The Country That Works For You
One-page briefing · August 2026
An independent delivery programme for the UK: sector by sector, with costs, trade-offs, named institutions, and sources you can check. Not a party manifesto. Not a petition. Corrections are welcome; endorsement is not asked for.
Why now
Britain is running several crises at once: food prices, energy costs, NHS and care strain, housing shortage, climate shocks, and a state that struggles to deliver at the speed the situation needs. Andy Burnham became Prime Minister on 20 July 2026. The June diagnosis still stands. The fuse is shorter.
The question is practical: what would a government that meant to serve working people actually do, and can the arithmetic be made honest?
The programme
| Chapter | One line |
|---|---|
| The Situation | Compound pressures, not a single shock; why incrementalism fails |
| Food | Security, reserves, and the 2027 price risk |
| Energy | Cost, security, and grid delivery |
| Industrial strategy | Rebuild productive capacity on purpose |
| Health and social care | Workforce, care, and stop treating the NHS as residual |
| Housing | Build social homes at scale; planning that delivers |
| Defence | Credible commitments without fantasy budgets |
| Social security | Redesign so work and dignity are not opposites |
| Justice | Courts, prisons, and backlog as state-capacity failure |
Cross-cutting: climate, fiscal framework, governance, civil service, and how it gets done.
Fiscal headline
Fully implemented, the annual programme is on the order of £70–90 billion (industrial strategy capital sits outside that standing total). Against UK GDP of roughly £2.8 trillion, that is about 2.5–3% of GDP.
Honest progressive revenue covers roughly £20–35 billion a year. The gap is borrowing for identifiable assets (homes, grid, reserves) plus clear rules for what happens if forecasts miss. This is not an unfunded tax-cut package.
Read these three first
Full hub: /series/ctwfy/ · Complete edition (free): PDF
How to use this
If you work on policy, research, or delivery: treat it as a free evidence pack. If something is wrong, say so. If a chapter is useful, pass this page or the hub URL to a colleague. That is enough.
LiveWorkDream · independent · August 2026