A new vision of power

Hi, I’m Heather, an award-winning investigative journalist, published author, campaigner for Freedom of Information, teacher, writer and visionary. I want to get people thinking about power - what it is, how to use it and how to stop its abuse.

All my work has been centred around exploring power. As a political and investigative reporter, I uncovered misuses and abuses of power. As a campaigner, I fought to challenge the balance of power between citizen and state. My activism around the right to know led to a 2008 High Court battle against the UK parliament for MPs’ expenses (I won). Now as a novelist, I write stories that show new ways of exercising power that challenge patriarchal notions that it’s all about domination and control.

That is weak power. Power that can’t persuade. Power that few want. That’s why propaganda and violence go hand in hand with it. Weak power can’t survive without force and lies.

There is an alternative. What I call true power. The power of creation. The power of nature. Power that persuades and is popular. Power that includes women’s wisdom and holds nature as sacred rather than something to be exploited for a few men’s personal gain. Now is the time for a paradigm shift in the way we view power. The survival of our species requires it.