The Common Sense Movement

New report proposes common sense policy solutions to key problems in British life

Researchers from Northumbria University have led the creation of a blueprint for policy reform which aims to bring an end to poverty and inequality in Britain.

Policy proposals featured in Act Now include:

A basic income for all is the key distributive means of securing a society that makes the rest of a new social contract possible, including by reducing pressure on health care and disruption caused by transition to net zero.
A properly funded green new deal and nationalisation of energy and water are essential to producing national wealth and independence.
Health and social care can only be cost-effective when nationally owned and operated.
Early years and educational investments are critical to reducing pressure on the criminal justice system and increasing productivity to support the transition to a new economy.
Build to navigate through the housing crisis while gradually removing the state-led transfer of wealth to private landlords and speculators in the process.
Infrastructure can be transformed through targeted, regional control of transport.
Democratic reform to control lobbying and corruption is in the interests of progressive parties.
Fund an expansive programme of change through wealth, carbon and corporation taxes, increasing the tax base, yield and productivity sufficiently to create a Britain that leads the world in quality of life, equality and security within 10 years.
Jennifer Nadel, Co-Director of Compassion in Politics and member of the Common Sense Policy Group, said: “We are at a dangerous moment in history and it is time for a radical reset. We cannot solve the complex problems we face without solutions that are bold, compassionate and inclusive. Hunger and destitution must have no place in a modern Britain and Act Now lays out a clear set of policies for both reforming how we do politics and ensuring that its outcomes provide for all.”

In the book’s foreword former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, writes: “The proposals in this book are detailed and pragmatic, set out with careful attention to how they might be implemented and how they might be funded. These chapters are not an idealistic rant demanding some sort of total recalibration of how we live. But they are unmistakeably radical, in the sense that they interrogate what the political establishment of both left and right take for granted, what they think is achievable and acceptable.”