Steve Topple is a journalist and broadcaster. He left school at 16 with no formal qualifications in media, working in the hotel industry for many years. Steve was brought up in a very political household, with his late father being a prominent member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and both parents being active trade unionists via their factory jobs. But Steve didn’t embrace politics until the 2010s. Having spent many years on and off social security, in 2014 he began blogging as he couldn’t afford to physically get to protests. This led to his work being picked up by the Independent – for which he ended up covering Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on a weekly basis – as well as openDemocracy, the Morning Star and New Internationalist. In April 2016 he joined the Canary.

Steve’s work focuses on issues affecting the poorest people in society. His own lived experience of being reliant on social security since the late 2000s has led to his reporting on the welfare state, which has reached millions of people and was used by Philip Alston in his UN report into UK poverty.
He also feels strongly about the toxic effects the corporate media has on society, the sham that is the Labour Party, as well as mainstream economics, and the system and society’s discrimination against, and marginalisation of, chronically ill and disabled people.

Aside from political journalism, Steve also works in the music industry, being a writer on reggae, dancehall and afrobeats for publications such as Reggaeville and Pauzeradio.