Sorry, readers, we’ve been too busy boiling with rage at revolting, cretinous Americans for the last few days to trust ourselves with writing a full-length article, but we’ve just about calmed down enough in time for this month’s polling analysis.

Which is handy, because today is also the day of the Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester (fun fact: a seat we’d very likely have lived in ourselves if not for Osama bin Laden, but that’s another story), and that throws up some interesting parallels.

But firstly let’s take a look at that Times story about a study which suggests that tactical voting from Labour supporters could give the SNP an outright majority at the Holyrood election in May.

The premise of the “global strategy and research” firm’s analysis is that Labour voters in Scotland hate Reform more than they hate the SNP. We’re a little sceptical of that, but it would be extremely revealing if it was true, because this site has been pointing out for some considerable time that there are in fact no meaningful areas of political dispute between Scottish Labour and the SNP.

(There is of course one big ABSTRACT one over the constitution, but since the SNP has no actual intention of, or strategy for, achieving independence it’s a moot point.)

Labour hate the SNP not for any ideological reasons but simply because they still feel like the SNP have stolen their “birthright” of power in Scotland, that the Scottish Parliament was expressly designed to enshrine forever until Alex Salmond smashed the walls down. They’ve been out of office for so long now that they can hardly even remember what they want it for, other than the ministerial salaries.

Voters, of course, are rather more susceptible to changing sides than the professional political class. Labour’s former voters in Scotland have already deserted en masse to the SNP, while half a million of the SNP’s voters stayed home or switched to the Tories in 2017, and Labour voters south of the border are now defecting in huge numbers in both directions – to Reform and the Greens – to the extent that Labour now look all but certain to lose in May in Wales, a country where they’ve won every single election in more than 100 years.

We’re still pretty doubtful, though, that they’d want to achieve this on purpose:

Stonehaven claim their figures show tactical votes from Scottish Labour supporters would condemn Labour to an abject third place, behind both the SNP and Reform.

SNP: 67 seats
Reform: 25
Labour: 15
Lib Dems: 8
Tories: 7
Greens: 7

(We quietly note in passing that obviously those 67 SNP seats in the projection are all constituency ones, with close to a million SNP list votes totally wasted. Who knew?)

And that doesn’t make a lot of sense. You don’t want BOTH of the parties you dislike the most miles in front of you, no matter which is worst. Now, that outcome might be unavoidable as the numbers stand, but in that case you also definitely don’t want one of them having an absolute majority, because if they don’t then you at least have a chance of SOME sort of political relevance and influence for the next five years.

(Because if the SNP don’t have a majority, they’ll need support from at least one other party to pass any sort of legislation, and on a case-by-case basis there’s always a chance that that party could be you.)

There’s also no chance whatsoever of Reform being in charge at Holyrood. Even if they did better than any poll has ever suggested – let’s say 30 seats – that’s a million miles short of enough to form a government even with another party on board, and neither Labour nor the SNP would form a coalition (formal or informal) with them, so whatever happens they’ll be shut out of power. There’s no risk to consider there.

So there’s no point in Labour voters voting according to whether they want an SNP government or not, because unless the polling numbers change to a pretty spectacular degree in the next eight weeks they’re getting an SNP government no matter what.

What they’re faced with is a straightforward choice between a very weak SNP government with – by its OWN admission – no mandate for independence, and a very strong SNP government with at least a superficially arguable claim to a mandate for independence. And that IS something of a risk.

(It would be an absurdly WEAK claim, and one that’d have no influence whatsoever on the UK government, but it’s a rhetorically strong one and at a minimum it would make Scottish Labour’s life even more of a misery than it currently is until 2031.)

Labour’s only hope of a sub-disastrous outcome for this election is that the SNP get (say) 50 seats and Labour get (say) 20, and become the only viable route to the SNP passing legislation (because none of the Greens, Lib Dems and Tories would have the numbers, and the SNP’s voters wouldn’t tolerate Reform support).

Reform, then, from Scottish Labour’s point of view, are a total irrelevance. It barely even matters how many MSPs Nigel Farage’s men get. The vital thing for Labour – their only hope of salvaging anything at all from their catastrophic polling – is to keep the SNP as far short of a majority as possible.

