iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Together, these foundations point towards a new and hopeful vision for the left. Remembering what we owe each other is how we rebuild a society where collective action is possible again — and where progress becomes possible with it. That should be at the heart of Burnham's agenda.

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⚡ Power — for citizens in politics and the economy 🏘 Place — the community spaces where common life happens 🤝 Participation — a genuine stake in the economy for all of us 🛡 Protection — from the oligarchic power that seeks to divide us

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It might sound radical. It's really common sense — it's what we've done for 80 years with the NHS. We argue for building from that spirit along four foundations 👇

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This pulls from the central idea of our report: reciprocism. At heart it's simple — the state should do more for all of us, and ask more of us in return. It's about seeing ourselves as democratic citizens again, with rights we can claim and responsibilities we own.

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Facing down the big problems means Burnham addressing the deeper questions. What should we guarantee one another? Where are we happy to meet as customers — choosing, switching? And where do we need to meet as citizens, with claims on each other?

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At heart, it's a story about privatisation. But not just how it raised prices but how it changed how we relate to the economy, the state and each other. That's why price caps can't fix rip-off Britain on their own. They leave people facing the machine alone.

The conversation forming around this government is about more than prices. It's about power and agency — how much say people have over their own lives, in an economy we face mostly alone.

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Chris Bick @jchrisbick.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Great to see my op-ed out in LBC today, which builds on our new @ippr.org report, What is the Left For?, also out today. A short thread 🧵 Op-ed 👉 [www.lbc.co.uk/article/price-caps-ne…] Report 👉 [www.ippr.org/articles/what-is-the-l…]

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We're sleepwalking into a real democratic legitimacy problem. Falling turnout means we keep returning governments fewer and fewer of us actually voted for. Compulsory voting is the way out — and it's good to see it's getting some traction. Great thread explaining why from my colleague Nick

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Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Jane Gingrich and I have written an essay for @ippr.org on a fundamental problem, that an age that demands more of the state also suffers from multiple state legitimation crises www.ippr.org/articles/the...

The legitimacy trap | IPPR

In many ways, the public want more government: to shape a fairer, more dynamic economy and protect ordinary people from the consequences of a turbulent wor

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Institute for Public Policy Research @ippr.org · 17/07/2026

Young people aren’t disengaged from politics. We’re just looking in the wrong places. They may be less likely to join parties or unions, but they are talking about politics, protesting and engaging in other ways, often more than older generations. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/741...

prospectmagazine.co.uk

Britain’s next generation is all grown up

Alienated, ignored—and stuck at home with mum and dad. Young adults are locked out from the future they’re ready to shape

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Institute for Public Policy Research @ippr.org · 10/07/2026

🗳️ NEW REPORT: Democracy should mean more than casting a vote every few years. It should give people power, purpose and a stake in public life. That is the alternative to the populist right’s politics of resentment and division. The latest from us👇 www.ippr.org/articles/the...

The democratic citizen: Renewing citizenship and the public domain | IPPR

Often, this descends into little more than an argument about eligibility for welfare benefits. This is a disaster for progressives, who find themselves fig

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Nick Garland @npjgarland.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

🧵 Progressives need to think much more ambitiously about citizenship: it can't only be a debate about the "who" - the boundaries of citizenship. Our new @ippr.org report today makes the case for a new politics of "democratic citizenship": www.ippr.org/articles/the...

The democratic citizen: Renewing citizenship and the public domain | IPPR

Often, this descends into little more than an argument about eligibility for welfare benefits. This is a disaster for progressives, who find themselves fig

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Institute for Public Policy Research @ippr.org · 23/06/2026

New research from us, finds: 1️⃣ Reduced goods exports to the EU due to Brexit have cost the UK economy an estimated £18.1bn per year 2️⃣ This is 0.63% of GDP per year 3️⃣ As a result of Brexit, ours goods exports to the EU are an estimated 14.5 per cent lower than they would have been otherwise

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Kiran Stacey @kiranstacey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

NEW: Young men are not becoming more right-wing, new study finds - or at least, no more than anyone else. Fascinating research by @jchrisbick.bsky.social and Jasmine Jinadu www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

Young men in UK are not more rightwing than older groups, study says

Exclusive: Analysis shows men aged 18 to 25 are less likely to vote for rightwing parties than other age groups of men

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This is really important. For young people and for all of us -- because a democracy that persistently excludes its youngest members is both failing them and diminishing itself. Full report:https://www.ippr.org/articles/a-generation-apart

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What do we do about it? We propose a new political compact with young people. One that rebuilds connection to communities, develops confidence to participate, and reforms institutions to be more genuinely inclusive.

