Many of those invited in the U.K. include experts on the various topics: doctors, nurses, teachers, academics and campaigners, they point out. “If you draw the comparison with America, it’s very much those on the political right who sit in those rooms,” the same official quoted above said. “That doesn’t apply here.”
Pushback
Still, the unprecedented access to ministers has left some creators concerned about how to balance close political engagement with the hard-earned trust that keeps their audiences loyal. “It’s something that we don’t take lightly,” says Jack Ferris, content lead for Earthtopia, a channel that has become one of the largest eco-communities on TikTok.
Ferris’ first interaction was as part of a group of climate influencers invited for coffee and pastries with Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and his comms team to discuss how they could work together. “We also got a tour of No. 10, which was very cool,” he recalls. “I told my mum immediately after I got out.”
But while the channel he helps run focuses primarily on good news stories around net zero, Ferris insists it won’t be “cowed” in criticizing the government. “You don’t want to make it look like because we are going to all these nice political events now we’re only going to be talking about what they do in a positive light.”
Laura Anderson, a climate content creator and PhD researcher known to her audience as “Less Waste Laura,” shot to online prominence in part because of a successful campaign to persuade governments to ban disposable vapes. Anderson said she recognizes the risk that influencers could “get dazzled by Downing Street and the canapés and drinks, and forget this is a government that we should be holding to account.”
But she says creators used a recent roundtable inside government to “bluntly” ask whether they were expected to become “mouthpieces” for the administration. The answer? “Absolutely not.”