Now, voters don’t tend to think about things that way. They’re not playing seven-dimensional political chess, they just want someone reasonably close to a tolerable Parliamentary voice who might actually do something for them or their constituency.

But if the party has even some tiny shredded fragments of a collective brain left it should be drumming that bigger picture into its own supporters at branch meetings and on the doorsteps every chance it gets – “if you want Labour to have any chance of any degree of power for the next five years, for God’s sake don’t give either of your votes to the SNP”.

As our analysis last month showed, their best hope is in fact to tactically vote AGAINST the SNP in constituencies other than Labour strongholds (whether that’s for Reform or Lib Dems or Tories or even Greens), but stay Labour on the list vote.

(Because we know that tactical list voting is close to impossible in a PR system, but it’s very possible indeed on the constituency vote.)

At the extreme that could produce a super-hung Parliament in which not even any TWO parties could form a majority, meaning that every party would have power and influence in every vote.

From Labour’s perspective that’s a dream outcome from where they’re currently standing. It could even force a new election, something that would be beyond calamitous for the cash-strapped SNP but no problem for Labour with the UK party’s broad fiscal shoulders behind it.

So, give the SNP an absolute majority and a rhetorical battering ram, or reduce them to bit-part players in a 70%-Unionist chamber and maybe even nudge them over the cliff into bankruptcy before they can be bailed out by regaining loads of Westminster MPs in 2029? Even for the absolute dum-dums inhabiting Scottish Labour that ought to be a no-brainer.

But where does Gorton and Denton come in?

It comes in because it illustrates how difficult tactical voting can be to pull off. The anti-Reform, notionally left-wing vote in G&D is TWICE the Reform vote – 60% to 30%. There can be little doubt that most Labour voters would, if they can’t win themselves, prefer a Green MP to a Reform one, and definitely vice versa.

But because it’s not clear which of Labour and Green is most likely to win, they’re both fighting each other for ownership of the anti-Reform vote, which might just be enough to let Reform sneak through the middle. (Though it would be arithmetically almost impossible, and therefore politically seismic in multiple ways if they did.)

There are no such dilemmas in Scotland, however. A tactical vote for the SNP is plainly and indisputably insane from the point of view of a Labour supporter, for the reasons noted above. They’re going to struggle to even come second in this election, but their options are two VERY different kinds of third place – one apocalyptically bad (possibly even fatal), or one beyond their wildest fantasies.

The overwhelming statistical likelihood, in reality, is that May will produce a damp squib of a result that changes nothing. Whether there is or isn’t a “pro-indy majority”, and whatever the exact numbers are, it’s all but certain that we’ve got five more years of the same incompetent, malignant stagnation coming, at best.

But right out at the far edges of what COULD happen on the current figures are two outcomes – both dependent on tactical voting – which would be at least somewhat more interesting, and would amount to either the crippling of the SNP or the effective final destruction of Labour.

With very little else within their power to achieve, do Scottish Labour voters want an unstoppable, reinvigorated and bouyant SNP, or a weak and broken lame-duck version that spends the next half-decade being bullied from all sides? There are two months to go until we find out.

Trust in advertising matters. It matters to the public, who rely on honest and responsible ads to help them choose the products and services that fit their needs and pockets. It matters to the 3.5 million UK businesses, large and small, who invest in advertising to grow, innovate and reach customers. And it matters to politicians, because trusted advertising supports a healthy, competitive economy as well as funding our media and online ecosystem. When people can trust what they see, markets work more effectively, consumers can make informed, better decisions and public confidence in the economy is strengthened.

Encouragingly, the latest research from advertising think tank Credos shows that when advertising is engaging and enjoyable, people are significantly more likely to trust it. That trust, in turn, leads to more effective campaigns and stronger business results. This is a powerful reminder that the UK’s creative excellence is not just culturally valuable, it is an economic asset that contributes to business growth and national competitiveness.

At the same time, we know that the digital landscape has reshaped how people experience advertising. Trust is particularly important in the online environments that now account for over 80% of all UK advertising expenditure. While they offer consumers immense choice, the issues of scams, fraudulent advertising and AI deepfakes have contributed to public concerns. Credos’ work shows that people often judge online content in ‘a state of low-level vigilance’. Maintaining trust in this environment requires collective action, in partnership with Government and regulators and within industry itself.

