Common Wealth
@Cmmonwealth
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We design ownership models for a democratic and sustainable economy.
Joined April 2019
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🚨NEW: Great British Energy NEEDS a retail arm.
Recent polling data from
@YouGov
found 45% of the public want GB Energy to provide a retail option.
A retail arm is a critical step in delivering a GBE that truly benefits consumers.
Here’s why. 🧵
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🚨 NEW POLLING 🚨
Do you think it would be a good idea for the government to set up an energy company which is publicly owned, aiming to create low cost environmentally friendly energy?
ALL VOTERS
Good Idea 72%
Bad idea 9%
CONSERVATIVE VOTERS
Good Idea 72%
Bad idea 11%
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With a new wave of rail strikes beginning today, we're shining a light on who owns Britain's train operating companies.
Privatisation has transformed our railways into engines of extraction for investors and overseas state enterprises.
(Chart: spring 2020).
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The oil price collapse creates a historic opening: a public buy out of the fossil fuel sector to enact a managed decline of extraction and ensure a just transition for workers & communities.
Read more in our GND series by
@johannabozuwa
@carlaskandier
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🚨 NEW: UK gas & electricity distribution companies have higher profit margins than any other sector 🚨
⚡️42.5% for electricity
🔥40.5% for gas
As bills soar, our latest briefing with
@Sanha926
& Joseph Baines examines the UK's energy networks👇
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NEW🚨 Who owns the North Sea? Explore our interactive map showing who owns oil and gas licenses in the North Sea - and why it matters. 🛢🌊
➡️
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Today we're launching a UK
#GreenNewDeal
. 🌱
Bringing together activists and progressive policy thinkers ✊ we have reports out all this month covering finance 💳 green internationalism 🌍 industrial policy 🏗️ housing 🏡️ and much more. ✍
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We first published this back in 2020. This is the fourth rail franchise to be nationalised since.
We need every single one in public ownership, with democratic control at the heart of a new rail system.
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We're excited to announce Common Wealth is coming soon!
We design ownership models for a democratic and sustainable economy.
Follow us for updates on our work on ownership and the 21st century commons.
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💥 New project: Blueprint for a Green New Deal 💥
Today we're launching a year-long series looking at the next steps for a Green New Deal, with reports on the company, asset management, trade, public health, social care, mobility +
Read more 📗⬇️
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🌹🍞This May Day, we’re excited to launch the Centre for Democratising Work, a hub for exploring the nature of work and how we can secure its reimagination.
In our first interview
@AmeliaHorgan
asks
@gabrielwinant
about class in the twenty-first century.
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New video 🔥
Why we’re living in the age of BlackRock.
Our latest research focuses on the rising influence of the asset management industry, and what it might mean for the climate fight.
Read it here 👇👇
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🚨 NEW: The UK ranks third worst in Europe for employee participation rights 🚨
@DantonsHead
and
@KhemRogaly
analysis finds that where economic democracy is strongest, economies perform best; where it is weak, they perform poorly.
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⚡️🔋 Our new report - The Greatest Generation - unpacks why public power can deliver net zero faster, fairer and cheaper.
Our 🧵 of 🧵s explains why public coordination of the transition is better on cost, coherence, and certainty than market primacy.
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Our research finds bus fares have increased by 102% in real-terms since 1985. Bus services have been under-funded for decades, while profits are siphoned off by shareholders 💰💰💰
Privatisation is failing passengers.
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NEW: As the world boiled, BP distributed $3.3 billion to shareholders, 17 times more than they invested in “low-carbon” in Q2 ($190m).
How can we trust Big Oil to deliver a fair energy transition when its priorities are so misaligned with what the public and planet need?
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CHART OF THE WEEK: The generational divide in private renting could not be starker.
While 80% of tenants are under the age of 55, nearly 65% of landlords are 55 & over. Young renters work to provide their landlords with stable returns on.
(credit
@adammarqalmeida
)
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Today rail workers are on strike. But how does the railway compare to others?
Commuters in Britain currently pay over 5x those in France. It's clearer than ever that railway privatisation is failing the public.
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New analysis 📈📈📈
BP invested seven times as much in fossil fuels as they spent on 'low carbon' investment this quarter.
