Should I set this organisation up?
It's a monstrous hybrid of a lean think tank and a full fat public communications campaign. Could it pave the way for a new politics of revival? Or might it just straight out tank?
Hello everyone! Time for something a little different today. Most stuff on this blog so far has been either prototypes of nerdy tools (an overly cheerful policy chatbot, an electoral challenge calculator) or new ways that Lib Dems could talk populist and do pragmatic.
But since you’ve all got four whole days off, here’s something a bit more involved. Here’s an idea for an organisation I could try to set up. It is certainly foolishly ambitious, but if you can say anything about me it’s that I have form in the foolish ambition game. (Details available on request.)
You know what to do. Have a read, then send me some of that negative feedback goodness I crave!
The idea in brief
Living standards in Britain are going backwards, and growth is proving sluggish. Solutions do exist, but trust in politics and consumer confidence are so low that political parties struggle to embrace them.
There is a gap in the market for optimistic politics as a result. The only party filling it is Reform UK, whose narrow and nostalgic nationalism only furthers division and distrust. The centre left is the natural home for a politics of revival - but Labour’s thin majorities make it unwilling to risk leading the public, and the Lib Dems’ low profile make them unable to do so at sufficient scale, for now.
Convincing the parties of the centre left to take a different approach will require a clear demonstration that the right voters in the right places will back a bold, credible and authentic politics of renewal.
This proposed organisation will develop that politics, hand in hand with the voters whose support it would need. To do it we will take a media-heavy strategy for public involvement and political advocacy. We will:
Curate and evaluate a portfolio of policy solutions to the problems that matter to people in Britain today, and to the systemic secondary problems that prevent progress.
Develop compelling new media content about how change can be achieved locally and nationally, including by individuals, communities and businesses - not just government.
Build an engaged community of audience members to fuel the effort through memberships and subscriptions.
Reach and convince a broader audience by involving non-partisan figures and organisations who share our liberal and social democratic values and who are trusted by the public.
Advocate for the ways in which centre left political parties could build effective electoral coalitions that would both increase/maintain their representation in Westminster and provide them with a mandate for ambitious action.
Read on for full details! (And for some of the evidence for my outlandish claims.)
The problem
Britain is stuck in a loop of lowering quality of life, declining trust in government, and low hope for the future. Widespread and inclusive economic growth - across regions, generations and communities - is foundational for any solution but the productivity and investment that would unlock it aren’t materialising. And as trust and optimism drop, people become more suspicious of the compromise and technocracy necessary for responsible government, and more attracted to the stark us-vs-them politics of populism.
Quality of life
Thirty years of continual improvement in living standards ended in 2008. Since then, typical working household incomes have remained more or less constant. Britain’s household wealth has nearly doubled - but the accumulation has been amongst older home-owners, especially in the South East. The young, renters and those living elsewhere haven’t seen the benefits.
Now things are starting to get worse. For the poorer half of the population, incomes were projected to have dropped by 17% from 2019 to 2024. Healthy life expectancy is going backwards, and is seven years lower in the North East than in London.
Depression is on the rise, as is anxiety. More and more young people aren’t working or studying. One in five people feel poorly treated by society, up from one in eight only a year ago. As recently as 2022, two million people reported that they had to go without food at least one day per month.
While much has improved - more people have qualifications, crime is down, far fewer people are digitally excluded - the things that are getting worse are the things that matter most: health, wealth and wellbeing.
The economy
While the economy is growing, it isn’t doing so fast enough to ease up the fiscal pressure on the government - meaning that frontline services will continue to be underfunded. It’s lower than the Bank of England’s expectations, and it’s falling per head (because the population has grown faster than the economy), meaning that the average Brit isn’t seeing the benefits. Britain’s productivity - the driving force of growth - is lower than that of the US, Germany and France, and on a par with Italy’s. While the IMF predicts stronger growth for the UK than for France and Germany, that growth will be faster in London and the South East than elsewhere in the country. GDP per capita is already more than twice as high in Greater London than in almost every region apart from the South East - far higher than in comparable countries.
In short, while there might be growth, there’s not enough of it to go round. Britain will still be divided by a sense of growth being about “your bloody GDP, not ours”.
The national mood
(Note: this section and part of the next are adapted from a Liberal Democrat polling review, co-written with Sam Barratt and Ruth Gripper.)
Trust in politicians and many institutions is dangerously eroded. Starkly, confidence in Parliament has halved since 1990 to just 23%, and only one in four trust the UK government. Politicians, journalists, trade union officials and business leaders all enjoy less than 50% agreement that they would tell the truth and most people do not believe that government is a force for good.
For the first time since records began, fewer than half of the public in the UK would rather be a citizen of Britain than anywhere else, which is down from almost two-thirds a decade ago. Most Brits think the country is heading in the wrong direction, that growing up in the UK is harder now than it was in the past, and that things in our country are getting worse rather than better.