That is why the cross-industry and Government partnership through the Online Advertising Taskforce (OAT) is so important. This is a joint initiative with leading industry bodies including the Advertising Association, ISBA, the IPA and IAB UK, co-chaired by Rt Hon Ian Murray MP, Minister for the Creative Industries, and asbof Chair Mark Lund OBE. Its work includes support for industry initiatives around age verification, the responsibilities of creators, and tackling scams – through raising standards and information sharing.  

It also involves getting to grips with the responsibility of using emerging technologies such as AI. Practical outputs include a Best Practice Guide for the Responsible Use of AI in Advertising, published earlier this month under the auspices of the OAT. It has been shared widely to ensure ad practitioners can harness AI’s potential while maintaining consumer trust and ethical standards.

Our co- and self-regulatory system plays a critical role. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) holds the front line in consumer protection, commands strong support from the industry and operates at no cost to the taxpayer. It is demonstrably effective in ensuring the vast majority of ads are ‘legal, decent, honest and truthful’. And members of the public who saw the ASA’s awareness campaign are more than twice as likely to trust the advertising industry than those who did not. But in the increasingly complex, online-dominated and AI-enabled advertising ecosystem, the ASA needs increased resources. The industry is actively discussing the new funding structure needed and success in securing it is critical to ensure future consumer confidence in ads.

Within the industry, we know that trust pays. Just last month, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) published an analysis of nearly a thousand case histories in their databank of effective campaigns, which showed that those that built trust were also much more successful than others in building business success, whether through greater market share, stronger customer retention, or cheaper customer acquisition.

A good example of this is Tesco. Its emotionally rich, high quality creative advertising over a period of many years has worked hard to build consumer trust for the brand, translating into stronger customer loyalty and outstanding commercial success.

In a world of advertising shaped by technologies only imagined at the beginning of the century, the UK has to be clear on the importance of trust in ads. This translates into solid and vocal backing for the ASA, for the OAT’s initiatives and the industry’s own best practice in creativity and media. Trustworthy advertising protects consumers, strengthens businesses and reinforces the UK’s global reputation, goals shared by industry, regulators and Government alike.

Please get in touch with [email protected] if you would like to find out more about the Advertising Association’s work.

Hannah Campbell specialises in data, and AI workforce transformation. She was Parliamentary candidate for Telford in 2024 and is currently the Regional Deputy Chairman (Political) for the West Midlands.

The 2024 general election was widely billed as the first “AI election”. It was not. Artificial intelligence appeared largely at the margins: modest productivity gains, a handful of deepfakes, and limited use by Reform to generate TikTok content. Yet to dismiss 2024 as overhyped would be a mistake. The cultural and technological shift is now unmistakable.

When an AI-assisted video of Kemi Badenoch “rapping” in response to the Budget went viral, it marked a turning point. The clip was satirical, quickly consumed, and widely shared. It demonstrated that political culture has already changed. AI is no longer experimental. It is becoming part of the core infrastructure of campaigns.

The next election will not be defined by whether AI appears, but by who uses it well. This transition will be visible in the May 2026 local elections and, by the next general election, AI will be embedded in the operations of every serious campaign.

This is not optional. Campaigns are being asked to deliver more with fewer volunteers, tighter budgets, and an electorate whose attention has shifted decisively towards short-form video, satire and decentralised online creators. Those who use AI to scale operations, sharpen messaging and produce high-impact content will outperform those who do not. For the Conservative Party, failing to keep pace would be a strategic error.

How AI Has Already Entered UK Campaigning:

Despite the hype, AI’s most common uses in 2024 were practical rather than transformative. Campaigns used it to draft emails, leaflets and social media posts; generate multiple message variations in seconds; speed up rebuttal and opposition analysis; add subtitles and edit video; and improve back-office efficiency.

In effect, AI has already become a productivity engine. It allows local associations to match national-level production values and to respond at speed in a compressed media cycle.

This matters in an environment where timing often determines reach.

Academic assessments also confirm that AI-enabled disinformation surfaced in 2024. The scale was limited, but the direction of travel is clear. The tools are improving, misuse is becoming cheaper, and voters are increasingly uncertain about what to trust. Future campaigns will operate in an environment shaped by synthetic content, rapid iteration and narratives created outside formal party structures.

