third, two thirds of yours. Why, why is yours so much higher? Now, it's because I've got children who who live in. Like you like the fact that my children go to the same school as your children, but you don't like that. You don't like the fact that my accommodation allowance is high. You know, it's like. You know, people want to have everything both ways, don't they?
Robbie Curtis:so you get a bit pressure on that sort of thing, you know, and I imagine just being a dad and having to do half your week in London and half in Leeds, that must be just so much, so much traveling and just spending time a lot and, although it's not anymore, to be honest, but at the beginning it was hard for my kids as well.
Alex Sobel MP:You know, 20, 2015 or 2017, I can't remember which election it was and, um, they, like I, they go to mixed intake, comprehensive school and the school takes kids from quite a wide area a lead. So the other children that live in the constituency, and particularly those that went to the same primary school, some other local primary schools, my children absolutely not, an issue doesn't matter Kids who live miles away, particularly from more disadvantaged communities. An election would see all of these placards and my name is not Smith. So it was like is that your dad? And they were like, yeah, and they were like and they get bullied for. You know they get bullied for it.
Alex Sobel MP:And then you hear, you hear a lot about you know when things happen with MPs and press stories it's you know that that really, that really hasn't happened to me, thankfully, but, um, you know, but that sort of that has an impact on on your family and public exposure, all the stresses and strains of being an MP, public engagements, being away, all that. You know there is a very high level of family separation in Parliament. I know that 42, I think it's the figure, isn't it? 42% of marriages end in divorce. I'm not sure whether we're higher or lower in Parliament than anybody's done a study, but we're certainly. We're certainly potentially over the national average. You know, it seems like a lot to me compared to my peer group. Parliament seems very high level of separation compared to my peer group outside of parliament do you think that's because of the stress or and the distance and the separation.
Alex Sobel MP:I think it's everything. And also I think, if I'm honest, being an mp and not being an mp isn't a bit like, well, I had this job and now I've been promoted, I'm now the manager, or I had this job and then I've got this other job in another rival company or, you know, in a different hospital or whatever. It is completely different. You know, there's very few things you transition from to be an MP where you're like well, this is more or less the same as what I was doing before. It is not the same as being a counsellor is 100% not the same.
Alex Sobel MP:Being a counsellor um and um and then, and that changes you changes your mindset, your mentality, you know. It's sort of. You know people as you go through life and experiences and circumstance, their environment, you know, shapes them. It's not just children, I think, it's all the way through life. I mean, this is probably an area of expertise for you rather than for me, but that's my, that's my view and I think being an mp has very fundamental change. And then your relationship, obviously, with your partner changes because you're different, the circum, everything's different, you know. So it's difficult, it just is I when.
Robbie Curtis:So obviously we start as an MP and then you become a shadow minister. You chair an all-party parliamentary group. I'm guessing that's just extra challenge, extra time pressures and just yeah, normally.
Alex Sobel MP:Yeah, yeah, I think if you're a minister then definitely, definitely Shadow minister, a bit a bit, not quite as much as a minister, but with shadow minister it's more going on visits, there's more travel, it's more time away. I was actually lucky, I have to say, my shadow, my, my shadow minister, because I did two. So I did the one you mentioned, the nature, nature recovery. Before that I did, uh, tourism and and heritage and some other things in dcms. So I was on the front bench for nearly the entirety of of um kirstmer's time as leader of the opposition. But one of the things that I did in terms of my portfolio was zoos. So first the zoos as a tourist visitor attraction and then, secondly, from an animal welfare perspective, and so I went to a lot of zoos.
