Article

Culture

Education

Politics

26 February 2025

6 min read

Does Gen Z crave the dictator?

If young Brits are turning away from democracy, here’s how to stop it.

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

A cat with a small black moustache marking snarls while sitting in front of a tablet.

Kanashi on Unsplash

I knew something was seriously wrong when I hosted a live interactive online assembly for a couple of thousand sixth formers last year. Given a range of emojis the one that was chosen most to represent how they felt about politics wasn’t a thumbs up, or sleeping face, - it was the pile of poo emoji. The vast majority also expressed a deep distrust in government believing they neither listened to nor cared about them. It was then that I realised democracy was in trouble—and not just on the global stage. Here in the UK, a deeply worrying trend is emerging: more than half of Generation Z (those aged 13-27) believe the country would be better off under a dictator.

Recent controversial polling from Craft, commissioned by Channel 4, reveals that 52 per cent of Gen Z believe the UK should be run by a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament or elections. Even more alarmingly, 33 per cent think the country would be better off if the army were in charge. If that doesn’t make us sit up and take notice, consider this: nearly half (47 per cent) of Gen Z believe our society must be radically changed through revolution.

These numbers are staggering. For those of us who have grown up with a strong commitment to democracy, it is unthinkable that the generation raised with the most freedom, the most access to information, and the greatest digital connectivity could be so willing to give up their right to vote, protest, and hold leaders accountable. But before we rush to condemn, we need to ask the hard question: why do so many young people apparently feel this way?

A lost faith in politics

What if it isn’t so much that Gen Z has turned against democracy, but that they feel democracy has turned against them? Think about it. Their schools are crumbling. Their teachers are stressed. If they need mental health support or special needs support, they have either a long wait or a hard fight on their hands and probably both. If they want to go to university, they have to take on a debt that will last longer than the time they have been alive. And pity help them if they want to buy a house - statistics suggest they will probably have to wait until they are 33 years old to even think about getting onto the property ladder.

You might think that these struggles would force Gen Z to become more politically active. But this generation remains the least politically engaged group in the UK. Whilst it is true that currently many are too young to vote, there is also a large proportion who is too disconnected to see the relevance of formal politics. Voter turnout for young people has been abysmal in the last three UK general elections:

2015: 43 per cent
2017: 54 per cent (a temporary spike due to Jeremy Corbyn’s appeal)
2019: 47 per cent

Compare that to the 70 per cent plus turnout for over-65s, and the message is clear: young people aren’t voting, and in return, politicians aren’t speaking to them. Which only exacerbates the problem. Despite the Labour Party manifesto promise that they would introduce voting at 16, they seem to be in no hurry to introduce the reform.

While Gen Z engagement with traditional politics is low, their political leanings have shifted. Over the past two decades, Gen Z has moved slightly to the centre-left, while older generations tend to lean centre-right. Today, age is a stronger predictor of voting behaviour than social class, which is a dramatic shift from previous decades. Though Gen Z is more liberal overall, they are also more radical in their discontent—and that’s where the real danger lies.

When young people feel unheard, they don’t just disengage—they seek alternatives. Their frustration has left them susceptible to radical ideas and strongman narratives. While previous generations turned to grassroots activism, protests, and community engagement, Gen Z is more likely to be influenced by leaders they can follow online - like Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, and Nigel Farage, who offer clear, confident, and often extreme critiques of the system.

The result? Despite strong examples in the positive activism of Greta Thunberg, Marcus Rashford and Malala who have used democratic means to make a positive difference, there is a growing number of young people who see democracy as weak and ineffective, and dictatorship as strong and decisive.

A wake-up call

But there is hope. By engaging young people directly there is an opportunity to change the trajectory. That’s what we discovered at our online interactive event for sixth formers. One of the most powerful voices at the event was Sophia, a recently turned 18-year-old Ukrainian refugee, who spoke about her experience fleeing war. She told her story of being separated from her father who was in Ukraine fighting for democracy. She shared how Ukrainians are fighting—not just with weapons, but with their lives—for the very democracy that young Brits are so ready to discard. Her message to British students was simple: “You don’t know how lucky you are.” She challenged them to see democracy not as a broken system, but as one that requires their participation to work.

It was a powerful moment. And it proved something vital: when young people hear real stories, from real people, they begin to see the consequences of the choices they are flirting with. As a result of that event, thousands of young people signed up to vote at the electoral commission.

Rebuilding trust in democracy

So what can be done? Here are three crucial steps.

Make politics relevant to Gen Z. Young people do care about issues like climate change, mental health, and social justice. But they are turned off democratic political solutions by the bureaucracy, mud-flinging and dragging timescales. By taking time to explain to them the processes, to involve them in the campaigns and to improve accessibility to politics and highlight the difference they can make, we may find that our most disconnected demographic could become democracy’s greatest asset.

Rebuild Gen Z’s trust in leadership. Scandals and dishonesty have left Gen Z cynical. We need leaders who are transparent, accountable, and willing to listen. We need parties who will do what they said they would do in their manifestos and on the doorsteps. We need Members of Parliament who are committed to spending time with the young people they are supposed to represent so that relationships of trust can be deemed possible again.

Empower Gen Z. There are initiatives out there—like our interactive live assembly and the G-EPIC project—that prove a simple truth: when young people feel heard, they engage. When they are inspired, they engage. When they are empowered to participate in the political process, they engage. Perhaps if we create more spaces for them to speak, lead, and act, they will step forward to shape the future.

History shows that democracy is never guaranteed—it must be fought for and protected by every generation. It also requires constant effort to ensure it serves all communities without scapegoating, persecuting, or marginalizing. And history warns us that without democracy, most dictators quickly become tyrants.