The Opportunities AI Brings:

AI enables campaigns to do more with less. Volunteer numbers are falling, digital expectations are rising, and budgets remain constrained. AI can generate targeted messaging, graphics, canvassing routes, donor communications and briefing packs in minutes, freeing scarce human time for strategy and persuasion.

It also sharpens political judgement. AI can analyse sentiment, test arguments, identify weak lines and surface emerging issues before a human team has convened. It does not replace political instinct, but it accelerates it.

Mobilisation and engagement can also improve. Chatbots and automated tools can help voters with registration, voter ID requirements and polling logistics, reducing friction and allowing campaign teams to focus on persuasion rather than administration.

Crucially, AI levels the playing field. Associations and candidates without professional creative teams can now produce high-quality content. Campaign capability is being democratised, but only if people are trained and confident enough to use the technology. That requires investment, support and leadership from the centre.

The most significant cultural shift, however, is the rise of AI-enabled video satire. Younger voters increasingly consume politics through humour, remix culture and short-form video rather than leaflets or long policy documents. AI is now the engine powering much of this ecosystem.

Groups such as Crewkerne Gazette illustrate this vividly, producing parody songs and videos using AI-enhanced voices or imagery of political figures. These are not official communications, yet they shape perceptions, embed narratives and reach audiences that formal campaigns struggle to access.

Political satire is not new, but access has changed. You no longer need a production studio to reach millions. AI-powered satire spreads quickly and cheaply, often outside formal campaign rules, and the boundary between parody and misinformation is increasingly blurred.

Risks to Democratic Integrity:

The risks are real. Deepfakes and engineered deception are becoming easier to produce, and misuse will increase. Even a small number of convincing falsehoods can erode public trust. When voters assume any clip might be fake, democratic accountability weakens.

Hyper-personalised persuasion also raises concerns. AI-driven interactions can be persuasive yet opaque, creating an uneven playing field. Microtargeted messages fragment public debate by delivering claims to audiences unseen by others, limiting scrutiny and challenge.

Independent creators may also cross ethical lines that political parties would avoid. Campaigns may benefit or suffer reputationally, but they cannot control the outcome.

Unlabelled synthetic content creates serious exposure. It can breach electoral law around imprints and misleading material, trigger defamation claims where individuals are falsely represented, and raise data protection issues where targeting lacks proper safeguards. Platforms may remove content at critical moments, and regulators may intervene. Most damaging of all, voters punish perceived manipulation. Once trust is lost, it is difficult to recover.

Using AI for Attacks – Legal Boundaries:

AI-assisted attacks must sit within clear legal limits. It is lawful to analyse opponents’ records, highlight genuine inconsistencies, and produce parody or satire, provided it is clearly labelled and would not reasonably be understood as fact.

However, AI-generated audio, video or imagery that fabricates words, actions or behaviour risks breaching electoral law, particularly the prohibition on false statements about a candidate’s character or conduct under the Representation of the People Act. Outsourcing such material to “independent” creators does not remove exposure where campaigns encourage, coordinate or knowingly benefit. The test is whether voters are misled, not who created the content.

What Conservatives Should Do Now:

The Conservative Party operates within a framework overseen by the Electoral Commission and cannot dictate the direction of regulation. What it can do is ensure its own practices are robust, credible and defensible.

That means setting clear internal standards now: no synthetic impersonation intended to mislead; consistent labelling of AI-generated content; and a presumption that campaign communications are traceable and attributable. These safeguards reflect existing law, public expectation and basic political common sense.

Regulation should remain targeted and proportionate, focused on deception, impersonation and covert interference rather than legitimate creativity or satire. Where work is already under way through regulators or Parliament, Conservatives should engage constructively. Shaping outcomes from within the system is more effective than objecting once rules are fixed.

Above all, the party should lead by example. If Conservatives use AI openly, responsibly and competently, that approach becomes the benchmark. In practice, regulators tend to codify behaviour that already works.

The Strategic Imperative:

The 2024 election was the AI election that was not. The next will be the opposite. As volunteer numbers decline, budgets tighten and video dominates political communication, AI will sit at the heart of campaign success.

AI will shape how future elections are fought, whether parties prepare for it or not. Those that embed it early, train their people and use it responsibly will define the terms of political competition. The rest will spend their time reacting to a campaign environment they no longer control.

