Future Politics

Aim

Supporting new progressive talent in politics to achieve their potential.

In the summer of 2025, I was driving home from my job, feeling completely burnt out...

On a good day, it was a two hour commute each way into London back to where I live, which was the closest place to my job where we could afford a house on my salary where me, my partner, and our two young kids didn’t all have to sleep in the same room.

My job wanted me in the office five days a week which meant that most days, I would be out the door before the kids were up and back home after they’d gone to bed, leaving my partner to deal with a double bed time for two under two (not easy for anyone unfamiliar with this task).

Now, for as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a dad.

My mum had been a childminder when I was growing up so there was always kids in the house. I left school early to get a job as a carer for kids and adults with learning difficulties. When my siblings had kids, I took to being an uncle like a duck to water.

It broke my heart that when I was finally privileged enough to become a dad myself, I just felt like I was failing.

Keir Starmer was Prime Minister at the time. 

He’d promised a bunch of stuff in Labour’s 2024 manifesto that genuinely would have improved my family’s quality of life: improved worker’s rights including the right to work from home, tens of billions of pounds set aside for future green initiatives, a genuinely protected National Health Service... all good things.

And yet a year into his tenure, not only were none of these things manifesting, but it appeared they’d all been watered down, scrapped or just downright dismissed as impossible despite a parliamentary majority of 172.

All the while, we were called an island of strangers, told that Britain would be supporting Israel in their right to cut off energy and water from Gazans and that there simply wasn’t enough money to feed and clothe toddlers or keep pensioners warm in the sixth richest economy in the world. 

Anyone who disagreed was said to be engaging in student politics.

Nobody and I mean nobody, voted for this.

It’s strange to think that just over a year ago, it really felt like there was no real political challenge to Starmer’s particularly awful brand of politics.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage was capitalising on a failing political project, gaining traction in the polls and very much cutting through on socials.

And if we’re generous here, Farage had correctly identified our country’s serious inequality problem but - being the kind of guy he is - was exploiting the opportunity to make more money for himself at the expense of the least protected, most marginalised people in society.

If I said I felt hopeless during this period of my life, it would have been an understatement.

Worse yet, I was in a job that involved regularly shaking hands, exchanging niceties and filming interviews with senior cabinet members like Rachel Reeves, Peter Kyle, Jonathan Reynolds and Bridget Phillipson for political podcasts.

These were political leaders who all had the power to improve my life, and seemed deadset on trying to convince me that they were, but that I just wasn’t feeling it yet.

You always got the sense in the room that they were putting on a front. They all held themselves in the same way, repeated the same lines, sometimes even spoke with the same cadence. It was uncanny.

And no matter how many times they were told you that they were working hard to improve the lives of working people, they had someone else in mind: a donor or a corporate lobbyist or any other interest that almost certainly had more wealth than me or anyone I knew.

Most of the time, you could tell they just wanted to get out of the interview before they got found out.

But it was this particular drive home from work that lives in my mind.

It was raining for the first time in a while. It was getting dark. I knew that no matter how fast I drove - or how empty the roads were - that once again, it was going to be too late to say goodnight to the kids.

I was listening to my usual mix of podcasts from across the political spectrum. All somehow saying the same thing.

It was either PoliticsJOE or Pod Save The UK when I heard something and had to pull over. It was like watching your favourite movie for the first time or reading the first chapter of a book that you know is about to change your entire lens of the world.

I mean it when I say I’d never heard anything like this before. 

It struck me because it was just so simple: literally just a politician answering questions without any of the bullshit that we’d all just learned to accept from our leaders.

He was sharp, articulate, empathetic and you could tell he just genuinely gave a shit. Every word he said was bursting with energy and hope in a time when I felt none.

It was Zack Polanski.

We didn’t know each other and he only had a few thousand followers at the time, but on a whim, I sent him a message on Instagram and said I’d like to make him a podcast.

After some mild hesitance, which was understandable given he 1) didn’t know me, and 2) was running to be leader of the Green Party at the time, he asked if I would like to get dinner and talk it over.

And somehow, over a bowl of noodles, I managed to get him to agree to it.

I quit my job and threw everything into making him the best podcast I possibly could without any money and a deadline of less than a month. That’s how much I believed in him.

And it’s not like I was making ends meet anyway.

I remember the relief I felt telling my partner that the membership voted him in with an 85% mandate, and even better, the podcast we launched the very next day was a hit.

The following year was a blur.

I stopped just making the podcast with Zack and started building a community of progressive voices all pulling in the same direction. We put on massive events, signed a book deal with a major publisher and people that we had long adored for their activism or content became peers, mutuals, friends.

It really felt like collectively, we were making sure the needs of the majority were louder than the wants of a handful of fortunate people.