Alex Sobel MP:It's a bit unfair on children for your parents to go to a zoo and not take your children. I went to a lot of zoos. It's a bit unfair on children for your parents to go to a zoo and not take your children. So I always took my children to the zoo, including my youngest son being zookeeper for a day at London Zoo while I was meeting the chief exec, and my oldest son was in that meeting as well. But my youngest son wants to be a zoologist now. So you can say it's like you know, it's not all negative. I think if I hadn't been to like 15 zoos and nearly the same number of aquariums and he hadn't been to all of those with me all around the country, not sure this would now be the case. So you know there are there are positive factors as well and they've had lots of. I have to say. They had lots of experiences that other children wouldn't have had and been taken to things I'd certainly wouldn't have got anywhere near. You know they've been gone to music festivals and you know when I was shadow tourism minister, we got, I got, I got invited to lots of great things and it was like out with with a guest or and somebody say, well, I've got two children. They say, yes, fine, bring both your children. You know. So they they've been and experienced things and it's certainly awakened them in my like.
Alex Sobel MP:One of the international human rights things to do is around west papua. My oldest son's now in sixth form at the local sixth form college and he's doing an epq and his epq subject is are international politicians doing enough for human rights in west papua. I feel like there's a bit of side eye there, but fair enough, you know he's been. He's been to a lot of west papua meetings. He had to come with me to to brussels and to the hague to go on international ones even. We even went to australia to to restart the australian west papuan group and he was sat in number of offices in in canberra, in in the parliament. There we got a taste for tim tams, uh, which is like the australian penguin but much superior. Um, so you know, so it does rub off on kids as well, sometimes possibly.
Mick Cooper:I'm not saying it's all that, you know, it'd be wrong for me to say it's all negative, yeah well, I guess there is a pressure as a politician, there's an expectation that you're kind of perfect, that you're faultless, and I imagine what you were saying earlier about you know when people are picking up on things, that must be that you're not expected to be human and you know what's been lovely listening to you is about talking about the real human. You know you as a dad and your life, but that's not a side we see and that doesn't feel healthy. But you know the people leading the country is supposed to be something other than everybody else.
Alex Sobel MP:Yeah, I think actually it's helpful that politicians get the opportunity to do things like this. I've done a few, although not on the national media, and they used to have a you know backstory and all of this. And you think, well, that's maybe because you know they were given more of an opportunity to to communicate that and there's less opportunity now. So I definitely think that I mean, I think the other thing around this is is that that you know when, when, when you, when you're a politician, you there's nowhere to hide. If you do a job and you make a mistake, then what might happen is you know about it. Your manager might find out about it. It's a private process. There might be disciplinary, there might be a bit of HR involved. That's probably it.
Alex Sobel MP:It's not going to be on the front of a newspaper, is it? It's the same thing as an MP. It's a public story, it's all over. Going to be on the front of a newspaper, is it? It's still the same thing as an mp. It's a public story, it's all over. Journalists are sniffing. It's on social media. You know all of that.
Alex Sobel MP:And actually we've seen a good example recently. Somebody does something in their previous job which was private and there were repercussions in turning that job but didn't really have much of an effect on her. But then 10 years later it all comes out, comes through again, even after she's gone in the government and just to resign over it. So even things that happen privately in a private job then as a politician repercussion years later, which seems utterly ridiculous and I think to a lot of people in the public will seem utterly ridiculous as well, you know. So it's difficult, it's difficult and I think sometimes applications of standards is very mixed and I think it has a lot of us feel like that on the inside as well and I guess it works everywhere around.
Robbie Curtis:As well as that, if you make a mistake as an mp and then you leave parliament, and then everyone knows who you were as an mp, and that's and find a job after that, when they know a lot about you.
Alex Sobel MP:There was a story in telegraph today to three ex-conservative mps about how they couldn't find any work and that, and there's a sort of broader tale there. Um, I think as well, because you know that's that's not one of them. It might be a bit about them personally, but the other two it's probably more about the fact they were conservative mps. Now, like, I'm obviously labor mp, but I don't think certain peace should be permanently jobless. That's not. You know, they've got skill like particularly, one of them was a select committee chair for 12 years, that is. You know, there's a huge amount of skills and useful utilization that somebody should take, take, take hold of.
