Join us for a free communications masterclass

With many of us feeling increasingly disillusioned with mainstream politics on both the left and the right, and with parties like Reform gaining ground in the UK, we have to resist becoming more polarised and the comfort of speaking only to our bubble. This starts with learning how. 

As things stand today, progressives are losing the information war. It does not have to be that way. There are techniques and strategies that will help you listen to, debate and communicate with people who feel differently than you.

That’s why we are hosting three workshops for small groups to listen to the challenges you are having in communicating progressive ideas. We will look at everything, from how to get the right mindset, to story structure and sniff out tricks that our opponents use to wrong foot us. 

The sessions will be led by Nick Smallman, the Founder and CEO of Working Voices, and an adviser to multinationals and progressive US and U.K. politicians, who helps them improve leadership and interpersonal communication skills. 

These virtual workshops will be held on 18 February, 26 February and 4 March, from 7 - 8 pm BST. Please just book to come to one date. 

In order to put this workshop in context, we asked Nick some questions: 

1/ Why are progressives losing the information war 

All progress stems from a culture that demands it. In 2025, the Right, broadly speaking, has the upper hand because the culture is flooded by a tsunami of overstimulating and often misleading information, which causes chaos. This is a strategy and it is very effective. When there is chaos, nuance is substituted with certainty as people retreat from critical thinking and instead seek out simple solutions that make visceral rather than logical sense. Also chaos persuades people to seek safety. The Right have been very effective in using this tactic to undermine social norms, institutions and attitudes to certain groups of people. This will continue until progressives can coordinate countermeasures in a coherent strategy. The Right are well-organised, well-financed, and most importantly, they understand how to capture the culture. However, I am very confident that progressives can turn this around because polling suggests that a significant majority of people agree with us on most issues but in order to achieve this we will need a new coordinated strategy and improved skills.

2/ What can we learn from the Right?

The Right has a deep infrastructure of think tanks, media organisations, personalities and most importantly, a communication approach that cuts through and moves people to acknowledge their fears.  They also have better message discipline. They have a big advantage in the way they present themselves online - fun and anti-establishment. In many ways the roles have switched in recent years. Progressives are now more austere and serious while the right are producing expressive, anti-establishment and entertaining communication for this popcorn culture. It is understandable why progressives are acting like the adults in the room. There are multiple crises all over the world that need urgent solutions. But progressives have to recapture parts of the audience they have lost. To do so they will need a multi-layered and targeted approach to communication. The rules have changed largely because of algorithmic technology that trains us to scroll past important but low stimuli information - and it’s getting worse..

3/ What can we do to turn this around?

This is the good news. There are hundreds of tools and techniques available to all progressives who would like to be a part of the solution. There needs to be a coordinated approach to up-skill the progressive movement. This can be done in 3 ways:

First, we need to study what people on the right are actually doing (their tactics, vocabulary etc) and call them out on it. This “calling people out” strategy is incredibly effective because viewers hate being made fools of even more than they hate being bored. 

Second, progressives need to share information effectively. A proper infrastructure needs to be built with more groups coordinating to share accurate information and effective narratives so that people feel confident when engaging on social media, radio, TV etc. 

Third, we must be the best versions of ourselves. What I mean by this is we are no good to anybody in a debate, either online or in real life, when we look angry or have contempt for our opponent (not that the anger isn’t justified, but that it is not an effective way to persuade). Getting the psychology right really matters. Qualities such as humour, self control, charisma, presence, kindness and intelligence are universal attractors and will bring people into the group over the long term. The larger and more coordinated the group, the more you can influence the culture.

You can book one of our sessions here. Please just book to come to one date. 

We look forward to seeing you there!