How do you feel about the election?
This is the salvation.
What's it like?
It's electric. – It makes you feel alive.
It's exhilarating and the endorphins afterwards … it's better than any …
Better than sex.
How do you feel about the election?
Are you going to vote?
No.
The SNP is destroying the country.
The Tories are destroying the country.
What more can I say?
Labour party?
You're not having that either? – No.
I don't know what I am going to vote yet because I just don't know.
Who did you vote for last time?
SNP.
Right. – But …
I'm not going to vote for them this time.
What pushed you away to the Labour party back then?
Tony Blair, the war in Iraq …
Gordon Brown.
Well, I suppose because English politics has been very bleak lately, I always come to Scotland with a
certain number of sort of romantic preconceptions.
A lot of people are sick of politics here too.
What kind of society do you want to live in?
An equal society, one that cares for all of its members equally
and considers everyone …
The bell again.
… where people's voices are heard and there's like an honest communication between governments,
people, media, all of these things which I feel lacks somewhat at the moment.
But it's a really cool town, it's got a lot of very strong community vibes which I think
is really wonderful, people are friendly and care about each other and
care about what they're doing and this kind of stuff.
I'm actually at work right now, so I should probably go and keep doing that.
Where do you work?
I work in a shop called the Community Carrot, which is the green grocer on the high street,
which recently got bought by the community, so now it's a community grocery shop.
You've got a sort of mutualised community and green grocer.
Yeah. – I'm going in.
We've come to Dunbar partly because it's in an SNP/Labour margin.
But what we quickly find is a place brimming with community spirit
and the kind of grassroots action that we've been seeing all over the country in this series.
If it wasn't for Dunbar and the Ridge that set up in Dunbar,
I'd be on the streets.
We've been told that a lot of the energy comes from a place
called the Ridge.
Wow, look at this. This is it.
This is a community garden created by volunteers
to help each other deal with everything from school exclusions to dementia.
Fantastic!
It gives people that have sort run out of hope somewhere to come.
It's great dynamic, it's improved my mental health so much just by coming here
and taking part in things and there's none of that 'them and us'.
Thomas is here. Thomas is actually having to head off for a meeting with …
Universal credit.
Are you? – Aye, yeah.
Can we talk to you about that? – Aye, yeah.
OK, if that's alright.
Aye, yeah.
Dunbar was in a pilot area for universal credit, a policy that was
imposed from Westminster, and Thomas is one of several people we meet here who's
had trouble with it.
Thomas was on … what were you on originally?
PIP.
You're on PIP?
Oh, yeah, oh disability, but the Department for Work and Pensions
have taken that away.
How much money did you lose? Or have you lost?
About £100 odd … – A month?
Yeah.
Wow.
Now they want us to find a job but with the anxiety that's hard.
So, thanks to Kate and the rangers,
I volunteer everywhere.
You're an amazing volunteer.
Thomas is volunteering all day every day.
How do you feel about the benefits system?
Yeah, it's useless.
It feels like we've been … you get several people being swept under.
And we are one of them.
Talk about something that breaks people.
I'm having to use this service for the good of my mental health,
for the support it offers …
You're involved with growing stuff here, are you?
What was this before?
It was just rubble.
Do you mind me asking because someone mention it there,
so you've been through the grinder on the universal credit?
Yeah, yeah.
What I'm left with now is roughly about £20 to keep me warm.
How are you doing for food and all of that?
I struggle but I get food but it's not every week,
every day of the week, just three days a week …
You know, when I actually eat.
You are only eating two or three days a week?
Well, I get my soup, I go for my soup, and that keeps me for a day.
What do you think the election?
If Boris gets in, I'm going to leave and live in Australia.
Same with Corbyn and your … what's her name? – Jo Swinson.
… and I cannot stand Nicola Sturgeon.
God, so you've got lots of options in this election, haven't you?
But you're sort of changing the world a little bit at a time here by …
A little bit but not enough.
We need help to do it.
We need money to do it, we need funding.
Sometimes when the world is shit enough, then communities, individuals, whatever,
you know, they're not gonna do it for us, we're gonna have to do it for ourselves.
So, if you're going through the grinder with the benefit system, you've got support.
I've got yeah, like, not a proper family but you know, I feel like Kate's part of the family,
Lucy and Blue, Frances is like an auntie or something …
God, you're choking me up here, man. – Sorry.
But they are all lovely.
I can tell, yeah.
You're lovely too but you're going to miss your train if you don't go soon.
Sending you good vibes, Thomas.
Thank you! – Fingers crossed.
Get that train!
I see you
If you bury your head in social media all the time,
there's this sort of absolutism around at the moment, like if you're not utterly consumed and
morally on fire about the outcome of this election
then you're just a friend of the oppressor.
'Everything hangs on this election.'
I don't know, I felt like they're talking at those universal credit people so I don't know.
I thought well that's an argument for how important this election is.
Any opportunity you've got to end this savagery you should grab it with both hands.
I did feel like that talking to them but at the same time there's a
contrasting perspective from most of …
Interesting that's the other …
God, that's hard, isn't it?
It's really hard
because the people that … even the people at the receiving end of all this,
they've got mixed opinions.
The weird thing is that politics still feels distant from all this.
This is where change is happening.
All over the country the people we've spoken to at places like the Ridge,
have been pretty unanimously anti-Tory but many of them aren't enthusiastic about
the alternatives.
They all talk about the need for more money but the spirit of what they're doing
is somehow missing from the national debate.