Reasons to be cheerful
It’s not all gloom! From the national to the local, Britain is suffused with opportunities for change. Our tech industry is primed for growth. The benefits it brings will help spread growth through the regions. Our push for net zero, energy independence and greater defence spending will all drive industrial investment nationwide. Brits are entrepreneurial, generous with their time, and proud of where they live. Our communities are bursting with civic goods, from community-managed parks to boxing clubs for teens to free to access libraries, museums and galleries.
Our identity is strong and positive. Pride in Britain’s artistic, literary and sporting achievements has grown, while pride in its history and economic achievements has fallen – though remains high. Across all generations, the public associate Britain with wit, tradition and endurance. The public view of what it means to be British is becoming more inclusive with where someone was born or their ancestry seen as less important than previously, and pro-EU attitudes are more common and growing.
The need
Britain needs a bold, authentic and credible politics of renewal. One that is rooted in the challenges of the present but sets out a realistic route for how life is going to get better. No-one yet offers it.
Labour’s target for economic growth might be bold (or even implausible), but their vision, policies and politics are not. While the Liberal Democrats are becoming bolder than in the last Parliament, they are not yet running at a high enough profile to set the agenda in British politics, and do not yet connect authentically with the public over a broad enough range of issues. Elsewhere on the political spectrum, neither the Greens nor Reform lack in boldness and authenticity, but they fall down when it comes to having credible solutions to Britain’s problems. Sadly the same has to be said of the Conservatives.
Adding another classical think tank to the mix won’t change this picture. The problem is not a shortage of policy. It’s a shortage of vision, leadership and trust. The only way out is to build enough trust with enough voters in enough constituencies for a bold, credible and authentic politics of renewal to be electorally viable. Then political parties will follow. This can only be usefully attempted at scale and with clout. As such, this proposal is for an attention-grabbing and public-facing communications campaign, built on the back of a lean and agile policy institute.
The ingredients
While many think tanks focus on a small number of policy areas, to maximise quality, venture capitalists form broad portfolios of high risk investments, knowing that 19 in 20 will fail, but 1 in 20 will deliver the outsize returns that dwarf those losses.
While classical think tanks publish large, infrequent reports for technocratic audiences and generate revenue through large grant applications, today’s juggernaut political podcasts create reams of small format content for large audiences and bring in millions in small donations.
And while think tanks focus on technical policy details, populist movements focus on showing that they see the world how their supporters do, that there are clear bad guys and clear solutions, and that change is possible through concerted action.
The concept
A new form of agile think tank / public communications campaign that:
cares as much about narrative as policy;
focuses not upon conventional policy silos, but instead takes a dual focus on the lived experiences of people trying to live a comfortable life (e.g. finding meaningful work, securing a long-term home), and on the systemic problems that prevent meaningful change (e.g. productivity, media independence, electoral reform, London-centrism).
maintains a focus on selected problems for multiple years, to be able to cover the whole process from research and consultation through to campaigning and advocacy.
for any selected problem, casts the net wide (including internationally) to find bold policy ideas from both the left and the right, selected for their potential to deliver better outcomes, and their alignment with liberal and social democratic values;
subjects those ideas to rigorous testing rooted in evidence of delivery, so that they are shown to be credible as well as bold and authentic;
produces high volume, accessible and engaging multi-format content suited to both traditional and social media consumption, with which to build momentum across political and civic society;
reaches and convinces a broader audience by involving non-partisan figures and organisations who share our liberal and socially democratic values and who are trusted by the public.
supplements (and later replaces) foundation grants with high-volume low-price membership subscriptions, earned by demonstrating to the public the full extent of the power and opportunities they already have to achieve change;
and advocates for the ways in which centre left political parties could build effective electoral coalitions that would both increase/maintain their representation in Westminster and provide them with a mandate for ambitious action.
Tough questions
How can a startup project like this hope to affect something as big as popular trust in politics?
It can only work if done at scale and with serious clout. It needs substantial initial funding, and a line-up of well regarded non-partisan figures to help reach those who aren’t interested in politics. Without resources and reach, it will be unable to deliver. With them, it stands a much higher chance of having an effect than political parties themselves would, precisely because of how little they are trusted by the public - and also a greater chance than most think tanks might, since they are government- and party-oriented, rather than public-facing.
Very few celebrities are willing to work on political causes. Why will this be any different?
Yes, but many celebrities campaign on charitable and social causes. It’s the partisan politics that puts them off, and the request for an endorsement or ambassadorial support. We won’t be asking them for anything. The aim is to present them with the best solutions (the ones that are boldest while still being credible). If we succeed in inspiring them, we will invite them to help us - a non-partisan policy institute and campaign - spread the word to the public. This stands in strong contrast with political parties seeking endorsements, which come with much greater downsides for celebrities.
There’s already not enough foundation money to go round. How can you plan to raise money that way?
While we hope to receive some foundational support at the outset, we hope to raise more from social investors and private donors. In the medium term, the intention will be to finance the operation through membership subscriptions, which will depend upon the quality of content produced and the extent to which audience members feel like that content is an important part of their lives - like audiences do with successful podcasts, streams and video channels.