Robbie Curtis:You know, yeah I wonder if we could just focus just for a moment on on lee, specifically in this wonderful constituency that we live in. What's it like to be in a in a yorkshire seat, obviously so far from london, still in a kind of an urban environment in a similar to westminster, but but to be in in the north and to be so outside of that westminster bubble for at least half the week and have constituencies with with quite different issues as well?
Alex Sobel MP:yeah, I think I think it's really useful. I think I really feel and people obviously can disagree that I'm I'm actually like the average person in my own constituency. I really feel that you know we've got, um, we've got a lot, you know, not quite 40,000 students live in the constituency, so a lot of students, a lot of people that work in the universities or in the public sector, in the voluntary sector, a lot of whom studied at the university before. We've got a lot of people that live in flats. I live in a flat, um, we've got a lot of people that um, that you know, that have got very sort of progressive liberal values. That majority, I would say that's you know, and if you look at the election results, that sort of gives that feel as well. It's also, you know, quite you know and this is certainly the, the evidence from the EU referendum quite pro-European place, quite an internationalist place, and we've got actually had some data from Duke of Edinburgh, actually did the data, did the research where actually the demographics came out that we're very internationalist sort of constituency, which I thought was really interesting, and young people in the constituency are really internationalist, um, and it is a very young constituency as well, and and you know, and it's the the sort of people are passionate about things like music and culture and, um, you know so, and those are all sort of things that I'm deeply, you know, investing involved in my mailbag.
Alex Sobel MP:People write to me about this and I shouldn't get annoyed about this, but like people write to me recently you know these emails like we want you to do this and usually wouldn't do this because this amendment or this event has been, um, you know, has been organized by this mp. I've been getting them with my own name on quite a lot recently. I'm like do my constituents not realize that this is me? Can they not see my name? Why are they emailing me saying can you sign this amendment table by Alex? So I'm like, like that is me, that's really obviously me. So you know, actually that's that's fine, but you know it just it, just sort of that thing.
Alex Sobel MP:So when I'm here, if I feel a lot better about things, and now I've got the city centre, you know that, you know, with with that, you know it's got obviously we've got the LGI there and the university on the edge of the city centre, which now in my constituency, and the business community there and then obviously the, the night time economy and the retail economy, you know, and the markets and everything else. So it's it's. It's it's like it feels very vibrant as well. I mean, it was not, it wasn't before, but it's like, you know, it's really given that that feel, and so I think I'm really lucky to have this constituency or to represent this constituency, and that means that I've, I've got I don't really have any rural areas. So like before I speak on rural issues, the labour party opposition, but I had rural areas. Now I don't, I've sort of banked that, I banked that knowledge and that representation going forward, but I don't really now I can take all of those issues, you know, and and articulate them in london and um and I, you know it, that thing, actually I don't feel, particularly when I'm in l in London, that like I'm in like an alien place, you know, and it's like um, very, you know, different. You know I'm in urban, urban, major city.
Alex Sobel MP:I think it's doing Leeds down to say, oh no, it's nothing like London, because that's not not true. You know what I say is in London you might have eight examples of whatever it is. In Leeds you might only have one or two still got got it. You know we still have major art gallery, major museum, you know whatever it is, and we're developing more. Like you know, I'm very involved in development National Poetry Centre with Simon Armitage, the Poet Laureate. You know London hasn't got a Poet Laureate. Leeds has got a Poet Laureate, you know so. You know, and to a lesser extent, british Library in the north, so you know, we already have a British Library in Leeds at Boston Spice, just not publicly accessible, you know.
Alex Sobel MP:So Leeds has all of these national institutions in the city, regional institutions. It has that variety. You know. It's just about that. It's about articulating that as well. You know it's also about being an advocate, an ambassador. I think also we're very lucky now we've got a mayor, a metro mayor, which helps a lot showcasing Yorkshire to the world, west Yorkshire to the world. So I think that I'm really proud of the place. It's just about making sure everybody else realises how great a place it is, because internationally particularly, maybe not nationally, there might be one or two other cities that may be slightly better known. I'm talking about london. I mean obviously london's kind of city, but other um cities outside london may be better known than leeds. But I think it's a bit unfair. On leeds, so you know, I always try and I always push leeds.