The challenge before us is urgent: we must help Generation Z recognize the power they hold to shape their world—before they surrender it to leaders who would take that power away from all of us.

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Article

Care

Culture

Mental Health

Trauma

10 November 2025

5 min read

Stillness is not always peace: how wellness and illness intertwine in silence

Stillness invites clinical insight—and a deeper kind of presence

Helen Cowan

Helen is a registered nurse and freelance writer, writing for audiences ranging from the general public to practitioners and scientists.

Celine Dion, stiff-person syndrome sufferer.

Celine Dion.

The Global Wellness Institute defines wellness as the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health. It includes rest and rejuvenation, through mindfulness, meditation and sleep. As a care home nurse, I am intrigued by the subject of stillness – for patient and nurse - in the pursuit of wellness, and as a sign of illness.

There’s a lot of stillness in illness - from the dense paralysis that can follow stroke or spinal cord injury, to the subtle weakness or stiffness in an arm that might signal the onset of motor neurone disease. Over half of people with Parkinson’s experience ‘freezing’, feeling as if their feet are momentarily glued to the ground. Freezing is also a feature of stiff-person syndrome – the auto-immune neurological condition powerfully documented by Celine Dion in her film I Am. In so-called stone-man syndrome, muscle tissue is replaced by bone, an immobile ‘second skeleton’.

The stillest still is seen in death itself. I’ve stood still with spouses and sons as their loved ones breathe their last. Alone, I’ve watched the hush between heartbeats until there exists only stillness beside sorrow. It’s a stillness like no other, when breath becomes still air, and the only movement is through a window opened to let air in, and souls out, in time-honoured nursing tradition.

In memory of babies born still, a public education and awareness campaign has been launched in the US. “Stillness is an illness” calls for families and healthcare providers to take seriously altered foetal movement in pregnancy, which is reported by 50 per cent of mothers who experience stillbirth. Stillbirth is a tragedy insufficiently addressed in global agendas, policies, and funded programmes, according to the World Health Organization. Mothers in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia are at highest risk, with nearly 1.5 million stillbirths in these regions in 2021.

Sometimes stillness manifests in more muted ways. When dementia robs the recall of person, place and time, residents no longer lift their head in response to their name, nor appear at their chosen place at the breakfast table in the morning. Television presenter Fiona Phillips describes the late stages of dementia for her mother, when she “spent whole chunks of time just sitting and staring ahead, only able to give out a series of sounds.” In care home nursing, I have brought stillness to an agitated mind. Therapeutic touch has relieved tension; creative activities have reduced restless pacing up and down. Music, movement, and medication can also calm a troubled mind.

In the further pursuit of patient wellness, the nurse may need to be still. The “CAREFUL” observation tool has been developed in nursing homes, in which the nurse sits still and discreetly watches a resident for a period of time, assessing their activities and interactions, working out what brings wellbeing, or ill-being, for that individual; residents in this case being our best teachers. Other times in dementia care, the nurse is still as they patiently wait for a resident to explore, enquiring into self-made mysteries solvable only by themselves, examining everything from door handles to another resident’s buttons; or to slowly finish a meal, their swallow also affected by the disease.

Punctuating any frantic nursing shift are other moments of necessary stillness as the nurse performs intricate procedures, carefully inserting catheters, delicately taking blood from fragile veins, or applying prolonged pressure to stem bleeding caused by a catheter during cardiac stenting. In the operating theatre, the scrub nurse stands still awaiting a surgeon’s call; the “honor walk” or walk of respect is a ceremonial procession in which healthcare staff line the corridor, in silent tribute, as a brain-dead patient is taken to theatre for organ donation.

There’s a different stillness sought in nursing, and elsewhere, which runs very deep. Described by missionary and author Elisabeth Elliot as a “perfect stillness…a great gift”, it is, in her words, “not superficial, a mere absence of fidgeting or talking. It is a deliberate and quiet attentiveness—receptive, alert, ready”. It’s an expectant stillness in which we “put ourselves firmly and determinedly in God’s presence, saying ‘I’m here, Lord. I’m listening’.” Writing for the Christian Medical Fellowship, nurse Sherin describes such a seeking during a stressful shift. “Overwhelmed, I stepped away to find a quiet place. I ended up in a washroom. It wasn’t ideal, but there I cried out to God, asking for courage, peace, patience, and above all, love for that patient.” And her prayer was answered. “That, to me, was the quiet, powerful presence of Christ,” she writes.

Her role model was Jesus himself who often stepped away to be still, to seek spiritual sustenance. Just before he fed the five thousand, Jesus said to his tired and hungry disciples, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” When grieving the execution of John the Baptist, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place; and in the hours before his arrest, Jesus withdrew about a stone’s throw from his disciples, knelt down and prayed. An angel from heaven appeared to him, and strengthened him. We too are invited, in the book of Psalms, to “Be still and know God” when hard pressed and weary. Here, the words “be still” derive from the Hebrew rapha which means “to be weak, to let go, to release”, or simply to surrender. It’s a theme repeated in many of the great Christian hymns, hinting at an expectant, sustaining stillness, invoking God’s promise of His presence in that stillness. Little-known hymnwriter Katharina von Schlegel, writing in the eighteenth century, captures it perfectly.

Be still, my soul! the Lord is on your side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to your God to order and provide;
In ev'ry change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul! your best, your heav’nly friend
Thru' thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

I’ve sought this stillness, and it’s brought me wellness. It’s the reason why, despite some difficult days, I am a nurse. Still.

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