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It’s been a little while since I wrote something like this…for @refinery29uk on how people’s 30s seem to have become a “waiting room decade”. In which I ask…what are you waiting for before you do the thing you’ve always wanted to do? What magical alignment of circumstances do you expect to occur before you buy the house, leave the job, tell someone you love them, move city, start a family or, you know, whatever it is you want?!

Committing this to the grid - my new book 🌙 We Were Promised The Moon 🌙 will be published by @4thestatebooks next summer. It looks at the economic reasons why our lives feel tougher than we may have hoped. It also looks at how things can change. I’d love to hear from you - what challenges are you facing? What about your adult life looks different to how you hoped or expected it would? Fav @rejinapyo top as usual 📸 @isseymg

Have you ever felt your thoughts were not your own? Have you ever suddenly been deluged by panic attacks so bad you can’t leave the house? Has your sex drive ever totally disappeared?

Aged 24, I experienced all of the above at once in a psychological deluge which I now believe was caused by the synthetic hormones in the pill and I haven't taken the pill for ten years as a result, writes @vicky.spratt.

🖋️ One night lying on the floor of my rented flat in east London in the middle of a debilitating panic attack with limbs lead-heavy and a heart that felt like it might explode through my chest, I Googled, remembering that almost three months before my brain turned against me, something had changed.

I had started taking a new contraceptive pill – a progestogen-only pill (POP). The penny dropped. As a teenager I had struggled on one of the most commonly prescribed pills and become very tearful when I was took it for heavy periods at the age of 13. After coming off it, I was fine.

It would make sense, I thought, if something similar was happening again.

Comparing this to the booklet inside my pill packet I found that only “mood swings” and “mood changes” were listed as a potential side effect and, at the time, the NHS website said the same. Calling what I was experiencing a “mood swing” would have been like describing a broken leg as a “scratch”.

Go to the link in @theipaper's bio to read the article in full. ⬆️

#hormonalcontraception #mentalhealthawareness #womenshealth #theipaper

Almost ten years ago, I started interacting with an anonymous account called Nearly Legal on Twitter. It was linked to a blog about housing problems and housing law. Niche, I know. But, very much of interest to me.

The person behind it really knew their stuff and would regularly explain complicated problems to journalists, people in social housing, renters and politicians alike.

One day, I asked whether Nearly Legal might be able to chat on the phone and help me with a story I was working on.

That was when I met Giles Peaker. One of Britain’s most eminent and knowledgeable housing lawyers who would go on to draft major legislation (the Homes (Fitness for Habitation) Act) alongside his friend Justin Bates KC and former MP, now Dame, Karen Buck.

Journalists are only good if we listen to experts. Giles took so much time and care to explain complex legal and policy points to me. I am a better journalist for having known him.

Eventually, in 2019, we met in person. We had coffee on the Walworth Road near the offices of his busy law firm. He appeared in my book and generously took the time to proofread it.

Over the years, Giles would send me information about cases he was working on and people he was trying to help. I would write about them.

He became a colleague and, I hope he wouldn’t mind me saying, someone I considered a friend.

In April, I learned that Giles had died suddenly. And today, I travelled to the countryside near the post-war new town of Stevenage to say goodbye at his funeral. It was attended by dozens of people from across Britain’s legal sector, housing sector and benefits sector as well as by politicians. And, of course, his beloved friends and family.

Looking around the room, I realised how amazing it is that Giles met and connected so many people through Nearly Legal. And what an amazing legacy he has left behind by bringing us all together in a room. If only social media could work more like that. I don’t think Giles would mind me posting this because he knew how to use the internet to make the world a better place. This is the song that was played as we said goodbye to Giles, a hilarious choice as ever on his part.

What happened when I spent a day at the job centre in Birmingham? Honestly, it really surprised me. Partly in a good way. More coming soon 🎥 🗞️ (had also forgotten this song existed, spend a lot of time showing my age these days)

🏗️ How did a Peckham shopping centre - The Aylesham Centre - become the focus of a huge housebuilding row? 🏗️

After years of back and forth between Southwark Council and the developer Berkeley Homes, the Planning Inspectorate has declined a planning application to build 867 new “luxury flats” and 77 affordable homes on the site of a shopping centre and car park in Peckham.