The energy giants are profiting from crisis but not transforming.
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Today Shell announced record profits of $40bn - double its profit last year.
So what have they done with it?
Over 2022, $26 billion was shelled out to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks - 7.5x more than their ‘low carbon’ investment.
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🚨NEW: The scandal at P&O must trigger a fundamental reset on workers' rights 🚨
At this pivotal moment, we & the below organisations support the call for a New Deal at Work to expand & strengthen labour rights & democratise the workplace.
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NEW RESEARCH 🎓
The UK’s universities are over-financialised, over-leveraged, and insecure employers. We need to transform them into centres for long-term research and learning, centred on collaboration and community.
Our briefing out today 👇
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NEW: Shell invested six times as much in fossil fuels as its “low-carbon” segment in Q2.
The evidence is overwhelming: the design and operation of the for-profit oil and gas company is fatally misaligned with what we need to deliver a just and secure energy transition.
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If Thames Water goes bankrupt, it shouldn’t be bailed out. It should return to public hands.
@dantonshead
on privatisation and the case for change.
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Governments can borrow more cheaply than private companies (around 1.5-2.5 percentage points).
Scaling back public investment and relying on the private sector to deliver the energy transition will cost hundreds of millions per year in interest alone.
Sir Keir Starmer confirms Labour will not spend £28bn a year on green plan - blaming Tories for "crashing the economy"
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The two worst performing companies, Southern Water and South West Water, have made extraordinary profit margins in recent years.
Privatisation is a disaster for the public.
The Environment Agency's new report on water companies lays bare the failure of privatisation.
'For years people have seen executives & investors handsomely rewarded while the environment pays the price'.
Water must be returned to public ownership.
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Two major airlines paid out dividends in excess of £2.6 billion since 2014, while the sector continues to underpay corporation tax.✈️
We need to set conditions for an aviation sector bailout so that it grows public wealth.
Our report out this morning👇
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CHART OF THE WEEK: UK passengers pay over 5x as much per KM travelled than those in France.
Our privatised rail system isn't meeting public needs.
(credit:
@chrismwhayes
)
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🚨 Centrica, owner of British Gas, has posted record profits of £3.3bn 🚨
But who do these profits belong to?
@SophieFlinders_
broke down Centrica's top shareholders — who are overwhelmingly big US-based asset management firms and investment banks.
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BP made record profits - £22bn - in 2022. But how are they using their windfall?
The company is handing out 14x as much to shareholders as they're investing their “low carbon” segment.
It is clear: if left to the oil and gas giants, the transition will be fatally compromised🧵
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We’re very excited to launch our latest project, a year-long partnership with
@DemocracyCollab
exploring new frontiers of democratic public ownership: digital infrastructure, data and platforms, intellectual property, land and natural resources
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Yesterday, Greater Manchester took the step of taking its buses under public control — breaking with decades of deregulation.
Since privatisation, bus fares have more than doubled.
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🚨 NEW: National Grid has announced profits of £4.6 bn for the last year 🚨
Despite once being a key public asset, in 2022 the majority of the Grid's top shareholders were asset management companies.
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Since 2013, Royal Mail has channelled £1.5 bn to shareholders, the biggest of which is Vesa Equity (owned by Daniel Kretinsky).
A historic public service has been transformed into a vehicle for shareholders, many of which are global investment funds.
Chart:
@adammarqalmeida
.
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BP’s bumper results — £4bn of profits in the last quarter and £1.4bn of new share buybacks — confirm what we all know: the energy crisis is transferring income from households and business to the energy giants and their shareholders.
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🚨 Today, we’re launching our Social Value Index, a new tool for modelling the social and economic benefits of community-led developments 🚨
We need alternative models of development & regeneration: which distribute the benefits within local communities.
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New report out today 📗📗
We can transform the company from an institution of extraction to a generative entity, where all its stakeholders have stake and a say in the wealth we create in common.
Read "Commoning the Company" in full:
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NEW: The US and UK militaries are two of the institutions most responsible for global climate breakdown.
Our report with
@cpluscp
finds since 2015, the UK and US militaries have emitted 430mn tonnes of CO2 — equivalent to total UK emissions for 2022 🧵
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🚨 New analysis: National Grid has paid its shareholders £28 billion since privatisation in 1991 🚨
Private ownership is failing us. A just transition needs public transmssion.
