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Ever got cross trying to key in details to a parking app? Nettled by endless cookie approvals? Mildly piqued by that redundant phone box? Quibble is here to help.

Most political campaigns promise sweeping change. This one aims to remove pebbles from shoes, oil squeaky hinges and stop the dripping taps that bedevil service delivery.

Founded by human rights campaigner Jonathan de Leyser and civil servant Abigail Bradshaw, the self-styled ‘nuisance lobbyists’ have both learned the hard way that banking small wins is better than fruitless hunts for big change.

“In Britain and in the international community, progress can be very, very slow, but I think part of the experience of that is that you look for low-hanging fruit where you can,” says de Leyser. 

“You look for minor things: you’re not going to get regime change in North Korea, but you might be able to help an individual case for someone being extradited. So, you learn to calibrate your expectations a bit.”

Self-described as “The Ministry of Detail”, Bradshaw and de Leyser are trying to become a two-person campaign to combat Britain’s gripes with the public sector.

Quibble’s desire to “sweat the small stuff” is influenced by Rory Sutherland, the TikTok-famous advertising guru renowned for his rants on consumer issues, from whom they borrowed the phrase.

According to leading pollster Luke Tryl, the pair have identified a gap in the political market.

“The word Britons are most likely to use to describe the country is ‘broken’ – for many, that refers to big issues like the cost of living, migration or the NHS.

“But these macro issues are exaggerated by people’s frustrations with every day frictions, the series of things that just make life harder, more frustrating: forms that don’t work, getting stuck on hold, the 8am GP call. All of these add together to create a sense not just things are bad but that the state is actively making life harder.”

The duo are happy to be part of a new vanguard in British politics battling over the minutiae, alongside the bombastic Looking for Growth campaign or the litany of Doge impersonators which have crossed the Atlantic.

Unlike the other detail-orientated campaigns, Quibble is not planning on adopting a hostile approach. Bradshaw, who has sat in the same hot seat as many of the people she’s now trying to influence, is instinctively supportive of civil servants.

“Not many people go in wanting to do it badly. Part of our role is trying to help people achieve what they already want to achieve.”

The campaign has already been welcomed by MPs on either side of the political divide, with Labour’s Andrew Western and the Conservatives’ Tom Tugendhat celebrating the launch.

Bradshaw and de Leyser are trying to keep a relatively narrow Venn diagram for the issues they take on. Issues must be common, and must be the responsibility of the government or a public body. So far, the pair have identified four initial quibbles.

First has been to cut down the constant cookie permissions on webpages, which the pair say is adding an onerous amount of time for limited data protection.

Another is making small mistakes when keying in details at public car parks, where fines are applied liberally in spite of those paying having acted in good faith, such as errors where keying a zero instead of an “O” could land motorists a hefty fine.

The pair also want to rename the “Tax-Free Childcare” scheme, which adds an extra 20 per cent on top of any funds deposited by parents towards accredited childcare providers. Despite being launched in 2017, less than half of eligible parents are currently using the scheme – Quibble reckons a simple renaming would increase uptake.

Finally, Quibble has set its sights on the UK’s telephone boxes. Despite their iconic design, many find themselves in a decrepit state with no functional purpose. Bradshaw and de Leyser have taken it upon themselves to take a critical look at the boxes, which number approximately 20,000 across the country.

“People are angry about very specific kinds of things in their lives. But nobody is sorting them out”

With an array of campaigns to take on, the pair are now trying to vet the variety of suggestions they’ve received from the general public since launching, attempting to separate one person’s niche pet peeve from a systemic but finicky problem in the public eye.

Complaints to them have ranged from ambulance sirens being too loud, and martial arts swords being too hard to import, to banning Captcha forms from using letters that look too similar.

The pair’s plan to retain sanity is by keeping a pretty tight net on what they consider an actionable campaign.

“It’s been really interesting to hear the range of suggestions,” de Leyser says diplomatically.

“People are angry about very specific kinds of things in their lives. But there’s a lot in which people are feeling like they’re not being heard and that there are things that to them are, and to us, feel like fairly obvious wrongs or fairly minor things. But nobody is sorting them out.”

Unlike much of the political tide in the country, Quibble is not calling for an overhaul in the British polity. In fact, the pair think small tweaks can make a huge amount of difference.

Bradshaw says: “Many years of working in the Civil Service taught me that sometimes that’s true, but sometimes policy just isn’t made in an ideal way and actually, sometimes very small changes to policy and policy design have a huge impact on the way that people experience that policy.”

Bradshaw’s career as a civil servant meant she had sympathy for the civil servants in charge of policy. Now a stay-at-home mother, she says her experience of stepping back from day-to-day news has given her a better understanding of how some things done by the government hadn’t been fully appreciated.

“In the world of policy, you assume that everyone is interested. As the quibbles have been coming through as I’m reading them, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, that’s interesting, I’m pretty sure that the government did something on that last year.’”

As political rhetoric has ramped up, with more radical politics becoming mainstream, Quibble hopes to solve the lesser-spotted exasperations with everyday life and perhaps even bring society back together at the same time.

De Leyser says: “I think that’s the thing about Quibble. People might not agree on the best way to solve them but all of these issues are quite common sense and quite easy for people to understand why they’re a problem. And there’s not that much controversy in saying, why is there an empty phone box that doesn’t even work on the street?” 

Labour Jess Asato has commenced legal proceedings against Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI (Alamy)

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Earlier this year, GrokAI – Elon Musk’s xAI company’s tool – generated non-consensual sexualised images of Asato, including bikini photos and a video showing her being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault.

