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Ideas from outside the room

Britain is full of people who can see exactly what is wrong with something and have no way to act on it. This is where they get to say what they would do instead. Each paper takes one problem and redraws it from the ground up. One asks who should own the oil under the North Sea. Another asks how much weight a vote should carry. The writers come from all walks of life, and it is often the fresh pair of eyes that spots what everyone inside the system has stopped noticing.

AI 1 paper

AI and the end of deflection

Companies bought AI to cut the cost of customer service. Their customers got the same AI free, and are using it to raise the cost of bad customer service.

Democracy 1 paper

Proportional democratic weight: votes that track how long you live with the result

Vote weight should track how long a voter lives with a decision, through a modest age-based multiplier and a custodial vote for every child from birth.

The transfer mechanism: how nations decline, and where Britain has loosened its own

Forthcoming
Energy 2 papers

The state as first customer: solar and batteries on every public roof

A statutory programme should put solar and battery storage on every suitable public building, because the order book the state already controls is the fastest way to build a British solar industry.

Who owns the barrel: service fees for North Sea extraction

New extraction licences should vest ownership of the oil and gas in the state, with operators paid a contracted service fee.

Health 1 paper

First response: first aid and emergency care from the first day of school to the last

A fourteen-year curriculum at one hour a week would take every school-leaver to the ceiling of lawful non-professional emergency care, and give the country a population that knows what to do.

National wealth 2 papers

A Department for National Wealth Creation

Britain creates enormous value through its own decisions and keeps none of it. A Department should capture that value, and an independent Fund should compound it for every generation that follows.

Who pays for the passport: a contribution from Britain's wealthiest non-residents

Wealthy British citizens abroad keep the right of return, consular protection and the security umbrella while some contribute little or nothing; a targeted levy would price what the passport actually provides.

Technology 2 papers

Designed for the eighty: a senior managers regime for designated platforms

Corporate fines never reach the person who decided. The UK built that instrument for banking after 2008, and should extend it to the platforms it already designates.

The exit option: portable workloads and a sovereign British cloud

Government should make its cloud workloads portable by design and underwrite a British-European sovereign cloud as founding client, because the leverage of a credible exit changes hyperscaler behaviour without ever being used.