A think tank designing ownership models for a democratic and sustainable economy.
Joined April 2019
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Welcome to Rip-Off Britain.
A country remade by privatisation.
Our latest project — Who Owns Britain? — explores how a radical experiment transformed our society and shapes your life.
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We Aren’t the Champions: Why UK Venture Capital is Failing to Scale Domestic Innovation
The UK has government schemes, universities producing world-leading research and a history of record-high funding levels in the 2010s.
So how come they can’t challenge US Big Tech? 🧵
The UK needs to rethink what innovation is for, who controls it, who benefits from it and how to retain that value.
Building true technological capacity means confronting the structures that keep UK innovation subordinate to US Big Tech.
Read our new report: common-wealth.org/publicatio…
"[Public] control without ownership risks having responsibility without the appropriate powers."
Our director @DantonsHead spoke to @thetimes about why public ownership of essentials is the missing tool needed to bring long-term costs down.
thetimes.com/business/econom…
Energy prices will soar across Europe this winter. But because Britain is unusually vulnerable to gas price shocks, we will pay even more than our neighbours.
In May, we set out four ways to make our energy system less dependent on global gas markets 👇
common-wealth.org/publicatio…
On energy, Britain is an outlier. Virtually none of our neighbours have taken the privatisation experiment as far as us. Many are now reversing course.
@chrismwhayes explains how recent developments show just how anomalous our energy strategy has become.
common-wealth.org/publicatio…
🚨Common Wealth is hiring for two new roles:
ℹ️Director of Research (£73,545 rising to £80,582)
💡Principal Energy Economist (£55,099 rising to £60,384)
📍London
🗓️Permanent, full-time (9 day fortnight)
⏰Deadline: 10AM GMT, 9 November
Apply below 👇
common-wealth.org/about#vaca…
As Britain braces itself for the largest energy bill increases since 2022, the closure of Rough gas storage risks making our energy system even more volatile.
Read our new blog on why nationalising Rough can deliver security the market cannot 👇
common-wealth.org/publicatio…
Since the 1980s, UK public wealth has gone from the highest in the G7 to the lowest.
common-wealth.org/interactiv…
NEW
Britain’s missing sovereign wealth fund… Treasury officials have modelled that had the UK done what Norway did with North Sea revenues, there would be a £1 trillion fund…
As Chancellor sets up Energy Wealth Fund, a look at the long historical argument about where the oil windfall went, including from interviews with those who have run Norways $2.4 trillion fund, now the biggest in the world, filled from the proceeds of the same North Sea.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm4g…
Changing who owns, controls and profits from existing fields is the best route to a fair and managed transition — and to ensure the energy system works for ordinary people in that transition.
Read more on what the government can do to rethink the North Sea 👇
common-wealth.org/publicatio…
How are existing fields owned, priced and governed, and can these translate domestic supply into lower costs and greater energy security. The existing settlement risks delivering neither.