Local people fought against the development for various reasons including its size, the impact on Peckham’s local services and skyline and the amount of social housing it included.

Ultimately, the Planning Insepector decided it was too big and the impact on the local area would be too big.

As a result a huge row has erupted between so-called YIMBYs (pro-development campaigners who believe the Ayelsham development should have gone ahead) and campaigners who said it wasn’t right for Peckham.

London has a huge housing crisis. In Peckham, house prices and rents have risen dramatically in recent years, pricing lots of people out. Meanwhile, Southwark has a social housing waiting list of more than 22,000 people.

Building new housing is an important part of fixing that.

The Housing Secretary, Steve Reed, has signalled that he intents to force local councils to inform him if they intend to reject planning applications for more than 150 homes. This is because Labour are trying to increase housebuilding and hit a target of 1.5 million new homes across England by 2029. Increasingly, that doesn’t look like it will happen.

So, what do you think about what has happened in Peckham? How can developer build homes that local people will welcome? Let me know what you think 🏗️ 🎥 @alexllennox

What a year this week has been in British politics…

📻ICYMI episode 3 of The Gen Z story is now available to listen to @restispolitics 📻 This is like no other political interview I’ve ever done - former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner came into the studio to talk to me and @alastaircampbell

It was an exclusive long-form discussion in which she responded to voice notes sent in by the audience and talked about what she thinks is important right now for the government, why young people are turning to the Greens and Reform and, also, what it’s like the be the mother of Gen Z children who are doing everything right but still struggling financially.

Have a listen, let us know what you think! Here’s a link to subscribe, there is a discount for students and you can currently get an annual subscription for £20 if you have a university email address:

https://therestispolitics.supportingcast.fm/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=genzvicky&utm_term=freenewsletter&utm_content=newsletter

A sad state of chaos reigns today for Britain’s Labour Party and Government…

But 📻 episode 3 of our @restispolitics series - The Gen Z Story - is here 📻

It features an exclusive discussion with former Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner who spoke to me and @alastaircampbell before Labour suffered a crushing local election defeat, losing councils and votes to both Reform and the Greens.

Angela Rayner warned that politicians had been to slow to catch up with how young people consume news and information via social media.

She wanted that Labour politicians risked “going the way of the dinosaurs” if they didn’t start to communicate better with young adults.

She told us she is worried about a “lost generation of young people”.

She also explained that she had been “in a rush” when she was Secretary of State because she wanted to pass the Renters Rights Act, Planning and Infrastructure Act, Workers’ Rights Act and leasehold reform. And, don’t forget, votes for 16 year olds.

These policies aren’t often dressed up as a package of reforms for young adults but Rayner argues they are.

Should Labour have communicated that agenda like that?

📻 Have a listen wherever you get your podcasts. Let us know what you think 📻

📻Episode 2 of The Gen Z Story is here @restispolitics 📻

I interview Professor Bobby Duffy from the King’s Policy Institute about his research on the differences (and similarities) between generations.

Bobby has been looking at this issue for decades. And what he has to say might surprise you…

Here’s what I asked him:

- Do older people always think young people are dreadful and terrible and making the world a worse place to be?

- Are younger people today really so different to older people in terms of what they want from life?

Bobby made the point that adulthood has changed because we are staying in education longer and living at home longer but, in the end, this may not be so bad. He also made some very interesting observations about how the ‘Saturday jobs’ older generations did as a way of earning money and getting an introduction to the world of work has completely changed.

📻 Britain faces some enormous socioeconomic challenges at the moment and young adults are at the sharp end of them. Have a listen to the second episode of this series, where we explore the problems and solutions, and let us know what you think 📻

Are UK students worse off than their American counterparts?

Watch the first episode of The Gen Z Story, exclusively for TRIP+ members now.
Get TRIP+ membership for only £20 when you sign up with your student email.

Next Wednesday I’ll be discussing THE ASSET CLASS with the brilliant @vicky.spratt at @theconduitlondon - it’s been moved to a bigger space as demand has been high, but there are still a few tickets available (I think). And if you’re not a member, send me a message if you’d like to attend. Can’t wait for this!

The dream of home ownership is becoming an ever more distant dream for Gen Z 🏠