"Bright Blue and its contributors have been tireless in bringing forward new ideas and fresh thinking to the conservative cause."
The Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP
Centre Write
Tuesday, 24 March 2015 08:14
A missed opportunity for tackling the housing crisis
Dan Wilson Craw is a spokesman for Generation Rent After five years bearing the brunt of the coalition’s austerity programme, young adults have finally been treated to a cash giveaway by the government. The Help to Buy ISA is the latest in a string of policies aimed at helping people into home ownership, and is likely to have a much higher take-up than the existing mortgage schemes.Help to Buy mortgages have been in place for nearly two years, but are…
Monday, 23 March 2015 15:25
Meeting the childcare challenge
Sumi Rabindrakumar is Research Officer at Gingerbread, and tweets at @GingerbreadPA As most parents will be aware, it can be hard juggling work around caring responsibilities. This tends to be particularly difficult for single parents, who lack the option of ‘shift parenting’ that couple parents can use. This is why childcare affordability is so critical to making work a possibility for single parents. And it is why the significant rise in childcare costs over time is so concerning. Plans to…
Friday, 13 March 2015 12:47
Want to save the countryside? Build new homes
Matt Browne is Communications Officer at Bright Blue At the start of this month, the Prime Minister announced a new Conservative commitment to provide younger people with new homes; 200,000 new starter homes to be offered to first time buyers under the age of 40 at a 20% discount. In doing so he assumed a time honoured Tory mantle, well worn by Margaret Thatcher and Harold MacMillan, of the provider of bricks and mortar for those working to build a…
Tuesday, 10 March 2015 17:56
The Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP becomes the new President of Bright Blue
Bright Blue, the independent think tank and pressure group for liberal conservatives and home of Conservative modernisers, is delighted to announce that the Secretary of State for Education, the Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP, has been appointed its President.The Education Secretary becomes co-President of Bright Blue’s Advisory Board, which currently includes high-profile ministers, politicians, opinion formers and business people.The Education Secretary will not necessarily endorse every policy position of Bright Blue, but she does believe in the organisation’s underlying vision…
Friday, 06 March 2015 11:04
Bright Blue launches the Tamworth Prize
The Tamworth Prize is a new essay competition for young people run by Bright Blue. It is a chance for young people to explain what sort of centre-right Britain needs today.The Prize is named after the Tamworth Manifesto which Sir Robert Peel published in 1834. The Tamworth Manifesto set out what the Conservative Party would stand for in a changing Britain following the passing of the Great Reform Act two years earlier. Peel promised that as Prime Minister he would…
Tuesday, 03 March 2015 10:52
London and Britain, a deteriorating relationship
Alexandra Jones, Chief Executive of Centre for Cities, explains how London is important to the nation as a whole and why cities need to work together Tension between a dominant London and other parts of the UK goes back centuries. William Cobbett, champion of rural England, wrote in his 1830 work Rural Rides: “But, what is to be the fate of the great wen of all? The monster, called, by the silly coxcombs of the press, ‘the metropolis of the…
Tuesday, 10 February 2015 08:22
Personal debt: the problem that Conservatives should not ignore
Robbie de Santos is Senior Public Policy Advocate at StepChange. He tweets from @robbieds The economy is growing again, but insecure work and wages are a worry for many families who fall into problem debt when they can’t cope with shocks to their finances, such as losing their job or falling ill. StepChange helped almost 600,000 people struggling with their debts last year. We estimate there are some three million people across Britain in problem debt, and eighteen million people…
Wednesday, 28 January 2015 15:22
Tackling tax dodging
Sharon Horder is a Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns Administrator at ActionAid and Florence de Vesvrotte is a Government Relations Advisor at ActionAid We’re all familiar with corporate tax dodging scandals, with stories hitting the headlines regularly. Currently, the UK loses billions of pounds to corporate tax dodging, while developing countries lose an estimated $160 billion. Incredibly, much of the tax dodging is legal. Britain’s tax regime enables big companies to dodge tax and still offers expensive and economically questionable tax…
Friday, 23 January 2015 17:33
Promoting opportunity through social security
Liam Crosby works at Community Links and tweets from @liamjcrosby With less than 100 days to go until the General Election, the Coalition Government won’t be making many changes to social security policy during what’s left of this parliament. That’s not to say they haven’t done enough already: whatever you think of the Coalition’s welfare reforms, they have been undeniably far-ranging. From the bedroom tax, benefits cap and other changes included in the 2012 Welfare Reform Act, to the establishment…
Friday, 16 January 2015 17:15
The importance of local welfare assistance
Megan Jarvie is London Campaign Coordinator at Child Poverty Action Group Maria is one of thousands of parents up and down the country who have received support from their council through local welfare provision funding. She was living with her abusive partner and her child, with no access to the household’s money, and no family in the country. When she took the brave step of fleeing her husband to a Solace Women’s Aid refuge, she was reliant on this funding…