A great piece of analysis confirming a hunch i've got, having visited a tonne of community spaces over the last 18 months 'Community' in wealthier areas = based around leisure, fun, and having a laugh 'Community' in poorer areas = based around hardship, need, effectively an extension of the state

I downloaded every charity in England & Wales expecting to find Britain's clubs dying. Instead I found that the problem is turning up and fastest in the poorest places, where it'd help most. New piece on the geography of belonging 🧵 open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

This point is almost more important than scratching around for more 'powers' to devolve. Mayors have a decent range of legal powers already: what they need is the resources to exercise the powers, and for other public bodies to step back or be merged into them and the money to follow accordingly

Our cities arent big enough and we need to make them much, much bigger. But we have to accept that doing that, and that alone, wont be enough to serve *all* their surroundings. Those areas need their own role in the economy too. Key challenge for Burnham is to define that role, and build it.

Burnham mention of streamlining the state to "power up" all parts of the country Who remembers Labour's pre-election plan for 'Powering Up'...? labour.org.uk/updates/stor...

One of the challenges in delivering 'growth in every postcode' is that for many poorer areas, they are just not in real reach of i) jobs which are in high-growth, high-wage sectors ii) jobs, generally

Lots of talk about fiscal devolution lately. A few summers back I helped run a Citizens Jury exploring attitudes to fiscal trade-offs with the public, including on devolving fiscal powers. The principles they decided are still relevant + IMO should guide a new government's thinking on the *how*

Interesting idea from Burnham re a "Makerfield Test" for government, so places like Makerfield are better considered in govt policymaking. ICON developed a similar "Neighbourhood Test" idea, for governments to do same re deprived neighbourhoods, but in the end we dropped it. Here's why:

I think this is a good argument from William Hague against a Labour leadership contest. Burnham, as leader of the Labour Party, should also look to restore the selection of leaders of the party to the PLP in my view.

Grim. The BBC's contribution to our shared national culture has been shrinking for years, further cuts won't help Take a chance on a new comedy or drama show that may become loved by millions and be symbolic of our time, or more episodes of Pointless or The One Show? The latter will win, every time

Some interesting announcements from MHCLG today: - £61m for a new Pride in Place Community Right to Buy Fund - £10 for a Test, Learn, Grow Capability Fund - A new Place Unit, which will convene work on place-related issues across Whitehall questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-stat...

This is an interesting long read from Steve Reed, which has just been published. It is refreshing to see i) a political leader engage with history as a way of explaining why they are pursuing the things they are, and ii) address, directly, opposing viewpoints. www.newlocal.org.uk/articles/com...

The JobsPlus Pilot Evaluation shows a scheme that is quite significantly more effective at getting people living in poorer areas who are out of work back into it. I sincerely hope that the DWP/MHCLG/HMT scale it nationally, rather than leaving it as a pilot. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

There is one finding in the Milburn Review that is more important than any other, but I don't think the government noticed it. In my latest for LabourList, I explain what it is and why it should change how we think about the response to youth unemployment. 1/🧵

Interesting US study on communities and anti-system politics Finds that communities with lots of bonding social capital i.e. strong ties where people are very similar, is strongly associated with backing Trump. Those with bridging capital, ie strong ties across social groups, show the opposite.

Politics is often highly emotive, based on narratives and imagery. Yet policy work tends to limit itself solely with words and numbers, not images. Looking back at one ICON research paper and stumbled across this picture I took last summer ...probably my favourite "chart" of our work so far!

The Milburn review has lots of good data, however most of it is just spelling out long-term trends we already know. We have tried to crack this many times before, but we keep failing. Why is that? Some real, substantial engagement with that question would have been so much more valuable.

It is crazy how hard it is to find and access lots of quite basic data in the UK. The ONS' search function just does not work. DWP Stat-Xplore and Public Health England's Fingertips were designed while the dinosaurs still roamed the earth. Third party apps like LG Inform are just painful.

A genuinely excellent piece from the bank holiday weekend by my colleague, Ben Glover. So worth a read. www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Talking of Labour economic thinking, punchy blog here from Reeves's former chief economic adviser John Van Reenen, suggesting her approach is starting to bear fruit in terms of productivity, and lamenting "the media’s obsessive negativity towards the government": blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

Bluesky is an echo-chamber (let's be honest), but there is nothing more echoey than what is a genuinely crazy level of hysteria about Blue Labour See it absolutely *everywhere* on here. Insane levels of overstating the importance of a group of like.....ten guys

Yep - almost as if politicians' desperate search for as many rules as possible to shape their politics, instead of, say, deep beliefs, isn't working out all that well. Labour has successfully avoided repeating the horrors of Smith's shadow budget, Byrne's note, Corbyn & Truss. And yet here we are.

Pro-system politics is collapsing. Anti-system politics is surging. Neither has the policy answers for our national stasis. And that's the most frightening aspect of these local election results.

