Videos
Aggressive aviation
Aviation industry political lobbying is a threat to us all

25 May 2023

Major airliners and airports have been under fire for some time now over their climate wrecking business model but they also do some of the most aggressive political lobbying in the UK. We need to make our elected officials accountable to us, not aviation bosses.
Find out more on NEF’s work to help communities fight back against this climate-wrecking industry 
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Further reading on aggressive aviation:
Crisis support to aviation and the right to retrainThe jet zero strategy is an

Blog
The gap between universal credit and the cost of living is growing
Universal credit is falling £890 a month short of essentials, despite inflation-linked uprating

By
Sam Tims
24 May 2023

No matter what we do for a living or where we live, we all want pretty similar things: a warm home, knowing that our family and friends are safe, and the assurance that we will be able to cope with whatever life has in store. But right now, for too many of us, this is out of reach. 
The UK’s weak income safety net is forcing millions into impossible

Podcasts
New Economics Podcast: A crisis of caregiving
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Emily Kenway

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
22 May 2023

The friend who has to cancel plans to look after their elderly mum. The colleague who leaves their phone on loud so they don’t miss a call about their disabled child. The neighbour you’ve barely seen since their partner’s diagnosis. We’re surrounded by people who are dealing with the challenges of caregiving, but they often go unseen.
According to Carers UK, there could be over ten million people providing

Blog
For voters, the cost of living is front of mind
Affordable homes, quality public services and social security are the solution to sky-high costs

By
Tom Pollard
12 May 2023

In the aftermath of last week’s local elections, despite party spin-doctors pushing competing interpretations of the results, there was a consensus that the rising cost of living was at the forefront of voters’ minds. With a general election now looming into view, it seems likely that the squeeze on incomes and living standards will continue to be the defining political

Podcasts
New Economics Podcast: Should we all be troublemakers at work?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Lydia Hughes and Jamie Woodcock

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
10 May 2023

As the chancellor stood up in Parliament to present his spring budget in March, half a million people went on strike to demand better from their bosses. Teachers, junior doctors, Tube drivers, civil servants and more all walked out of work, in the biggest day of strike action in over a decade.
As the strikes rumble on into another summer, how can workers keep up the

Videos
A National Energy Guarantee
Warmer homes, lower emissions, cheaper bills

By
Alex Chapman
10 May 2023

A film about the National Energy Guarantee, made by our friends at The Social Guarantee. Alex Chapman outlines a new energy system that guarantees we can all access the basic energy we need, lowers our bills and helps reduce carbon emissions.

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Read the full report.Photo: iStock

Campaigns
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Publications
Beyond the bottom line
How green industrial policy can drive economic change and speed up climate action

By
Sebastian Mang, Dominic Caddick
28 April 2023

Download the report

Governments are increasingly turning to green industrial policies to avert ecological breakdown. However, the European Union’s restrictions on borrowing limit the ability of member states with higher debt and deficits to meet green spending needs, including green industrial

Podcasts
New Economics Podcast: Have we been conned by consultants?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Rosie Collington

24 April 2023

Nurses struggling without PPE, the frantic search for hospital ventilators, even the dreaded ping from NHS test-and-trace. To most of us, these memories represent some of the worst of the Covid pandemic. But for a select few companies, they were an opportunity to make millions.
Consultancy firms won over seven hundred million pounds worth of government Covid contracts to do things like run the test-and-trace system and vaccine rollout. This February, ministers dropped

Blog
Council housing gave me a childhood
Help us get our campaign for green, social housing up and running

By
Rebecca Winson
21 April 2023

Council housing gave me a childhood. That’s not just a snappy exaggeration to open this blog with — it’s true. One of the most sobering moments I’ve had as an organiser was when a little girl at a community meeting drew pictures of her dream home, and — bar the pink roof — it was simply the one I’d grown up in. The bog standard council house of my childhood was her dream.
I had security. She was one of the

Publications
National Energy Guarantee FAQ

10 April 2023

Download the FAQ

Being able to heat your home to a comfortable temperature is a basic need that we all share. With energy costs support due to end entirely in 2024, this is our opportunity to fix our energy system once and for all. Energy is an essential service which we all need to live, and we need to be prepared for the energy shocks of the future. 
A National Energy Guarantee will entitle every household to a free or cheap amount of energy to cover their essential needs. 

