The UK’s Which? Is like Australia’s Choice, a “consumer champion”. George The Poet is a UK phenomenon – a young social commentator who gets his messages out in poetry and rap.

The campaign began because Which? wants the UK government to make it easier for people to have their say on hospitals, GPs, care homes, childcare, schools, universities, and other public services. It’s a campaign to get people complaining in order to trigger inspections by regulators and so that the government will create a unified public services ombudsman.

“The Government must take action to give people the confidence that their complaints will trigger change in public services,” Richard Lloyd, Which? executive director, stated.

Which? had learned that many people don’t speak up when they experience problems with public services, and those who do are not always satisfied with the result. Its research results indicated that 1/3 of people who had experienced a problem with public services in the past year didn’t complain. The two main reasons were 1. they did not know who to complain to and 2. they thought that it would not be worth the effort. 4 in 10 who did complain weren’t satisfied with the outcome. 50% felt as though their complaint was ignored.

So VCCP came up with an unorthodox way to get people to have a voice. It enlisted Soho Music, George The Poet and producer and multi-instrumentalist, Jakwob, to produce a track called, It’s Yours, that tells people they have a voice and asks them to use it. The aim of the project is to give people the confidence to complain and make their voices heard when public services let people down.

When the track was first released, the sound was muted. The idea was that only when enough people had added their voices to the campaign petition would the song be played loud. When the petition reached 50,000 signatures, George The Poet’s voice was unmuted and the video was released with sound.