The threads of power and place run through all seven of the policy domains that we are exploring as part of UK 2040 Options.
The relationship between people, power and places is crucial to solving a challenge that policymakers and politicians have grappled with for decades: regional inequality. The concentration of opportunity and prosperity in some parts of the UK, while others consistently feel left behind, is a deeply rooted problem.
Understanding how power and place interact, and how they combine to impact people, neighbourhoods and communities, is critical to understanding what policy options may exist to spread opportunity and prosperity across all parts of the UK.
So, as part of UK 2040 Options, leading think tank Demos pulled together seven key trends relating to power and place.
The trends range from the deeply worrying, such as the current low trust in government, low voter turnout in the last general election, and the poor engagement in local politics, through to the positive, such as the pockets of democratic innovation occurring throughout the country, and the growing rise of community power.
View chart on a larger screen (chart details turnout in UK general elections since 1918 (%))
Designing effective policy that tackles these trends is an urgent challenge facing policymakers because while these are national problems, the impact is highly localised: felt most acutely in those places that feel left behind.
These fundamentals show us that the UK is not currently set up to allow all places to thrive.
View chart on a larger screen (chart details government revenue as a percentage of GDP by government source)
They also show us, though, that “there are plenty of options to share power across places by 2040”, and the next government could make choices that would make a real difference to people in the places that they live.
This is work that we will be continuing to explore as part of UK 2040 Options.
Read the seven trends that should shape our approach to power and place as we look towards the 2040s.
