Leftists tend to think in structural terms. We like to think we’re anti-individualist, not driven by mere charisma or sucked in by superstar icons. We’d like to believe that personality politics is vacuous and perhaps even below us. Let’s be honest, though — we’re kidding ourselves.
Sometimes you see that character on screen — or, better still, meet them face-to-face — and suddenly realise personality matters. It matters because people matter. And perhaps barring Sir Keir Starmer, politicians do have personalities.
I was fortunate enough to meet one person recently with such a personality. She was guided by her political activism and a conviction to confront the structural inequalities that motivate the left.
Her name is Thirza Amina Asanga-Rae, and she’s on track to become one of (probably many) new Green Party councillors elected on 7 May across Greater Manchester.
Meeting Thirza and co.
Shortly before I meet Thirza, I find her budding team: Bysshe and Jam, a fairly young but very experienced duo of film producers hired by the Green Party for May’s elections.
We meet outside of Coffee Nubia, which they tell me is a popular community hub and sometimes acts as an unofficial elections organising base. Thirza welcomes us in. She’s wearing a brightly coloured wrap with her hair done fantastically in swinging pom-pom braids.
The café owners offer Thirza and company their backyard — which is not open per se, but is freely available to the team — for our interview. We order coffees and soon get into it.
Unlike roughly three quarters of the Green Party, Thirza’s not new on the scene. In fact, this is her fourth year as Moss Side’s favourite Green Party candidate. (Which doesn’t count 2025, a ‘fallow’ or non-voting year — a phrase I didn’t know until Thirza used it.)
Like many in electoral politics, her background came “purely” out of [her] activism. She has a union background, mainly in transport, and that took her into Labour Party politics for a brief period — not unlike many in today’s Green Party.
Thirza says that after moving around the UK and eventually settling back into Moss Side, she realised it needed “people who look like” her to be entering politics.
She’s ex-Labour and like many people involved in the union movement, Thirza says the Labour Party “slowly lost its way.” Then a “comrade” suggested she join the Greens.
Soon after, she was asked to stand for the Green Party, and tripled their vote share in one sweep.
Undignified housing experiences
That isn’t the full story, however. Because Thirza’s union background isn’t solely, nor even mainly, in labour unions. Arguably, it’s more in the housing union movement where she’s dedicated much of her time and energy.
She’s a committed member of Greater Manchester Tenants’ Union and former GMTU chair. And the story of how she got there shocked me.
As a single mum with four young kids, Thirza lived in social housing. Her three youngest children — all boys — shared one of two bedrooms, while her eldest daughter took the other. That left her with a fold-out sofa-bed in her living room for four whole years. She recounted:
For four years, I kind of didn’t have dignity as a woman, as a mum.
That was hard enough, and describing these living conditions as sub-standard is an understatement. It’s an issue that drives and guides her politics to this day.
You name it, they’ve suffered it — leaks, damp, mould, dodgy electrical wiring, unsafe plastering, infestations — the whole lot. Water leaking out of plug sockets, she feared for her kids’ lives. Repair works didn’t change a thing.
Thirza’s campaign leaflet shows her grassroots involvement over the years – via Manchester Green Party.
Radicalising ceiling collapse
This housing episode hit its nadir when, one day, one of the boys hopped out of the bath, which had a leak and subsequent damp problem, supposedly fixed.
But it wasn’t. When he jumped out, the ceiling collapsed on Thirza’s head as she was washing up dishes. That was enough for her. The fight was on…
As she tells the story, we’re interrupted by a persistent caller. It turns out that caller saw her number on one of her flyers, and phoned for help with their own housing situation. Thirza explains we’re mid-interview, and asks the caller to email her.
What transpires is a situation awfully similar to Thirza’s — bad mould and a young child with respiration problems. Thirza says people reach out directly for her help in these situations because of her housing advocacy.
I tested this assertion. While chatting with my taxi driver afterwards, he mentioned problems with his housing association. I took his number and passed it on to Thirza, who could soon represent his ward. He says he got a reply from her swiftly.
Thirza says it’s purely out of her activism — her trade union background — that she got into politics. She says:
I’ll make no bones of that. … I’m proud of my organising knowledge and experience.
But it’s her lived experience, shared by countless Mancunians, energises Thirza, as she explains:
Manchester needed help and it needed people who look like me.
Bringing the fight
After the rotted roof collapse shock, Thirza came for the housing association. She emailed every address around the housing association she could find:
*If it was between my life, or everybody knowing what I was suffering from, I was ready to blow the trumpet. …*If it warms you, eventually I got justice.
She didn’t give up after her own justice though. She joined GMTU, rose to become chair, and still handles casework — including for her same old housing provider and people it’s still failing — although Green Party campaigning takes the bulk of her time nowadays.
I put my best foot forward because I wanted to be the change that I want to see. That galvanised me to engage with my residents.
Moss Side is and has been a deprived ward for many years. We are on the rise to making Moss Side a place where residents are proud to live and proud to represent.
Thirza’s promises
If she’s elected on 7 May, Thirza is promising to look at safeguarding and security in alleyways, and to stop fly-tipping, by prosecution if necessary.
She wants to see floodlights and, where possible, CCTV to make the place safer, cleaner and nicer for the people who live there. She’s also looking at sorting out car parking spaces to stop people taking up multiple spaces.
She’s standing because, fundamentally, she grew up in the ward and went to primary school there — just like her children do now.
As we rise, I am happy to champion better housing conditions, more social housing built both in this ward and neighbouring wards, and bring forward the unity that is being built, and has existed, back into Moss Side.
If I am elected as councillor I will fight tirelessly in those chambers and I will put the necessary motions forward and champion for the Moss Side that people want to see.
Throughout our conversation, it’s clear that Thirza has some quiet confidence. In fact, she’s already thinking about lining up Moss Side’s next Green councillors.
The ‘Green Wave’ may now be a reality Britain can no longer ignore.
Featured image via Thirza Amina Asanga-Rae
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