Read

Publications
The National Energy Guarantee
A long-term policy to protect essential energy needs, reduce bills and cut carbon

By
Alex Chapman, Chaitanya Kumar
10 April 2023

Download the report

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the UK government’s failure to reduce domestic reliance on gas have combined to exert exceptional pressure on household finances. While wholesale energy prices have begun to soften, the early withdrawal of government support means

Podcasts
New Economics Podcast: How we can all have a home
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Vicky Spratt and Kieran Yates

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
07 April 2023

You can’t paint your walls, you can’t have a pet, you can’t guarantee you’ll have somewhere to live in six months time. Millions of us are paying sky-high rents but struggling to make a home in a housing system where safety and security takes second place to landlords’ profits.
Some private tenants face mould and broken boilers but daren’t complain. According to Shelter, complaining to

Blog
The UK’s Net Zero strategy risks entrenching inequality
This government is relying on uncertain technology to get us to net zero and those on the lowest incomes could pay the biggest price.

By
Chaitanya Kumar
06 April 2023

Last week, the government released 3000 pages worth of documents to bolster its claim that it’s acting on the climate emergency. They were also responding to the high court, which pronounced the government’s net zero strategy as inadequate for its own legally binding obligations. The impressive number of pages hides the

Blog
Playing by the fiscal rules
The problems with the UK’s fiscal rules run deep. Taking power over them away from the treasury could be part of the solution.

By
Alfie Stirling
05 April 2023

The UK’s fiscal rules – the targets set by the chancellor for how much debt and borrowing the government can take on – are under attack again. But this time the heaviest blows are landing from some unlikely sources, including from some of the strongest institutional defenders of public finance ​‘discipline’. At the spring budget last month, the chancellor

Blog
Driving us round the bend: another fuel duty freeze
Fuel duty has been frozen for the 13th year in a row. When will the government abandon this regressive, environmentally damaging policy?

By
Alex Chapman
20 March 2023

The spring budget saw the chancellor freeze the rate of fuel duty for the 13th year running, a decision backed by both major parties. But the decision’s popularity with politicians does not reflect its popularity across civil society. The policy is widely regarded as economically inefficient and environmentally damaging.

Podcasts
New Economics Podcast: The right to roam
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Nadia Shaikh and Frances Northrop

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
13 March 2023

On a sunny day in January, a ghostly figure covered in green ribbons appeared on a moor in south-west England. It was a person dressed as Old Crockern, the guardian spirit of Dartmoor. He was greeted by 3000 people who had gathered to protest a court ruling that took away the right to wild camp in the area. It was the biggest countryside access protest in living memory.
The ruling reignited

Blog
Three-fifths of private renters cannot afford the cost of living
The government must unfreeze housing support for private renters

By
Alex Diner, Sam Tims
10 March 2023

The cost of living crisis means that, for many families, affording the essentials — such as the rent or mortgage — is getting harder. While the headline inflation rate appears to have peaked, nearly everyone is being hit with huge rises to their housing costs. Social tenants face rent increases of 7% next year and 3m mortgaged households will see an

Blog
Talking Tax
Paul Hebden digs into where our attitudes towards taxes come from. He finds its roots in the runup to the 2008 financial crisis.

By
Paul Hebden
28 February 2023

This is an article from the fifth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here.In the wake of the 2008 financial crash, an economic crisis incubated and caused by a reckless and out of control banking system transformed into a drive for full-blown public austerity. And we continue to witness the consequences of it today.
But Brits didn’t suddenly

Publications
Skills for a new economy
Investing in workers and closing the green skills gap

By
Alex Chapman, Fernanda Balata, Rebekah Diski, Paulo Yunda
28 February 2023

Download the report

Central to the net zero and levelling up challenges is the development of people’s education and skills. Jobs and skills are two sides of the same coin – you can’t solve one without addressing the other. Yet, the UK has a significant,

Publications
Austerity by stealth
The effects of inflation on public spending

By
Alfie Stirling, Dominic Caddick
27 February 2023

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Since 2010, the impact of austerity on public services has been devastating. Suppressed public sector pay has caused a crisis in recruitment and retention, leaving public services critically understaffed. Cutting corners on investment has left nine in ten schools in need of repair and a £10bn backlog of repairs in

