To be effective at selling ideas, at being a lobbyist, influencing other people, you have to be very sure of yourself.

I keep coming back to the phrase "Dance with the system" - not just march onwards no matter what happens.

In the end, that's a blind alley - we have to get back to being able to think on our feet and react.

You have a huge number of people who spend their time writing papers which show that migrants pay more to the country than they take out in benefits, and they say, "Why don't you approve of migration? Why don't you open up borders?" They're not able to empathize with how people feel about migration.

The question, "When did you last listen to a poor person properly and try to understand what's going on inside their own experience?" enables you to connect.

Some kinds of activists are more willing to try stuff out, see if works and think on their feet, but some of the people who are working on [change] find that very difficult: They've been schooled into thinking you have to come up with the perfect plan in advance. It has become a bit technocratic.

The post-Second World War simple system of social democracy and organized labour has fragmented massively, but just because people aren't organized in workplace trade unions doesn't mean they aren't in associations with other people - work-based, place-based, culture-based, sport-based, faith-based - there's a bit of an old rainbow coalition argument.