(Credit: Haris Malekos)

4 min read59 min

Tuition fees are back on the political agenda for the first time since the increase to £9,000 during the coalition years. There were many lessons to be learnt from the impact of that rise in 2012. The change was near fatal to the Liberal Democrats at the next election and has continued to haunt them ever since, with the party still not trusted with young voters more than 15 years later.

The Labour Party now stands in a precarious position, at risk of making a similarly damaging mistake and losing support with a generation of young graduates who have become a key demographic.

While standing to be Labour leader, Keir Starmer described the need to end the “scandal of spiralling debt”. A month ago, however, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the current system of Plan 2 loans is “fair”. Sticking with the latter position, and not reviving the former, would side Labour against a key group of voters, leaving the Greens and even the Conservatives with an opportunity to outflank them.

Graduates and younger people were key to Labour’s success at the 2024 general election. YouGov polling suggested that 42 per cent of voters with a degree supported Labour, more than twice as many as who voted Conservative (18 per cent). Even smaller portions of this cohort voted for Reform (8 per cent) and the Greens (9 per cent).

This has changed dramatically since then, however.

The same pollster now has only 25 per cent of graduates voting Labour, closely followed by the Green Party on 21 per cent. This represents a near 15-point swing from Labour to the Greens. There is a similar trend amongst young people. At the last election, 41 per cent of 18-24 year olds supported Labour. This has now halved to just 21 per cent. Meanwhile, the Greens, who want to scrap tuition fees altogether, have jumped from 18 per cent to 37 per cent with the same age group and are also more popular than Labour with 25-29 year olds, overturning a 33 point deficit to lead by 7 points.

Both these groups may be small parts of the electorate overall, but they will continue to grow in size and significance. There are already an estimated 5.8m adults who took out a student loan between 2012 and 2023. With almost half of graduates predicted to never pay back their loan in full, these concerns will remain with graduates as they enter their 30s, 40s and 50s, while, at the same time, more young people attend university and are burdened with debt.

The risk for Labour is that even delayed and reactive tweaks to the system, which reportedly could come as soon as next week, may struggle to win over young Green curious voters who are tempted by Zack Polanski’s bolder offer to scrap tuition fees altogether.

The electoral threat has been further complicated by Labour’s decision to allow 16 and 17-year-olds a vote at the next general election.

Our polling of teenagers aged 13-17 (who will all likely be eligible to vote at the next general election, depending on timings) highlights the impact of university fees on this cohort. Almost 3 in 4 (71 per cent) teenagers say that reducing tuition fees is a big priority which should be addressed urgently. This new electorate of 16-17-year-olds will only be one or two years away from aspiring to attend university when polling day next comes around, and tuition fees will be high on their personal agendas. If Labour is not seen as the party on their side on this issue, then the decision to extend the vote to this group risks backfiring on the party and boosting the electoral prospects of their rivals.

It would be wrong to say that this is a narrow interest in terms of the population at large.

According to Ipsos research published this week, a majority of Brits (54 per cent) say that student loans should not be charged any interest, with just over three-quarters (76 per cent) of Brits concerned that students are ending up with too much debt from going to university. Dealing with student loans can reaffirm Labour’s support with their base, but also appeal to parents, employers and voters outside of it.

Being seen as failing to do so will only fuel Labour’s losses.

Julian Gallie is Head of Research at Merlin Strategy

Your Party have announced the results of the elections for seats on the party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC). After months of endless controversy and bickering, the results are undoubtedly going to have an impact on the direction of travel for this new socialist party. As expected, both Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn have been elected as public office holders.

Corbyn posted a statement:

We have no time to waste. So let’s get to work.

Join us at https://t.co/kMShFQTxzH pic.twitter.com/iuqjE4AfTj

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) February 26, 2026

Advertisement

Sultana’s team also released a statement:

Grassroots Left congratulates all those elected in the Your Party leadership elections, and extends our thanks to every member who voted, organised and campaigned for us.

Having won collective leadership at the founding conference, we are delighted that eight women have been elected to the CEC who support our programme for Maximum Member Democracy.

A significant number of members have signalled their desire for a democratic, accountable and transparent party. We will now be in the room and ensure your voice is heard.

