Nick Plumb

@nickplumb

Director of Policy and Insight at @powertochange.org.uk Interests include: UK politics, trust, communities, localism, democratic reform, and inequality.

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Nick Plumb@nickplumb· 27d

Great to have IPPR on board with policy long-advocated by @powertochange.org.uk. All this thinking at the heart of our newly-launched Civic High Street Collective. More here: www.powertochange.org.uk/civic-high-s...

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· 27d

IMO, this feels like a genuine thread at the core of Burnham's politics, as exemplified in his essay last year for @powertochange.org.uk @right-here.org and @uclpolicylab.bsky.social and encapsulated by this quote. www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Jun 25

Taken from @mathewlawrence.bsky.social @cmmonwealth.bsky.social's excellent Productive State. An important point on democratic ownership and the way this bakes in outward, rather than only upward, accountability.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Jun 9

And this vignette from our focus groups really stuck with me. On the importance of neutral, mediated spaces.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· May 15

Taken from last year's @powertochange.org.uk @uclpolicylab.bsky.social @right-here.org essay collection. If Burnham does end up PM, and he gets his hands on Westminster power, let's hope those devolutionary tendencies remain.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· May 7

Fin's not here, but he's one of the most thoughtful people I follow on LinkedIn. Where Can We Interrupt the Cycle? substack.com/home/post/p-...

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Apr 17

Good pamphlet this. In particular, this point from @jeevunsandher.bsky.social, as he makes the case for a community led economy. Civic assets are economic assets. That's why we need policy attention on community ownership, civic high streets.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Mar 17

More MPs on the Labour benches putting forward a vision for 21st century civic high streets. @connornaismithmp.bsky.social labourlist.org/2026/03/labo...

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Feb 12

Pleased that the Business and Trade Committee has picked up on two of the recommendations in the Shuttered Front work we @powertochange.org.uk did last year.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Feb 10

Well done to colleagues @commenergyengland.bsky.social @coopparty.party.coop and many other who have pushed this forward. Still work to do to make the most of opportunity, but a day to celebrate that we have the Local Power Plan with us.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Jan 29

This work we @powertochange.org.uk did with @luketryl.bsky.social is a reminder of this potential

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Dec 17

And as Polly says, high street decline (or renewal) certainly has political consequences, as our Shuttered Front research from earlier this year shows. www.powertochange.org.uk/evidence-and...

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Dec 3

Pride in Place prospectus has just been published. Govt should be applauded for this. They said they wanted it to be community centred. And this - the requirement all places transition to a community-led model by year 3 - is them turning words into action.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Nov 15

"a politics of hope and renewal that draws on the power of co-operation" - @miattafahnbulleh.bsky.social on responding to the challenge presented by the right (and the disempowerment felt in every community).

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Oct 2

Tech as social infrastructure. Delighted to have @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social writing for us. She challenges the orthodoxy that social media platforms are bad for community power. (Though I'm sure @dmk1793.bsky.social would point out that there are fewer algorithms involved in these examples.)

Modern community empowerment and social infrastructure building starts in Facebook groups, Signal and WhatsApp groups, Discord and Slack communities that fill the gap left by community centres, coffee mornings, and jumble sales. As documented in comedian Jayde Adams’ hilarious podcast, Welcome to the Neighbourhood, these groups include all kinds of life and opinions, from the extremely heartwarming to the extraordinarily petty and irritating, and have taken the place of all kinds of physical infrastructure, from noticeboards to street corners. Behind every local football team or running group or community garden there’s a WhatsApp conversation where real-world plans are made.

In my South London neighbourhood, local forums are the places that get people along to community markets, fill empty shops, and unite people with nothing in common save their adoration of an adventurous local cat. They power an economy of favours, freecycling and recommendations – while also being home to plenty of moaning and challenging conversations about everything from ULEZ to flags.

These forums are far from perfect – and there is another essay to be written about the economic and social impacts of Meta’s de facto monopoly on informal public communication channels – but they are places where people gather that are totally neglected in social policy. Local communities that band together to buy their local pub do so not only through meeting in person but via WhatsApp chats and crowdfunding websites. Empowering more communities does not need to be restricted to brick and mortar assets, it can start with active advocacy in these digital communities, and in creating opportunities that are accessible and realisable to people who want to do more than just chat on their phones but just don’t know how.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Sep 29

As polling for @right-here.org has shown, people want a say over how government money is spent. They would even accept *less money* being spent in their area, if they were given more control. The Pride in Place agenda is talking a good game on community control...