The MP for Lowestoft, elected in 2024, has filed a civil claim in the High Court against xAI, alleging breaches of UK data protection law and misuse of private information.

Asato told PoliticsHome that the Online Safety Act, which started to come into force last year, must be strengthened to protect women, girls and other vulnerable people online.

As part of this, the Labour government should consider creating a statutory definition of technology-facilitated violence against women and girls, she said.

“At the moment, the violence against women and girls guidance from Ofcom is very comprehensive, but nobody’s following it,” she said. 

“That’s partly because it doesn’t have statutory teeth, and so from my perspective, there is a very good case, which has been made for a while by the women’s sector, that the VAWG [violence against women and girls] guidance should be made mandatory and given proper regulatory status.”

Asato hopes that her case against X can set a legal precedent by testing whether an AI developer can be held liable for the design and deployment of its system, rather than the person who prompted the generation of the content. 

She said she also hopes that ministers reconsider the introduction of a third-party advocacy body that could assess individual cases, collate evidence of breaches across multiple platforms, and monitor the implementation of the Online Safety Act, explaining that when she discovered the GrokAI-generated images of her, there was “nowhere else for me to go” after X said the content reported did not go against the platform’s standards.

During the passage of the Online Safety Bill, peers tabled several amendments designed to give individuals stronger representation. Baroness Kidron and others tabled an amendment to establish an Advocacy Body for Children, but it was not accepted. As it stands, Ofcom cannot investigate individual cases.

“That was a real missed opportunity,” Asato said.

“One of the problems Ofcom has is that if it’s not able to collate individual cases, it isn’t able to see the sum total of the harm that is occurring, and therefore be able to prove back to the companies that they are not following the Online Safety Act.

“Calls are definitely growing for there to be much stronger accountability, either given to Ofcom or another body entirely.”

Dex Hunter-Torricke, who spent more than a decade leading communications for some of the world’s biggest technology companies, including senior roles advising Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt, told PoliticsHome he found it “extraordinary” that the burden is placed on individuals like Asato to have to take legal action against platforms to prevent the generation of non-consensual images.

“Surely this is the entire point of passing legislation to protect people online,” he said. 

“We need to have a better systemic fix for that. Most people don’t have the resources all the time to go and defend themselves, especially if that might involve a legal case. It’s very, very troubling that after so many years arguing about how to protect people online, we still don’t actually have our right mechanisms in place as a country.”

Asato has welcomed the government’s announcement that it will go ahead with a ban on certain social media platforms for under-16-year-olds, describing it as a “big, brave step”, alongside other announcements such as new plans by the government to force Big Tech companies to activate built-in features or implement technical solutions on smartphones to detect and block nude images for children.

Despite her experience on the site, Asato has decided to continue using X as a social media platform, and not say when asked whether the government should stay on it.

“Many politicians have left X for very understandable reasons of safety and well-being, but I stay on it because I don’t want to be bullied off a platform,” she said.

Another Labour MP, Alistair Strathern, has proposed a new law to make Relationships and Sex Education mandatory up to 18 to help combat violence against women and girls.

Strathern, who is co-chair of the Labour Group for Men and Boys and a former teacher, said: “For too long, children in further education have missed out because of gaps in the provision of Relationships and Sex Education.

“At a time when the worst corners of the internet are preying on teenagers, with their own harmful takes on what makes a healthy relationship, we surely owe young people far better than this.

‘My bill will put this right and make it mandatory for all settings to give children the space, support and advice they need as they navigate this formative stage. With 16-19-year-olds facing the highest rates of domestic abuse of any age group, the real-world consequences of failing to act couldn’t be clearer.”

PoliticsHome has contacted the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology for comment.

Starmer was speaking ahead of the by-election on Thursday (Alamy)

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The Prime Minister also reiterated that he would not walk away from Downing Street, saying that the Labour Party should focus on winning the Manchester mayoral election that would be triggered by Burnham becoming an MP, not a leadership contest.

On Thursday, voters in Makerfield will head to the polls in what is widely seen as the most significant by-election of recent times, with Burnham widely expected to launch a bid to replace Starmer in No 10 if he is victorious. 

Speaking to Sky News at the G7 in France, the Prime Minister described Burnham as a “huge asset”.

“I’m sure I’ll talk to Andy after the weekend, of course I will. I’ve spoken to him many times in recent weeks,” he said.

“He’s a huge asset. He’s been a fantastic mayor in Manchester. If he comes back into Parliament…He’ll be a fantastic asset for our party and for the country.”

Asked if he would bring Burnham into his cabinet if the mayor wins in Makerfield tomorrow, Starmer said: “Oh, Andy is a great asset. And, yes, I want him to have a big role in government.”

Starmer could face a formal leadership challenge within days of a Burnham victory in Makerfield, with not just Burnham but also former health secretary Wes Streeting expected to launch bids. The resignation of John Healey as defence secretary over defence spending last week put added pressure on the PM’s precarious position.

The PM has said he would fight any bid to replace him, but accepted that he has “got to turn things round” following bruising local election results in May.

“That’s what I want to do. And I’ve been very clear about that. Okay. Do I recognise that? That means we’ve got to turn things around. Yes, I do, but that’s what I want to do. But, yes, I recognise ahead of local election results. So we’ve got to turn that around.”

Burnham’s biggest obstacle to victory in Makerfield on Thursday is Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. A More In Common opinion poll published last week put candidate Robert Kenyon five percentage points behind Burnham (45 vs 40).