Podcasts
New Economics Podcast: The UK’s political battlegrounds
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Anoosh Chakelian and James Meadway

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
27 February 2023

Last year the UK had three different prime ministers, four different chancellors and five different housing ministers. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister for close to a decade, recently announced her resignation — and it’s not clear who will replace her. British politics now seems to be permanently tumultuous. And with a general election peeking over the horizon,

Blog
The race class narrative: building a new narrative
We’re looking down the barrel of a cold, difficult winter. But some politicians want us to think the biggest threat facing the UK is the ‘wokemob’.

By
Ayesha Baloch
20 February 2023

This is an article from the fifth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here.
We are currently in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis of a generation, soaring energy bills, a climate crisis, a government that collapsed like a house of cards and moved onto the third prime minister

Blog
Upgrading and repurposing private rented homes to create a new generation of social homes offers a clear path out of the housing crisis
The UK’s lack of social housing has caused a crisis of high rents and evictions. It’s time to develop a new generation of social homes.

By
Alex Diner
14 February 2023

England’s housing crisis has reached boiling point. Far from providing stable foundations on which we can build our lives, our housing system is a source of insecurity and hardship for millions. Soaring private rents

Publications
Beyond new build
Repurposing private rented housing to deliver a new generation of social homes for England

By
Alex Diner
14 February 2023

Download the report

England’s housing crisis, which has been simmering for years, has reached boiling point. Far from providing stable foundations on which to build our lives, our housing system has instead become a source of insecurity, hardship, anxiety and poor health for millions. Private renters face ever rising rents, an

Blog
Together, they say yes
With abortion rights under threat in the US, Karen Hand of the Together for Yes campaign talks us through the lessons and the reasons for hope that came from the historic 2018 win on abortion in Ireland

By
Karen Hand
13 February 2023

This is an article from the fifth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here.
In May 2018, the people of Ireland voted to overturn the Irish ban on abortion and introduce legislation around the termination of pregnancy. It was a landside referendum result, with 66%

Blog
Beyond outrage
When the government thinks it can win votes by thinking up ever more cruel ways to treat people trying to make the UK home, how do we fight back?

By
Nadia Hasan
06 February 2023

This is an article from the fifth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here.
Anyone who cares about people being treated with humanity and respect will have been shaken by Priti Patel’s plan to deport people seeking safety here in the UK to Rwanda. It’s a dangerous and inhumane plan, and unfortunately it’s just the latest in a

Blog
We need universal basic services to tackle the climate crisis
Through universal basic services we can ensure everyone has what they need and deliver it in a way that reduces our emissions

By
Anna Coote
02 February 2023

Universal basic services (UBS) can play a crucial role in tackling the climate emergency, says a report out today from NEF and the Berlin-based Hot or Cool Institute. UBS deliver secure social foundations by making sure everyone has access to life’s essentials and promote equity by meeting everybody’s needs, regardless of

Blog
What is framing?
Progressives are used to presenting facts and compelling evidence, but finding that people don’t come running to support us. Why aren’t our messages cutting through?

By
Funmibi Ogunlesi
30 January 2023

This is an article from the fifth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here.Republican communications strategist Frank Luntz wrote: ​“communication is functional, the people are the true end, language is just a tool to reach and teach them”.
And yet as people who want to communicate progressive

Blog
How I learned to stop worrying and love responsible borrowing
7 things you should know about government finances

By
Jeevun Sandher
23 January 2023

1. Responsible governments, like responsible businesses, borrow to keep things on track during hard times 
Governments and businesses should borrow to maintain their productive capacity during a downturn. Imagine a successful business: if sales temporarily fall, they don’t sack all the staff to get borrowing down. They borrow to get through hard times so they can continue to make sales when

Blog
Why carbon taxes should be spent on insulating the nation’s draughty homes
The UK is raising more money from carbon taxes than it is spending on tackling emissions – these funds should go towards insulating our draughty homes.

By
Margaret Welsh, Alex Chapman
17 January 2023

As temperatures last week plummeted and snow disrupted travel across the UK, millions of families could not afford to heat their homes. It was estimated that a fifth of low-income households were going without food and heating, at a time when icy