Last month I took the plunge and joined the SDP, says TOM MARKHAM. Here’s why
Although I have always been interested in politics, I never felt that the main parties truly reflected my beliefs or values. Like so many others, I often voted for whoever I disagreed with least – a civic reflex more than an act of conviction. Over the years I have backed both Labour and the Conservatives, but always with heavy caveats and the sense that neither really understood what Britain needs.
To borrow a line from Rascal Flatts, it’s been a broken road that led me straight here – but I am genuinely glad it did.
It’s hardly a scoop to say the next few years will be noisy politically. Immigration, small boats, public services and the cost of living will dominate the headlines. Reform and the Greens are both serious players now, and my social media feed already feels like a loop of Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski trying to out-shout one another.
And yet, for all the noise, I can’t help thinking of T. S. Eliot’s line: “That is not what I meant at all; that is not it, at all.” It captures our strange political mood – the sense that the new parties, for all their passion, still miss what many people are truly yearning for. Most Britons aren’t demanding social revolution. They want a country that feels whole again: children who grow up safe, healthy and grounded, work that means something, streets that belong to the people who live on them. The public’s instincts remain sane and decent – it is the political class that has lost its bearings.
As someone brand new to the SDP, I wouldn’t pretend to know what the party should do next. But I do think the political clamour offers space for the SDP to speak from different angles. William Clouston’s recent conversation with Sophie Winkleman on children and smartphones was a perfect example. It wasn’t a culture-war provocation; it was a humane reflection on how we have allowed childhood to be colonised by the social media. It feels part of a wider pattern – childhood itself being quietly taken away, rushed and adultified by algorithms. It cut through the noise to me – I watched it twice and shared it with friends and family, and every one of them said it struck a chord. That, to me, shows how the SDP can connect with ordinary people.
Perhaps that interview could be a model for how the party speaks: by focusing on concrete, relatable, day-to-day issues – the things that shape ordinary life but rarely make it into manifestos. The following are two small similar ideas that come up constantly in conversations with other men in their twenties and thirties – about culture, childhood, and the quiet shifts reshaping modern Britain.
First, the crisis of body image among young men. Steroid use and body dysmorphia are spreading fast. The same social-media platforms that distorted how girls saw themselves now sell young men an equally hollow version of perfection. A recent review estimated that between about 328,000 and 687,000 men aged 15-64 in the UK have recently used anabolic androgenic steroids. What does this say about us?
Second, the epidemic of loneliness amongst young people. Friends and family tell me often of their isolation – working from home, eating alone, socialising and dating through screens. The old anchors of community life, from pubs to churches, are vanishing. We don’t need the state to manufacture friendship, but we do need leaders who understand that belonging matters – that shared spaces, rituals, and small acts of togetherness are what make life bearable.
There’s two from me. Neither of these issues will dominate the next election. They won’t win the war of headlines But they would make people stop, click, and think: at least someone’s talking about this. They’re not vote-winners in the usual sense, but they are attention-getters – ideas that show a deeper concern for the kind of country we’re becoming. I think they would draw people to the website, to the discussion, to the question: who else is even talking about this?
As a new member, I wonder if that’s how the SDP can truly cut through – not by joining the shouting, but by using social media to speak clearly and with conviction about the moral and cultural questions most people feel but few politicians dare to name. In an age dominated by noise and distraction, that might just be the most radical message of all. After decades of drift, perhaps Britain’s renewal begins there – in rediscovering the ordinary things that make life matter: childhood, friendship, faith, and the feeling of belonging somewhere again.