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The King's Speech has confirmed GB Energy will be a “new, publicly owned energy production company which will own, manage and operate clean power projects up and down the country” — not a private financing vehicle.
This is a crucial, welcome commitment.
There has been substantial debate about the design of GB Energy.
Our latest briefing from
@ailyas_k
sets out what it should and should not do if it is to deliver on its promise to deliver a fairer, faster, more cost-effective energy transition.
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CHART OF THE WEEK: Almost half of wealth on the Sunday Times Rich List is from finance and property.
Our economic system is dependent on real estate and finance. For a just distribution it needs to be radically rebalanced.
(Credit:
@chrismwhayes
).
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Yesterday rail fares rose by 5.9% — putting more pressure on hard-pressed households.
UK commuters pay over 5x as much per kilometre travelled on fares as their French counterparts.
Chart:
@chrismwhayes
.
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🚨 NEW: explore our interactive database — “Bond Villains” — published with
@toxic_bonds
which investigates fossil fuel bond issuance 🚨
A key finding: oil & gas companies have issued $1.9 trillion worth of corporate bonds just since the Paris Agreement.
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As postal workers go on strike to secure a decent living, who owns Royal Mail?
Privatisation has transformed a public asset into a revenue stream for major investors and private equity companies like Vesa Equity.
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New report 💥💥
The future of steel is a test of the Government’s mettle.
They cannot deliver on the promise of ‘levelling up’ nor put the UK on the path to net-zero without a commitment to decarbonise the steel sector. We need a plan for green steel.
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What's the four-letter acronym driving climate chaos? ISDS. It allows corporations to sue governments in secret courts over climate action. We need to disband ISDS & the Energy Charter Treaty as part of a climate retrofit for trade.
Watch our video, created alongside
@GNDRising
.
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New interactive project! 🕹️ 🌳
Covid-19 is changing our towns and cities. How can a Green New Deal recovery reimagine urban life in its wake?
Explore our latest work on a Green New Deal for Glasgow, home of COP26.
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New report out today! 🌟🌟
What would 21st century public ownership look like? We need a democratic agenda to address:
👩💻 Broadband infrastructure & the digital divide
🏛️ Platform monopolies & inequality
💉 IP & vaccine access
w/
@DemocracyCollab
👇
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🗓️ Today, we're launching the final report in our Green New Deal series,
@SimonLLewis
on the Green New Deal for Nature, a plan for restoration and rewilding, repurposing 25% of the UK’s land for wildlife and carbon sequestration.
🌳🌳🌳
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Polling conducted by
@OpiniumResearch
on behalf of
@NEON_UK
Read more on how public ownership is already common - almost 45% of offshore wind is owned by foreign public entities - & how a public energy company can deliver green, secure, affordable power.
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A 2023🧵
In “In Praise of Learning”, Bertolt Brecht argued that the radical, everyday act was to “Put your finger on each item, ask: how did it get here?”.
What forces, what relationships, what entanglements, sit behind the objects and infrastructures that make our world?
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NEW RESEARCH:
@chrismwhayes
and
@carsjung
from
@IPPR
analyse firm-level data for >1,300 companies, charting profit trajectories before and after Covid.
Corporate profits grew faster than inflation among publicly listed firms across a range of countries.
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New report 🔥
Who owns UK corporations? In the 80s, we were promised ‘a shareholder democracy’. Read our new report by
@adribuller
and
@BJMbraun
, which finds the reverse has come true. Welcome to asset manager capitalism.
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Today is our first-year anniversary. 🎉
We’re incredibly grateful for the support we’ve received this year. These are uncertain times, but we're proud to be part of a growing movement to reimagine our economy and make it more democratic by design.
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In London, the water industry is privately owned and run for profit.
In Paris, water has been taken back into public ownership and run for the people of the city.
Can you spot the difference?
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What does BP plan to do with its record £22 bn profit?
The company is spending 10x as much on share buybacks as they’re investing in their “low carbon” segment.
The transition to decarbonised energy can't be left to the for-profit corporation 🧵
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🚨We have a new website!🚨
Explore our shiny new site to find out why ownership matters and ideas for how we can reimagine it.
