All updates
Government’s response to the Kruger Report (2020)
We are delighted to finally share the Government's response to Danny Kruger's report of 2020 here. The response was published on Wednesday, the same day as the Levelling Up White Paper which also reflects many...
Chancellor of the Common Good
This afternoon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out his plans to invest in ‘common goods’. This intriguing phrase sums up the proper pursuit of government: a commitment to support the private associations that make us safe, happy and free. The principal...
Trusting The People
Trusting the people: the case for community-powered conservatism We are proud to have worked with ten newly elected Conservative MPs to publish ‘Trusting The People’. The essay makes the case for a ‘community power’ revolution to build better places, transform public...
What is ‘covenantal’ policy making?
Yesterday’s ‘Opposition Day’ debate in Parliament on ‘Working People’s Finances’ saw members from across the house consider how best to relieve financial pressure on households as we see the costs of living rise. Naturally, many MPs raised benefits and subsidies as...
If we want a greener world, we must embrace economic localism
It was the great Conservative philosopher Edmund Burke who wrote that “Society… is a contract… between those who are dead, those who are living, and those who are to be born”.Burke saw the nation as the natural expression of this generational contract.As he put it at...
Must read! ‘Let’s trust the people to know what is best for them’ by Danny Kruger MP
On 14th July, the NSCU launched the Community Power Partnership in order to promote policies which enable local people, working together, to take back control over the decisions that affect them. Danny Kruger wrote in The Times 'Communities can do a better job for the...
Must read! ‘How can I win as a mother?’ by Mary Harrington
Our advisory board member, Mary Harrington, wrote a guest blog for Mumsnet. “you can’t win as a mother. If you’re not being judged for staying with your baby, you’re being judged for not leaning in." Read it here.
Why moving up shouldn’t have to mean moving away
The era of ‘get on your bike’ is over. Tebbit’s 1981 vintage remark underlies the doctrine of social mobility which aims to improve education and employment opportunities for the working classes. This is still noble, but our ‘left behind’ towns and villages testify...
We need human chauvinism to protect the planet
The Rhine River combines beauty and utility. Lacing the chic cities of Cologne, Düsseldorf and Rotterdam, the river has been a source of inspiration to the greatest romantic minds while proving useful for trade and supplying energy. Many poets have dedicated verse to...
Must read! ‘UK has golden opportunity for an era of responsible capitalism’ by Danny Kruger MP
Danny Kruger wrote in The Times today, "...in Milton Friedman’s words, “the business of business is business”: that the only proper measure of its success is “shareholder value”. Yet classical economists always recognised that businesses operate in a social context,...
A nation is more than the sum of its past
Critics of the present government’s strategy for ‘levelling up society’ have accused it of trafficking in transactional pork-barrel politics towards working-class voters to whom it owes its resounding victory in December 2019. But the emergence of the New Social...
Rebalancing power means rebalancing wealth
Since the 1980s politics has been dominated by a liberal consensus. The right controlled the economy, the left controlled the institutions of culture and learning. Wealth and opportunity were increasingly concentrated at the top and there was a diminishing sense of...
Stop hedging, start marrying
My grandmother was in many ways an unconventional woman, but having been at different times a doctor, a farmer, and a single mother, she was never less than pragmatic. On one of my regular visits to her care home, in my mid-twenties, she said to me out of the blue:...
The faith of the patriot
I am a British patriot. In late 1982 I was a student, living in Chicago and about to marry a US citizen. I vividly remember, in the weeks before the December wedding, a conversation with two American friends, who casually assumed that I would be settling in the New...
Must read! ‘A new social covenant for a post-pandemic Britain’ by Danny Kruger MP
On the launch of the New Social Covenant Unit (21st March 2021) Danny Kruger wrote about how the job of government is to create the conditions for virtue, and how to achieve this. You can read the article on UnHerd here.
The March 2021 Budget
We are delighted that the The Budget reflects our calls to boost community power and social infrastructure in the following announcements: Levelling Up Fund (£4.8 billion) “invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including town centre and...
Must read! ‘Our families and communities need nurturing’, Miriam Cates MP and Danny Kruger MP
The word ‘economy’ comes from the Greek ‘oikos’ meaning, household. But currently, too often policy makes the home as uncomfortable, expensive, and pointless as possible. Ultimately, our systems of tax, benefits and subsidies are a result of political choices which...
Levelling Up Our Communities