I do sort of feel a sense of calm here being away from the overcharged,
neurotic state of English politics.
Amazing, isn't it?
Yeah. – Can you imagine doing that?
Can I ask you a quick question, sir?
What?
How do you feel about the election?
Depressed.
God, it's awful. – Is it?
Boris Johnson, I don't trust him an inch.
What about the other fella?
He's out of touch.
He's out of touch with Scotland.
If the SNP are going to get more votes,
they're going to see …
You see everybody wants independence.
I'm Scottish and British and I'm European.
They are coming out again.
Are you feeling invigorated?
Amazing. – Amazing!
Really? How long does the up last afterwards?
I'm having a much better day after I've been for a swim.
You might change your mind … How do you feel about the election now?
About the same.
We've just been discussing.
You know, really kind of quite profound, you know, things.
It's just out there you just got that abyss there's just that space.
Talking about what really matters in life.
Oh, it's election. I'm absolutely sick to death of it.
That's a shame that you're not asking about the area
because there's a lovely story just …
Go on …
There's a beautiful iconic building in the middle,
the town hall.
Portobello town hall is closed and needs costly repairs
and a campaign has begun to keep it as a community asset.
That's one of the most awful things, isn't it? About contemporary Britain.
It's all the sort of civic building blocks of places or a lot of them aren't there anymore
or a sort of fallen into disrepair.
I mean, look at this.
It sort of represents
community and democracy.
I'd hate to lose the town hall.
I've had so many happy times in there.
I have a horrible feeling, I was saying to my grandson yesterday, this will be flats.
What do you think it says about what kind of country we live in?
That you haven't got a town hall anymore?
Well, doesn't it just … nobody cares really, do they?
We're driving into the centre of Edinburgh to see first-hand another organisation
working at the absolute grassroots.
How do you do? – I'm Matthew.
How do you do Matthew? This is John as well.
Just tell us about it's part of Edinburgh.
Well, this is called Dumbiedykes.
We are surrounded here by a sort of bourgeois Edinburgh, if you like.
This is our university round here, BBC offices are over there,
the Scottish parliament is there …
Is there a sort of lasting working-class community sort of hanging on here?
There is, there is.
You're looking at the end here.
Now you go up the tenement to the main street,
you'll not find any working-class families, mostly Airbnbs.
Edinburgh is one of the wealthiest cities in one of the wealthiest states on earth,
and all we get in this area are cuts.
What's getting cut?
Bus routes for pensioners cut,
local community project was cut, the shops had to shut down.
Jim co-founded Helping Hands in response.
They do all sorts of community self-help,
and today they're collecting food to distribute across the city.
I went to Tesco and gave them the sob story and could you give me something.
They gave me fuck all.
Location, location, location.
That's quite something.
You do have some people organising, like Helping Hands, so naturally we don't want funding.
We don't need the state, we can organise yourselves.
Kids need football, you give them the best football, supported by the football players,
top coaches …
Boxing? We can do it. Bikes? We can do it.
So, we try to build that capacity ourselves, rather than sitting here and saying,
why is the council not doing that, why is this charity not doing that.
Let's do it ourselves.
Right, this is what we're going to do.
A big collection today is at the home game of their football team – Hibernian.
We've got four different collection points.
What I need you to do it to is to give people each a name and to put signage on.
Inside the back of this van, there's boxes and crates.
Now, people who don't have a helping hand … identifiable, there's hi-vis vests.
Any problems, come and get me and we will sort it, OK?
Everybody clear with that?
Well, for the last five or six weeks that we've been on the road,
repeatedly hooking up with people trying to change things,
and this is like the most spectacular illustration of that that we've seen yet.
Toys as well, guys. – Toys.
Toys as well getting delivered.
Some people think, like, Thursday election day is some sort of watershed.
It''s a disconnect between the election
and politics, party politics, what the political class talk about, what we see
the talking heads on the news talking about and what's happening on the ground.
To watch people here this is more important than what's happening on Thursday.
It seems very remote to those of us living in housing schemes,
whether it's Boris Johnson of Jeremy Corbyn,
that's not to say there's no difference,
that policies wouldn't make a difference to people.
But in terms of how people think they can make a difference in the local community,
this is the stuff that matters.
You're an Aberdeen supporter … – Yeah, yeah.
We are all football fans so we just come here to help each other.
Cheers lads, thank you.
Why do you do it?
It just gives me a sense of hope for Edinburgh as a city, like …
I keep having these moments when I get moved on these trips, don't I?
Because at a pretty steady rate, people are pulling up in their cars
and donating all this food.
It just hits you for the 91st time, you know.
It's just all because people in modern Britain are going hungry.
It was a good day.
Hibs won three nil, their fans donated loads of food
and we went home thinking that when the noise of this election is over,
this is where the future of the left has to start.
How much today, then, do you reckon?
Talking somewhere between 30 and 40 tonnes.
And about 100 volunteers on the go as we speak.
You think to yourself, who fills the vacuum for it? Isn't it working-class people with progressive politics,
trying to have solidarity with their neighbours.
Politics is far too important to leave to politicians.
Solidarity not charity!
I thought being immersed in this election was gonna make me feel depressed
and anxious and all that but against my expectations what's
happened slightly more often than that is, I have arrived at this unlikely feeling of hope.
Elections are important and this one, it's fair to say, is more important than most.
Think about Friday the 13th.
What are we going to do then?
And I think I've seen loads of examples of it.