The Counterpoint

At some point I realised that, as an NPF rep, I should probably stop writing high-concept, philosophically inflected blog posts, and actually submit some policy. So here they are: three submissions I made to the Labour Party’s National Policy Forum at 2am last night, presented here as a kind of triptych (or perhaps a Policy Sonata — three movements in dialogue). Regulating in the Blur explores how we might build institutions capable of navigating ambiguity and change. The Neuroinclusive Employment Charter reimagines the workplace through the lens of cognitive diversity. Towards an AI Commons asks what it would mean to hold digital infrastructure in common — and design it for the public good. Each piece stands on its own. But together, they circle something. Not a doctrine, exactly, but a sensibility: a way of thinking about systems that listens for tension as well as form. A kind of motif, returning in different keys. The current NPF consultation period is open until June 8th. M...

  I'm probably not the target audience for Labour's online campaign. I get that. But a post that turned up on my feed earlier today needs a good going over. In the post, Labour offer a robust critique of the Conservative government’s handling of Britain’s prison system, making a series of claims that highlight the alleged failure of the Tories to address a burgeoning crisis. The post reads: “The Tories left our prisons in crisis, just days from the system collapsing entirely.  And they left us with prisons creating better criminals, not better citizens – 80% of offenders today are reoffenders.  Our prisons are now operating at over 99% capacity again.  That’s because the Tories added just 500 places to the prison estate in 14 years.  The last Labour government added around 28,000 places.  Labour is building 14,000 new prison places by 2031 – including four new prisons.  We have already committed a record £2.3bn to prison building (last year and this y...

  There are hundreds of thousands of people currently on waiting lists for neurodivergent diagnosis in the UK. Every few months, this crisis reappears in the press—a headline, a wringing of hands, a vague promise to “do better.” But while the political and medical consensus treats this as a failure of capacity—a bottleneck in an otherwise functional system—I want to suggest something more radical: that diagnosis itself is part of the problem. The question we’re avoiding isn’t how to fix diagnosis. It’s whether we should be relying on it at all. A Short History of “Normal” The very concept of diagnosis depends on the idea of deviation from a norm. But that norm has never been neutral. As disability theorists, historians, and critical medical scholars have shown, “normal” is a statistical fiction forged in the furnaces of colonialism, industrialism, and eugenics. It is a number derived from population averages, then moralised into a model of how people should behave, think, move, an...

  The Labour Party’s newly unveiled immigration package marks a calculated shift toward control, selectivity, and political defensibility. It is a plan shaped not just by policy considerations but by an increasingly volatile electoral environment—one where Farage’s Reform UK continues to draw disaffected voters, the Tories lurch between crisis and reinvention, and Labour’s broad coalition of support shows signs of strain. The proposals include a move from five- to ten-year settlement pathways, higher English-language requirements, cuts to care visas and student dependents, and tighter employer obligations to prioritise domestic workers. There is an emphasis on rewarding "contribution"—measured economically and linguistically—within a frame of fairness and enforcement. In rhetoric, this is a break from the Conservative theatrics of Rwanda and small boats. In substance, however, it is still a significant hardening. The Calculus of Control Labour has chosen to frontload its poli...

    The UK’s public conversation about artificial intelligence is stalling. The discussion is dominated by familiar polarities: AI as a productivity goldmine, or AI as an existential threat. Between the economic boosters and the ethical doomers, very few are asking the fundamental political question: who controls AI, and what kind of power does it represent? This is not an academic question. It cuts to the heart of what kind of society we want to live in, and whether democracy itself will be equipped to shape the technologies that are already shaping us. It is a conversation the Labour Party urgently needs to lead—not with cautious triangulation or technocratic cheerleading, but with a serious, structural theory of AI power. To speak of AI without a political analysis is like speaking of markets without class, or foreign policy without empire. The technology is not neutral. It is not a force of nature. It is a human project, built with assumptions, incentives, and interests em...

  Introduction: A Shifting Security Paradigm At a recent evidence session of the National Policy Forum's Britain Reconnected commission, we heard from Robin Potter, a Fellow at Chatham House, on the topic of national resilience. Potter’s presentation struck a chord—not just because of its substance, but because of the way it reframed what we mean by security in the 21st century. His core argument was clear and compelling: security can no longer be understood purely in military, economic, or infrastructural terms. Resilience, in this broader and more holistic view, demands a "whole-of-government, whole-of-society" approach. The state's ability to withstand shocks—whether geopolitical, environmental, economic, or social—depends not only on its resources and plans, but on the strength of its relationships with the public, civil society, local authorities, and other democratic actors.  This broadened definition of resilience invites a more psychological reading of securi...

Beyond the Slogan "Britain Reconnected" has become a cornerstone phrase in Labour's emerging foreign and constitutional policy framework, but slogans can obscure as much as they reveal. For those of us involved in shaping this agenda from within the Labour Party's National Policy Forum (NPF), and in particular the Britain Reconnected policy commission on which I serve, the challenge lies in giving this concept substance. What does "reconnection" mean in the context of a changing global order? What are its trade-offs, its tensions, its real-world implications?  The Labour leadership has placed significant emphasis on rebuilding Britain's international relationships, bolstering national resilience, and revitalising domestic democratic structures. It is a holistic agenda, but one that must grapple with the legacy of austerity, Brexit, and a volatile global landscape. At its best, the Britain Reconnected framework seeks to articulate a principled but pragmat...