Alex Sobel MP:We're in a meeting yesterday because I chair the music group in parliament. Music's really important to me. Um, we're talking to a um like a new emerging um, uh, um, what they call streaming music, streaming service, you know. So, not one of the big, not one of the big ones everybody knows, but an emerging one. And I was talking about um because I want to get them involved in mercury music prize. And I said well, you know the mercury music prize album of the year competition run by the british phonographic institute. Last year we had three leads artists nominated for the prize and the winner, english teacher, is a band from my district, accordix. They're americans, you know, they call it districts and like that's like, you know, that's a great thing. You know um. And then I was talking about um, uh, streaming revenues.
Alex Sobel MP:So one of the big issues for artists I'm going slightly off tangent here, this is a very adhd sort of bit so one of the issues for for musicians and artists is um, that that they're not getting sufficient remuneration from streaming services, um, but the person that's the biggest um advocate for that, the chair the Ivor Academy is Tom Gray, who was in the band Gomez, who I first knew when he lived at St Mark's Flats, the University of Leeds. So you know, so I even managed to, you know, and that's obviously my constituency as well, and I know, tom, you know we were at university at the same time, so you know, so it's like it just gives this impression of these Americans. They're like, wow, he's talked about the winner of the Mercury Music Prize, about the guy that's doing the enumeration work. I was like, oh, have you heard? Yeah, you know, because she's big in america. So they, so they got this feel like we were like nashville by the end of it, you know, or memphis, so it's like you know, so some. So it's like about that. It's about like knowing, knowing what there is in the city, knowing what's been in the city, knowing what people are interested in, what you can articulate, and getting them interested in leeds, getting people to leeds, you know, and I'm like with with cultural industries I'm really good at that because you've got, you know, you know, leeds and West Yorkshire, maybe a greater extent. There isn't an area, whether it's music, whether it's poetry, whether it's art, whether it's literature, where we have not got an absolutely brilliant sell. We can say at least three names. They'll be all like, wow, these are like world class. You know, some of them are dead.
Alex Sobel MP:Obviously, you know the bronte sisters are not going to come and turn up at an event now, but you know that that people are like, yeah, that's, that's incredible. And I say, oh, you can come and you can visit, you know how, how? Um, for the passage museum, where you can go see the hepworth in wakefield, or the, the henry moore institute here. Or you can come, and you can come and hear the poet laureate speak, you know. Or, or you can come and hear the Poet Laureate speak, you know. Or you can come to the Brudenell Social Club and oh, I went to see Tom Jones there a couple of years ago and I'm going to Femme Couttie next week, you know. And so you've got this. You know, you can make this amazing sell to people and I think that's really important.
Robbie Curtis:I'm not sure that's quite legislative for Westminster, but that's like part of the job as well being legislative for Westminster, but that's like part of the job as well being an MP is advocating for for your area. Well, you make me feel proud to live here and if we see lots of Leeds, if we see lots of task people moving to Leeds, we'll know why. Thank you. I wanted to also ask about being a Jewish MP because I know you've you read some fascinating article with Leila Moran about you know, you yourself being having family from Israel and she had family from Palestine and kind of coming together. And I'm just curious, like, what's it like being a Jewish member of parliament? Like, have you faced antisemitism, like in Westminster? What's your experience been?