Over the past century we have taken local government from being genuinely powerful institutions with their own democratic purpose, into weak subcontractors of central government. "Local democracy has been replaced with skint service delivery" Quite. www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

On a structural level, the government is not taking this stuff seriously enough This content is a threat to public order and is driving a disintegration of the social fabric. An administration with its finger on the pulse would understand that a lot of issues run downstream of this

This is a must read piece of reporting and storytelling on one of the biggest challenges facing people growing up in the poorest places in modern Britain, from @anooshc.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

The drinking culture in Parliament isn't great. That said, I do think the Greens trying to turn Parliament into a new culture war (which is I think clear what this now is), has potential to descend into something quite damaging. Not least when Reform realise, and blow the whole thing up.

When Liverpool beat Barca 4-0 *checks notes* seven years ago we were a completely different country.

This is the broadsheet newspaper columnist equivalent of one of those "What the London Marathon taught me about B2B sales" style LinkedIn posts

Interesting assessment from @jacktshaw.bsky.social of the emerging Green agenda for local government

Chris Curtis is spot on here. But the truth is that for Labour in opposition, ahead of GE24, the entire plan for this parliament was to effectively say/do little beyond steading the ship. Theirs was a "two-term, decade-long" project in which real reforms could only come in the second term.

Think this is a pretty good idea - the article is well worth a read. Feels like the sort of thing government could run with that would make a positive impact on housebuilding pretty quickly.

A great paragraph in this essay from @georgeeaton.bsky.social. A vision of the good life is the thing that is most clearly missing from progressives at the moment. Believing that life is for living and our best times are ahead of us, not behind us, is what gets societies through troubled times.

Some good news from government this Friday! A new scheme will create 2000 nursing apprenticeships for young people living in the most deprived parts of the country. There will also be funding for a further 2000 young people in these areas to study medicine at university. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Good pamphlet this. In particular, this point from @jeevunsandher.bsky.social, as he makes the case for a community led economy. Civic assets are economic assets. That's why we need policy attention on community ownership, civic high streets.

Some worrying new data from the ONS today. - Healthy Life Expectancy in the most deprived areas has *fallen* for both men and women, compared to both 2019 and 2021 data - Life Expectancy in the most deprived areas has still not recovered since COVID

The constant Westminster-based attacks on S. Cambs by Conservatives and Labour are both depressing and incredibly boring It’s good for councils to try new things! Evidence suggests the 4 day week scheme has been successful! If residents don’t like it, they can vote out the Lib Dems next month!

Govenernment have got into an absolutely god awful habit of press releasing policy announcements without publishing anything about what the policy even is. £300mn yesterday for a high streets policy, with Steve Reed on the broadcast round, and NO TELLING YOU WHAT IT IS? www.gov.uk/government/n...

I have read all sorts about Reform "professionalising" their operation and starting to get serious about policy. It is not obvious any of that is going to start showing up in their plans - be it for councils, or countries - any time soon.

Does anyone know of any work looking at the loss of 'working men's clubs' and their replacement with digital spaces? Have been struck several times recently by how the comments under facebook posts resemble the kind of comments I would hear in these spaces as a teenager.

Glad the Chancellor has asked the Treasury to look at fiscal devolution ahead of the Autumn budget. A model we developed at CPP in 2023 is one I still have confidence in. Prioritises growth *while* supporting poorer areas to make bigger investments sooner, pulling regions together not apart!

Government taking action on heating oil is correct. During the last energy crisis the price of home heating oil had already spiked, and falling, by the time government had made an intervention. For places such as Northern Ireland that depend on it much of the damage had been done.

Govt’s Pride in Place targets areas with economic deprivation and weaker social infrastructure. Yet, our analysis reveals 2 challenges. We find 430 doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods in England (home to approx 3.5 million people) are unfunded, incl many ranked as facing the greatest challenges 1/3

A very useful resource from @rmudie96.bsky.social and the ICON team: www.neighbourhoodscommission.org.uk/pride-in-pla...

We've built a data explorer for every neighbourhood receiving funding through the Pride in Place programme. You can map, zoom in, and compare every neighbourhood with data on deprivation, need, social capital, and social infrastructure. You can download it all It's completely free to use, too. 👇

BRITAIN'S AI BEAR CASE What happens, if AI takes off, to an economy that is... ... highly dependent on exporting professional services? ... Too energy-scarce to build many data centres? ... Less dynamic than ever? I work through those questions here: notes.archie-hall.com/p/britains-...

I'm a Plan 2 loan holder. I wish we had a better deal. But ours is nowhere near as bad as current students, on Plan 5s. Yet they do not have jobs in politics or the media, so no one is representing them. Even if we find a Plan 2 solution we will be back here, once again, in a few years time.

Some of the FT comments section is higher quality than nearly all the paid for opinion writing in the 'quality' papers

This will be a very good event, on what has been one of the most ionteresting research programmes we've run at ICON. Do sign up and tune in!

Hiring costs are up, unemployment is climbing. Could this be deliberate - a bet that squeezed employers will invest in technology and create better jobs, for displaced workers? My latest for @labourlist.bsky.social sets out why I'm skeptical. labourlist.org/2026/03/labo...