Our party is strongest when members have real power: over policy, finances, selections, and decision-making – through transparent, accountable structures. All Grassroots Left members will push for this on the CEC. We will push to make sure the branches are recognised immediately, fully supported and that members are put at the heart of the party.

Advertisement

Your Party must now work together to become a party of and for the whole left – with no more witch-hunts or stitch-ups. All those who have been expelled should be reinstated. We now need a culture of mutual respect, open debate, and a shared focus on the real issues facing us: inequality, insecure work, crumbling public services, fascism, and a political establishment that keeps letting working people down.

Grassroots Left will work with all those elected who are committed to rebuilding trust by putting the members first and fighting with the branches for accountable, transparent and democratic structures and strong socialist policies in Your Party.

Your Party election results

The fledgling party saw two slates form sparking toxic debate among members: Grassroots Left and The Many. Refusing the factionality, many Independent candidates also stood.

The total number of votes received were 25,347, out of a possible 40,985 members. This represents an impressive 61.8% turnout. 43 postal ballots were received, of which 29 were accepted which represents 14 members returning two ballots and one member returning just one. Two ballots were removed due to having already voted online.

The results for Public Office Holders: Zarah Sultana (GL), Jeremy Corbyn (TM), Laura Smith (TM) and Grace Lewis (GL).

Northwest: Sam Gorst (Ind), Dawn Aspinall (TM)

Northeast: Catherine Davis (TM) and Hannah Hawkins (TM)

Yorkshire and Humber: Monique Mosley (TM) and Sophie Wilson (GL)

East of England: Jo Rust (TM) and Solma Ahmed (GL)

East Midlands: Louise Regan (TM) and Riaz Khan (TM)

West Midlands: Megan Clarke (GL) and Sue Moffat (TM)

Southeast: Naomi Wimbourne-Idrissi (Ind) and Cassandra Bellingham (TM)

Southwest: Candi Williams (GL) and Jennifer Forbes (TM)

London: Mel Mullings (GL) and Noor Jahan Begum (TM)

Scotland: Niall Christy (Ind)

Wales: Maria Donnellan (TM)

Results are in, now move forward

Now the results are in we can see there are fourteen for The Many, seven for Grassroots Left, and three Independents making up Your Party’s new CEC.

Let’s hope this at least allows the party to move forward from months of bickering and toxic briefing to a place where it can actually be effective from the grassroots.

After all, the far-right aren’t waiting around, neither should we.

Featured image via the Canary

The stage lights lift to reveal a young child from Gaza, aloof and tricksy, swallowed by darkness. Theatregoers have assembled at Arcola theatre to see A Grain of Sand — a stand-out one-woman play delivering a bird-eye view of children’s experience of genocide. First commissioned by the London Palestine film festival in 2024, the play is directed by Elias Matar and gracefully executed by Irish-Palestinian actress Sarah Agha.

Agha, playing Renad, wears the brightest smile, dungarees, and two tidy braids. She is  perched on a mound of sand, not pale or quartz, but muddy and sullied. She gazes tenderly at Gaza’s shoreline while Israeli fighter jets overhead hum and drum.

Gaza immortalised on stage

The young child was 11 years-old when she was killed by Israel, following its 2023 military assault on Gaza. Her spirit and testimony, one of many in the play, endures through Agha. The play’s message is clear, that no child will be expunged from the historical record – not like the countless lives disappearing from Palestine’s civil registry. Renad’s “verbatim testimony” is one of 18 collected experiences. Agha tells the Canary that these stories were taken from an anthology of poems and testimonies written by Gazan kids — A Million Kites. They form the backbone of the screenplay produced by Good Chance Theatre.

In Agha’s words, the show “immortalises” the hundreds and thousands of children Israeli occupation forces have killed. These deaths are no lapse in international conventions — they’re deliberate. The play conveys this without thrusting upon viewers the gore and depravity clogging our newsfeeds which – while educating the world of Israel’s crimes – also inures us to suffering. Instead, it invites you into the lives and children’s fantasy-prone imagination.

Daisy testimonies

Like a matryoshka doll, Agha pulls out story after story, each nested within each other. But where one story ends and another begins isn’t always clear. Their tales, memories, and fantasies are relayed with tact, levity, and acerbity, despite the difficulty, Agha explains, of being an adult actor playing a child and the “added complexity of it being a child from Gaza”.