Alex Sobel MP:from that I wouldn't. I mean you face antisemitism in society. Direct like antisemitism is a complicated thing. Direct antisemitism somebody says something antisemitic or an antisemitic trope to your face in a meeting or an event or something. That has definitely not happened to me in Westminster, where you feel that maybe you haven't progressed or things haven't happened because of that. That may have been a factor in the 2017-2019 parliament, um, so, um, you know, and and there were certainly lots of conversations about antisemitism in the labour party and we had a very well publicized debate about it where I wasn't actually um given the opportunity to speak, so, which felt a bit like hello, let the Jews speak about antisemitism. Other Jewish MPs did speak, but so I think the thing is for me, I think it's two really big political things about antisemitism is that antisemitism is hatred, in whatever form, against jews and jewish people, and that we need to stand out in any form and we need to ensure we're protecting and supporting jewish people and we're you and we've got the right legislative framework to do that and the right definitions and all the rest of it. Um, but the other thing is, is that your political values should never be um anyway inhibited by the fact that you're jewish, or the fact there may be other people with, say, economic ideas who are also anti-semitic, and then you say those economic ideas are not, um, legitimate because that person also is anti-semitic. We haven't, we haven't, we haven't stopped letting children read roald dahl's books because roald dahl was an anti-semite, you know. And there are others, you know, who may be slightly less publicly known about their anti-semitic views, where we haven't effectively cancelled them and all their work because of it. Um, so you know, and the same goes for, maybe you know political, economic ideas, so you know, you know. And the same goes for maybe you know political or economic ideas, so you know, I'm a democratic socialist. I believe in those values, believe in Labour values.
Alex Sobel MP:I went through a difficult period where some people in the Jewish community would say how can you be connected to this party or believe those things Nothing to do with being Jewish, you know, how can you believe in? I don know, I can't, I don't want to give an example, really, particularly now in government, but, um, whatever it is which is nothing to do with being jewish, and you know, be, you know and be a part of the lay party, I don't. You know that that really annoyed me. Um, and the other thing is um, that um and this is the thing with leila is israel, you know, and particularly the israeli government, is not an articulation of jewishness. You know, um, the, particularly the current israeli government, although it's completely fracturing at the moment because of thankfully we've managed to finally get a ceasefire in Gaza, which I've supported pretty much from the first day. The IDF entered Gaza in October last year, yeah, october last year. So, um, um, so basically, the, the views of the Israeli government do not represent Jews and Judaism.
Alex Sobel MP:They represent a political strand in Israel which are Jews. I'm not denying they are. But you know, every populist, right, hard right political strand in the country represents a strand of opinion in that country. That's what it represents. It doesn't represent all of those people everywhere, or even all those people in that country. It certainly doesn't. So that is difficult, that's a difficult thing to deal with and there's also a slight difficulty in. There's some expectation amongst some Jewish people, even even if they are, I don't know, moderate, politically moderate, and they don't agree with the Israeli government that you have to articulate very strong support for Israel because other people are attacking Israel If the Israeli government is doing something wrong. I feel, absolutely legitimately, I need to say they're doing something wrong, and I think that holding back actually is undermining the state of Israel itself, because the state of Israel needs to survive as a democracy. Anything it does which is undemocratic or isn't in keeping with progressive values needs to be called out.
Mick Cooper:So that's, and I feel very strongly about that, and I think there's so many examples recently that we probably don't need to dive into that too deeply alex, can I ask you I mean where we're kind of coming towards the end of the interview and it's been so fascinating what you've been talking about how do you think the, do you think it's possible, and what do you think those of us on the outside of parliament can do, maybe particularly from a psychologist therapist, to support a move towards a more kind of compassionate politics, um caring politics, to support a kind of progressive politics, I guess, since you really stand for, which is about people looking after each other, about community, about cooperation. How do we, how do we get involved?
Alex Sobel MP:Yeah, I think. I think what's probably helpful because you're obviously professionals and experts in your area is to point out where, either, whether it's the way that the parliament operates, westminster operates, or the general political environment and we've seen some really bad examples last summer, for instance, with the disturbances you know, which are political in nature, for honest um, which are, um, which are, you know, I don't know how best to to say psychologically, uh, unhealthy or whatever, whatever, the, whatever the professional term is, you probably could tell me much better than me, and it are. You know, effectively how that is hurting our democracy and leading us. I mean, we have this huge attack on democracy from populist forces right around democratic world, world, and some of that I'm going to get into this a bit some of that is internal and domestic and involves directly those people you know who are, who are, you know, involved in it and their parties and outriders.
