Nick Plumb
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nickplumb.bsky.social
Nick Plumb
@nickplumb.bsky.social
3.1K followers 810 following 570 posts
Director of Policy and Insight at @powertochange.org.uk

Interests include: UK politics, trust, communities, localism, democratic reform, and inequality.
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nickplumb.bsky.social
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.
October 2, 2025 at 5:16 PM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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...
September 29, 2025 at 9:57 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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.
September 29, 2025 at 9:54 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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
September 29, 2025 at 9:51 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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.
September 29, 2025 at 9:48 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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
September 29, 2025 at 7:22 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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."
September 28, 2025 at 11:58 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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)
September 28, 2025 at 11:47 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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
September 25, 2025 at 12:48 PM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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.
September 23, 2025 at 10:14 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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.
September 18, 2025 at 8:05 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
Jason Stockwood's appointment could also be seen in this light.
September 6, 2025 at 6:25 PM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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.
August 27, 2025 at 12:50 PM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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.
August 27, 2025 at 10:39 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
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…
August 27, 2025 at 10:35 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
New piece on Your Party, and why traditional parties of government are playing catch up on new power

beyondlocalism.substack.com/p/what-corby...
August 9, 2025 at 7:53 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
🧵 Reflections on a day visiting two community businesses in Newcastle.

TLDR, it’s connection and a ‘place to be’ that matters. Now more than ever, given the range of factors driving us apart.
A photo of the green Star and Shadow cinema, taken from across the road, with four people stood out front.
August 6, 2025 at 4:52 PM
nickplumb.bsky.social
One of the reasons we @powertochange.org.uk have argued you can't separate out growth, empowerment and cohesion agendas.

We need a coordinated approach in places where connection and trust is weakest.
July 31, 2025 at 4:47 PM
nickplumb.bsky.social
Taken from @uclpolicylab.bsky.social @moreincommonuk.bsky.social and @citizensuk.org new paper on community cohesion (www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/s...)
July 31, 2025 at 4:44 PM
nickplumb.bsky.social
'The radical domestication of existence' is a great way to encapsulate the broad trend we've seen in recent decades - driven by the loss of community spaces, and the removal of friction + IRL interaction facilitated by tech.
The loss of community spaces like the welfares has at least three significant and interrelated effects on social life: the displacement of politics, an intensifying sense of decline, and the radical domestication of existence. When I was speaking to mining families in Mansfield over the course of my research, one ex-miner explained to me that his social and political world had become narrower and more home-bound over time. Initially involved in politics via his union and in community life through his football team, based at the welfare around the corner, he had become disillusioned with his representatives and slowly retreated into the private sphere. “You can probably knock on that door for so long. And then if nobody answers that door, you think, why, why bother? And so I think that’s what some people get to a point. You know, and for us, I think, as long as our families are okay… That’s, that’s our main thing.” His wife nodded emphatically: “And I think everybody’s in that frame of mind now.”
July 29, 2025 at 12:53 PM
nickplumb.bsky.social
And to @dmk1793.bsky.social's point on orgs quietly getting on with communitarian politics, I think Stir to Action's work with @kirstymcneill.bsky.social and @coopparty.party.coop party on social clubs is great.

I contributed to this a little while ago.

www.stirtoaction.com/articles/soc...
Third, we shouldn’t underestimate their impact on politics and democracy. A 1920s survey showed that social club members accounted for 178 Members of Parliament. At a more local level, members of social clubs were a common feature of different tiers of local government at this peak. At Power to Change, we are researching the decline in involvement in all manner of local, civil society organisations and how this interacts with trust in politics and democracy, and uncovering significant interplay between the two things. We should see saving our nation’s social clubs as part of this bigger fight to bolster our democracy.
July 23, 2025 at 8:22 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
4/

Yesterday, as part of the Covenant announcement, we heard that (tautology aside) ‘Local Covenant Partnerships’ will be established in some places across England.

✅ This seems sensible as so much of the interaction between civil society and the state happens at this local level.
July 18, 2025 at 10:11 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
2/

🏘️ There are moves to think more about neighbourhood governance via the Devo and Community Empowerment Bill.
July 18, 2025 at 10:10 AM
nickplumb.bsky.social
Govt's take neighbourhood governance from the guidance note on the Devo and Community Empowerment Bill.

(www.gov.uk/government/p...)
The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill will introduce a requirement on all local authorities, in England, to establish effective neighbourhood governance. The main goal of neighbourhood governance is to move decision-making closer to residents, so decisions are made by people who understand local needs. Additionally, developing neighbourhood-based approaches will provide opportunities to organise public services to meet local needs better. The details of the obligations on local authorities will be set out in regulations that will be made after the Bill is in force. Before those regulations are made, government will be undertaking a review as to the best way to achieve the aims including speaking to the sector to ensure they have the opportunity to contribute and share existing good practice. Local authorities can still set up town and parish councils, and town and parish councils which exist now can continue. Our guidance will say how neighbourhood governance structures can work well with town and parish councils. Town and parish councils are independent of local authorities. We want to make sure that all local authorities have a way of working with people in their neighbourhoods, so they are not relying on town and parish councils to do it.
July 10, 2025 at 3:42 PM
nickplumb.bsky.social
Ambitious Community Right to Buy included in Devo and Community Empowerment legislation.

From a 2022 Lisa Nandy speech in Darlington on the UK's hottest day (see pic) with @joshwesterling.bsky.social @powertochange.org.uk to today when we see it in legislation.

A big moment, one to be celebrated.
July 10, 2025 at 2:15 PM