The interlaced stories evoke emotions and sensorial experiences of life in Gaza, through a child’s eyes —  the aroma of Ouzi rice as it simmers, screeching missiles, shells whistling, chairs falling, drones hissing, and the cacophony of shrieking children, and the haunting silences in between.

As a survivor of war, I’m reminded of my Iraqi father’s words: “you hated the sound of F-16s, you wept inconsolably.” Children, as I’m painfully reminded by those in the play, are rarely handed the mic to speak — their voices muffled beneath the toll of war.

Hell with the lid off

Before Israel’s onslaught transformed Gaza into “hell with the lid off” (a term coined by James Parton), people’s ‘everyday’ wasn’t much different from yours or mine. The play delivers flashbacks to when Gaza was in better shape. Renad, seeking safety and trying to drown out the terror of her missing family, retreats into the folktales her Siti (Arabic for grandma) told, and shares these with us.

Peppered throughout the play, these folktales stand as a monument to Palestinian heritage. They braid together motifs, legends, fables, and mythical creatures. The most striking is Al-Anqaa, a firebird, synonymous with the phoenix and born from Arabic Islamic literature. It also appears as  the protagonist of Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “Death of Al-Anqaa,” symbolising the Palestinian experience and perseverance.

If you pay close attention to Gaza municipality’s insignia, you’ll also find the fire bird proudly at its centre.

Renad looks up at the sky, searching for a signal, and Al-Anqaa swoops in — the all-knowing, all-seeing protector of the land of Palestine. The mythical figure reflects Renad’s dissociative state, with her relationship to the sunbird shifting between dour and tongue-in-cheek.

Imagination holds a lifeline

For Gaza’s children imagination is the magic carpet that transports them to a safe space in times of genocide. Zainah, aged 13, expresses this in her cerebral poem where her imagination opens doors to unsuspecting sites of refuge – none of which reality permits.

I hid inside the paintings of artists who paint freedom…Or maybe I hid in the sea, where no one could find me…mov[ing] from one place to another, like a bottle of oil someone threw on the shore. Am I free if I become an object?

The abject helplessness her magical thinking conveys is overwhelming. For Agha, motifs and metaphors form a visual language “to help communicate something horrendous” – a coping mechanism in other words. As one child recounts:

When drones invade my brain I think of Siti’s stories

The actress added that  “we cannot summarise or depict how bad the situation is — that’s not what the play is trying to do. The use of metaphor helps me. I need moments of levity, colour, to get me through to the next scene — otherwise I can’t carry it alone.” But warns that “we can’t just rely on a bird” if we’re to effect change.

The sore spots

This levity contrasts with the hair-raising attacks and flashpoints of Israel’s military assault, retold from the perspective of the children no longer with us. Among the tragedies is the senseless raid on al-Shifaa, Gaza’s largest hospital, and the fatal strike on the Abu Hajjaj family residence. The sole survivor, 9-year-old Elham, was left orphaned and severely burned. Despite its lighter notes which darken as it progresses, the play puts its finger on all the sore spots.

As the first UK show to represent a televised genocide, “still unfolding,” Agha reminds us, A Grain of Sand is ultimately a political act. It’s not a play about sentimentality but an elegy for Gazan children. Behind the scenes, multiple discussions were held, she explained, and these eventually spawned an advisory group made up of Gazan artists and writers. Their pain and anguish is felt in every second, minute, and passage – ultimately responding to the impossible question of how, in the midst of a genocide, do you produce art responsibly and truthfully?

There is no single template but as Agha says:

like a grain of sand on a beach, there are thousands, 2.2 million stories and more, we can’t do it all. You cannot account for every grain, but just one is relevant to make up the entire shoreline.

Call to action

By pulling back the curtain on the unspeakable cruelties foisted upon children, the show renders Israel’s excuses inadmissible. It tears away the mask and lays bare the mental horror children endure. But the full depth is accessible only to viewers able to activate their imagination, to pause, and awaken their psyche. Beneath the theatrics, tricksy stories, and fables, there lies an urgent call to action.

Following its initial run at the Arcola Theatre, the tour resumes in Canterbury on February 26, 2026, with the final show set to be staged in Dublin. The full list of dates for the second leg of the tour are accessible here.

Featured image via Good Chance Theatre