It wasn’t about the Green Party. It wasn’t about Zack. Every creative or editorial decision was purely made on the principles of protecting people and planet.

I started filming Zack as much as possible.

We went to Calais in the middle of winter to meet refugees who - according to the entire political narrative of the time - were the ones to blame for rising inequality in the UK but I remain to have never met a group of people with less in this world.

We filmed a sketch where Zack dressed up like Charles Dickens and raised hundreds of thousands of pounds in small donations for The Green Party to fight Labour and Reform in the local elections.

All across the country, people started rallying.

In towns across England and Wales, I met people like me who had always felt politics was just something that happened to you, rather than something you could be part of.

Now they had something to get behind.

I met candidates juggling childcare and care responsibilities, candidates working multiple jobs to stay afloat, candidates with all abilities and from all backgrounds, all campaigning night and day to try and make their communities a better place for everyone.

A plumber even won a by-election in Manchester and - in her first few weeks in Parliament - called out MPs for getting pissed on the job.

The Greens won their first ever elected Mayors, secured two seats in the Welsh Senedd for the first time and were taking seats and councils off the failing Starmer government up and down the country.

None of these victories were about the individuals involved. Not Zack, not me, not any one person. This was a collective movement.

A collective is so much more powerful than any one individual.

But what I will say is this: I went from driving home in the rain, feeling hopeless and like I was failing as a father, to feeling like I massively contributed to the downfall of one of the least likeable Prime Ministers in British history.

And I’ve promised myself that I will never allow politics to just be something that happens to me or my family again.

Bold Politics was always about working towards giving my children a future without fear.

One where they feel part of their community, where they have access to opportunity and green spaces.

And not just my children, but everyone’s children.

Because there really are enough resources in this world for everyone to live a decent, comfortable life, free from indignity.

It just benefits a few good communicators for us to believe otherwise.

And once you’ve seen the extreme ends of the wealth spectrum and spoken with billionaires and children without coats in the middle of the winter alike... it’s not hard to do the maths.

We cannot allow politics to be something that just happens to us again.

There simply isn’t time to keep exchanging niceties with leaders who come across as friendly enough, but continue drilling in the North Sea just to get a pat on the back from a President who appears 38,000 times in the Epstein Files, while our countryside is ravaged by forest fires.

There simply isn’t time to continue sending recon flights over Palestine that facilitate an ongoing genocide, while arresting those who oppose it.

There simply isn’t time for accepting more difficult choices in the Autumn Budget that never seem to be difficult for the 50 families hoarding 50% of the UK’s wealth.

That’s why I’m building Future Politics.

A new community of hand-picked stars on the rise in politics who will become the next generation of leaders fighting for people and planet.

Bold Politics isn’t going anywhere. 

Zack will be back on the podcast bigger, better and bolder than ever before.

But we can’t rely on just one person. I know the toll it takes on an individual when we do. 

We must invest in our future.

That means making sure our children’s future isn’t relying on a burntout podcast producer randomly discovering and messaging the next set of generational talents on a particularly dreary commute home.

It means actively seeking out that talent, nurturing their styles, introducing them to experts who can brief them properly on important subjects, teaching them how to navigate elections against a hostile media and making content for them that helps their message cut through the noise.

It means not just hoping for things to get better, but actively making sure they do.

So, who do we want to work with?

We’re looking for ambitious individuals who are either working towards becoming candidates or are already in elected positions but at the beginning of their careers.

We are particularly interested in people who are already proving themselves to be excellent communicators.

Future Politics will only work with talent whose core principles are putting people and planet first.

This will be an ongoing project that continuously seeks out new talent to support: we want to open doors for the next generation, not gatekeep.

How will these future leaders be supported?

Future Politics will be a community, first and foremost.

We will work with talent who aren’t just looking to thrive individually, but gel together and support each other in this fracturous political climate.

We will nurture their wellbeing so they can enjoy long and successful careers without putting themselves at risk of burnout.

Future Politics will also provide talent with ongoing public speaking coaching from Aileen Gonsalves, who has worked with Zack for years.

They will receive regular briefings, seminars and Q&As with experienced politicians and experts from the Bold Politics community to remain informed on important issues.

We will work with them and their teams on content that helps highlight their wins, develop their communication style and makes sure voters know they’re fighting the good fight on behalf of their communities.

This sounds brilliant. How can I help?

Future Politics will be funded by future revenue generated from the Bold Politics podcast, but every pound will help us provide more support to the next generation of talent.

We will not accept money from gambling, fossil fuel, private healthcare or arms companies.

We’d also love to hear from you. If you want to volunteer your creative skills, suggest talent we should be working with or simply want to tell us what you’d like to see from future politicians, drop us a note.

Thank you for your support. 

Ross HL, founder of Bold and Future Politics.

email: [email protected]

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 19th January 2027 at 6:09pm