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What explains this? Young people told us three things: the erosion of community infrastructure has weakened civic attachment; poor democratic education has left them with a confidence deficit; and remote institutions that make engagement feel pointless

As for apathy: young people discuss politics more than older cohorts and are less likely to say voting doesn't matter. In fact, when we spoke with them it became clear they care A LOT. So the problem isn't apathy — it's that engagement with the system doesn’t seem to be working

Young people more likely to talk about politics and less likely to say it doesn't matter who is in power. At the same time they are the amongst the least democratically satisfied cohorts

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There is a gender gap — but it's driven primarily by a small leftward shift among young women, not a rightward shift among young men. This gap is new compared with older cohorts, but smaller than in many other countries. On most issues, age is a stronger predictor of political attitudes than gender

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This translates to voting behaviour too: Young men were the least likely group of men to vote Reform in 2024, and stayed the most hostile to the party in 2025. In fact, over the past decade they've moved away from conservative parties and towards progressive ones

Young men have become more likely to support progressive parties since 2014, while older men have remained the same

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We do see pockets of radicalisation thanks to digital subcultures like the manosphere, and we should take this threat seriously. BUT young men don't appear to be moving right en masse. On immigration, sexism, and contested social issues, they are the most progressive male cohort in the electorate

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Three dominant narratives dominate the discussion: young men radicalising rightward, a growing gulf between young men and women, young people checked out. Our analysis — based on British Election Study data plus conversations with young people across the country — challenges all three

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New @ippr.org report for you, published with my brilliant colleagues Pascale Frazer-Carroll and Jasmine Jinadu. We looked at some common claims about youth politics and find most of them are largely wrong. A thread🧵

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The NEET crisis and the crisis of youth political alienation aren't separate problems — they go hand in hand. Until young people have real political power, they'll keep being deprioritised. We're exploring this in depth in an upcoming report on youth democracy. Watch this space.

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We've been speaking with young people across the country to understand where this alienation comes from. 3 things kept coming up: 1. The loss of youth-facing community infrastructure 2. A lack of confidence and knowledge about how British politics works 3. Remote, inaccessible political institutions

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As with the economic side of the crisis, this isn't about apathy. It's about exclusion. Young people are alienated from political institutions — and that creates a democratic power imbalance that has systematically pushed their concerns to the back of the queue.

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But the damage doesn't stop at economics. Young people aren't just shut out from economic life — they're shut out from democratic life too, as reflected in everything from turnout to party membership.

Chart shows positive correlation between vote share and % of voters over the age of 65, broken out by party returned

A social contract in tatters. Young people entering adulthood alienated from economic and social life. The toll is real: dashed dreams, lost opportunities, fraying mental health. This isn't laziness or oversensitivity. It's systemic failure.

Institute for Public Policy Research @ippr.org · 29/04/2026

The Milburn Report is out today — and it paints a staggering picture of how hard things have become for young people in the UK. 1 in 8 young people are NEET: not in education, employment, or training. As my @ippr.org colleagues have shown, this could reach 1 in 6 by the end of the decade.

Chart shows increase in NEETs from 2019-2025, broken out by number of which are unemployed and number of which are economically inactive

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It’s becoming harder to ignore the growing weight that extremely wealthy donors appear to carry in British politics, not just in scale, but in proximity to key political decisions.

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Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Did the BBC assume that asylum applications, unlike every other area of society, were completely free of fraud? Seems like a total loss of perspective over their investigation, now into its second day of dominating their headlines

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LSE Business Review @lsebr.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Fifty years ago this year, one of the most powerful labour movements in the world adopted an audacious plan to transform the ownership structure of a capitalist economy in an electoral democracy. blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessrevi...

blogs.lse.ac.uk

What will it take to revive economic democracy 50 years after the Meidner plan? - LSE Business Review

Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Meidner plan, Neil Warner looks at the prospects for reviving the “third pillar” of democratisation.

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Ryan Swift @ryanswift93.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

As we @ippr.org have set out though, there is still a strong case for capping donations from all sources, including domestic companies and individuals, to take big money from mega donors out of politics and tackle inequalities in influence.

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Chris Bick @jchrisbick.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Friday news! We're launching the advisory panel for @ippr.org's Decade of National Renewal today. An incredible group of thinkers to keep us in line as we do some creative thinking about what the left should stand for in an increasingly uncertain world. Find out more 👉 www.ippr.org/research-and...