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Sep 29

Labour's more community-led policies - community right to buy, the expansion of community energy and the Pride in Place programme (the re-named, expanded and evolved Plan for Neighbourhoods) - are popular. But they haven't cut through with the public.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Sep 29

People feel more positive about the state of their local area than the state of the country. A politics which leans into community, and people's sense of place, can tap into this optimism. @luketryl.bsky.social @moreincommonuk.bsky.social

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Sep 29

Our new @powertochange.org.uk research briefing - Returning Power to the People - was published last week. Three charts which should shape debates on Pride in Place this Labour conference.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Sep 29

Run down Hope Street - a lovely way to start the day. Fitting given our @powertochange.org.uk @hopenothate.org.uk @coopparty.party.coop event later - Holding onto Hope - with @kirstymcneill.bsky.social @roswynnejones.bsky.social 4pm, ACC meeting room 12

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Sep 28

Andy Jackson - "we are trying to introduce community powered politics, because it's not happening in our neighbourhoods. Devolution so far has been a bit of a disappointment for me."

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Sep 28

Packed room for our first conference event with @joshsimonsmp.bsky.social, @kirstymcneill.bsky.social, @morganj0nes.bsky.social, Andy Jackson @right-here.org and Frances Foley @compassoffice.bsky.social - discussing communitarianism (Beyond Blue Labour)

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Sep 25

With today's announcement on Pride in Place, worth noting that policies such as this (it's a rebranding & expansion of Plan for Neighbourhoods) are popular but haven't cut through. Same goes for community right to buy, and community energy. w/ @luketryl.bsky.social @moreincommonuk.bsky.social

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Sep 23

Why we @powertochange.org.uk are bursting the conference bubble, by @lucysym.bsky.social. Meet the community business leaders joining us in Liverpool this year. www.powertochange.org.uk/evidence-and...

Party conferences can feel like a bubble, missing the voices of ordinary people with the ideas and experience of turning local pride into real change. Community businesses rebuild pride in place, strengthen local economies, and restore public trust. That’s why we’re attending Labour Conference this year with seven community business leaders – experts working on the ground to tackle the big issues of our time. We want their voices to be heard loud and clear at Labour Conference this year.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Sep 18

Charts like the one below are a stark reminder of the huge representation and power gap that exists in this country. The think tank sector is marginally better on representation when it comes to schooling, but we still have a long way to go.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Sep 6

Jason Stockwood's appointment could also be seen in this light.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Aug 27

I think Sean is right that Brexit was the key driver of departure from Blue Labour's previously more radical political economy. This contradiction is notable.

To put it simply, Blue Labour’s new programme is in danger of expanding an administrative state and a professional managerial class that Blue Labour openly disparages. This, then, is a contradiction, as well as a departure from the earlier approach taken by Blue Labour with its emphasis on more direct forms of working-class control of assets and firms.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Aug 27

On the whole, quite a bleak picture. But ends on on an optimistic note.

Social atrophy in the brain is due to one of our most remarkable cognitive qualities: neuroplasticity, the way our brains adapt and reshape themselves. Neuroplasticity is a part of what allows for the incredible malleability and potential of human beings. Yet humans are not infinitely malleable. And do worse when socially isolated, losing their skills and abilities and spending more time consumed by fear and worry. To be meaningfully plastic – that is, transformable and capable of self-shaping – we need one another. We need a shared social and political life. In the company of others, we extend our brains and our minds and selves better than we ever could if we were mostly alone. And only through this kind of shared life can we also begin to do the work of improving the world.

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Aug 27

So much of modern life covered in these paragraphs.

This points to an important insight, not to mention a strategy for a better life. We should think of social life as something similar to physical exercise: an activity that we often don’t feel like doing even though a baseline is good for us. As we do more of it, however, it will also become less exhausting and less painful. People may still find different levels of social interaction desirable or even beneficial; but everyone’s baseline for health is likely higher than they expect.

This approach sees social life as an intentional practice of self-shaping rather than something that comes easy from the start or always feels fun. We protect and expand our brains and ourselves through interacting with other people, even if it is exhausting at times. Knowing this can help to counter certain glorifications of “introversion” as in some way more intellectual or refined. It can help challenge harmful aspects of individualism (the belief that one is an island, or that others are naturally competitors) that attend some (not all) conceptions of an “introverted” life. Which is not to deny there are more introverted people with their own needs—rather, it is to decouple introversion from other more dubious assumptions and associations. Recognizing that all people need regular social contact to thrive also makes clear the slippery cognitive danger of the homebound, delivery-oriented, frictionless world that is increasingly made possible through new technologies and social norms. What is needed in this framework is likely a world of social infrastructure, of design that makes it not only easy but largely necessary to regularly interact with others.

Finally, thinking about social atrophy fruitfully reorients us to collective questions of mental illness and wellbeing. Some psychological problems cannot, by their nature, be understood outside of the person’s social context. Social atrophy cannot be treated solely with individual-oriented solutions, like a combination of medicati…

Nick Plumb@nickplumb· Aug 9

New piece on Your Party, and why traditional parties of government are playing catch up on new power beyondlocalism.substack.com/p/what-corby...