Alex Sobel MP:You know, so you know examples that in this country, people like tommy robinson, andrew tate and all those sort of people, but actually some of it is quite nefarious outside influence by transnational actors, state actors, russia being the biggest one by far, but not just them quite a lot, and some of them in quite niche ways and people aren't probably really aware, but we've had lots of reporting recently about a number of countries and how they operate and so although I don't want you to get into that because that's probably not your area expertise, but you saying that, um, that things culturally are unhealthy and and a threat to democracy, that's helpful, because you as a professional and a health professional are much better trusted than me as a politician saying it yeah, yeah, and I think we, we see that you know what you're talking about, about those threats on democracy.
Mick Cooper:Do you have a? Do you have a psychological dimension? Often it's an inability to I guess the word we use is mentalized to think about other people. That's where people get so locked into one perspective, whether that's about their particular community or their particular way of seeing the world, that they lose that ability to stand back, see a bigger picture, understand that other people have feelings as well and that everybody is a human being and I think I think with social media, there's definitely an element of content being produced which is psychological manipulation.
Alex Sobel MP:You know, it's a form of political gaslighting really, and people get sort of stuck into these mindsets and you can see it all the time and pushing of conspiracy theories. This is really you know, the area. Misinformation and disinformation and how it's psychologically rewiring people into those mindsets is like a really concerning thing and probably could do a whole podcast on that on its own, but it's like that's. You know, that's something that really, um, I run the all-party group, which one of the groups chair, the all-party group on fair elections, and it's about changing our voting system, which is quite a standard thing we shouldn't talk about. But also it's about changing our voting system, which is quite a standard thing we shouldn't talk about. But also it's about dark money in politics, so paying for some of these things, and then about misinformation, disinformation, and actually the final aim of these transnational actors and internal actors as well, but they're less good at it but the transnational actors, particularly because they're state-funded, is to rewire people, to rewire how people think, and if you look at the country like russia, they've done that internally.
Alex Sobel MP:So if you look at russian and russians you speak to them about the war in ukraine, that they obviously are in a in a slight information vacuum in terms of the entire world, but their view on it is that they are the victims, and they are, and effectively, this was the West and Ukraine's attack on Russia, not the other way around, you know. So this is the complete. It's like it's very Orwellian, it's very 1984, what people are told, and so we need, you know, I'm not saying that you need to go and rewire it, and that's probably a bit too much of a nasty mentality of Russians, although that would be great if somebody could do that. But similar issues here, you know, because the things could get, I'm afraid to say, quite dark in the future and we need all the help we can get.
Mick Cooper:What do you think Alex, is most important there to you? I mean, as you say, democracy feels so under threat. We've got the environmental crises and you know, getting worse. What do you think for those of us who want to kind of retain and promote a democratic society, a democratic progressive society which values everybody, what do you think is most important that we need to do together?
Alex Sobel MP:I think we need to protect the truth. We need to protect the truth of things and not let um either outright lies, conspiracy theories, misinformation or whatever form it takes to become embedded in people's psyches thank you.
Robbie Curtis:I'm aware we're coming to time. I'm just so grateful for the fact that you've been able to join us, alex, and thank you so much for everything you shared with us. I'm really excited to see how people in our network respond. And, yeah, I just want to just wanted to thank you again, thanks, thanks robbie.
Alex Sobel MP:It's been great. It's been really interesting, and I can think about five other things. We could probably do a podcast on coming off of this, but you know, um definitely happy to speak to you in future and to delve into some of these areas in a bit more detail yeah, thanks, alex.
Robbie Curtis:Amazing, look forward to it, thank you.