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Amazingly, in the last quarter of the year, Shell spent nearly twice as much on MARKETING as they did on “low carbon” investment (which, it’s important to say, is allegedly mostly gas trading and marketing).
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🚨NEW – Performing without Transforming 🚨
@SanHa926
& Joseph Baines make the case for a windfall tax on the USA’s fossil fuel giants.
The ‘Big Five’ have paid out over $200 billion to shareholders since 2015 & are profiting from crisis.
Read more👇
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🌟🎈NEW REPORT w/
@KeirMilburn
@KaiHeron
@alterurbanist
🎈🌟
"Public-Common Partnerships: Democratising ownership and urban development."
Exploring case studies in Plymouth and Tottenham, the report shows how PCPs can extend the 21st century commons.
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Hi Liz 👋 We’d be happy to come talk to you in detail about democratic ownership models and how they can hugely expand individual (and collective) freedom.
Moving on from capitalism....to what? All this vague chat about "new forms of ownership" and "distribution of rewards" amounts to a massive power grab by the state. And a huge shrinking of individual freedom.
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New report out today 🚨
The Green New Deal needs an intersectional public health approach that centres racial justice. 🌿
Read our report from
@guppikb
👇
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Ending Right to Buy is absolutely necessary to stop public assets being sold off at a low cost.
*4 in 10 homes* sold off under RtB now belong to private landlords.
To rebuild affordable social housing stock, we need an ambitious public investment & house building programme.
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Labour have just announced that their upcoming manifesto will pledge to renationalise UK railways, bringing them back into public ownership after nearly thirty years of privatisation.
Here’s why that’s a good thing — and why such measures should be expanded across energy,
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NEW: After the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a state-led green transition is no longer a “yes or no” question; it’s more urgently a “how” question.
@BrusselerMel
on the necessity of democratic coordination of the transition.
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💡NEW REPORT💡
The wholesale energy market is not fit for purpose. We examine options for reform to cut bills, eliminate windfall profits, and deliver clean energy.
Our finding is clear: the most direct, cost-effective approach is public ownership.
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We need a “Right to Own”, to give workers an opportunity to buy out their company when its being sold or closed.
Read our new policy report out today with
@DemocracyCollab
👇
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🌟 NEW ANALYSIS w/
@IPPR
🌟
📈Net overall profits up by 33% at end of 2021 vs pre-pandemic - significantly above inflation
📊90% of increases in profits accounted for by only 25 companies
🪙Profit rates strongly increased in energy, education, basic materials & finance
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Centrica, owner of British Gas, has seen its profits more than double.
The fortunes of energy companies are largely dependent on the extent to which governments & regulators are willing to protect households from bill hikes.
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New video out today in partnership with
@GreenNewDealUK
📢📢
We need a people-centred industrial strategy for care to transform the sector, and support a green recovery.
Here's how we can reimagine adult social care 👇
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On this day in 1883 John Maynard Keynes was born.
During the Great Depression, Keynes' work revolutionised the theory and practice of macroeconomics, playing a pivotal role in the shift to full employment policies after World War Two.
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Our analysis found that gas networks have some of the highest margins of any sector in the economy.
Macquarie’s acquisition consolidates monopoly power and rentierism.
Essential infrastructure should be in public hands.
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Support for renewable energy infrastructure being in public ownership is eight times the level of support for private ownership of renewables.
Our polling from
@YouGov
on public power.
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"Public health should be in public hands."
We are immensely proud to have
@MiriamBrett
leading our research programme.
"We're seeing consultants brought in who are being paid in one week a year's worth of a nurse's salaries.
"These private firms being brought to oversee test, track and trace is an abject failure."
-
@MiriamBrett
on
#bbcqt
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There has been substantial debate about the design of GB Energy.
Our latest briefing from
@ailyas_k
sets out what it should and should not do if it is to deliver on its promise to deliver a fairer, faster, more cost-effective energy transition.
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BP prioritise their shareholders over green investment.
A safe energy transition requires putting people and planet first.
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National Grid paid its international shareholders nearly £9 billion in the last five years.
Our latest research from
@SophieFlinders_
,
@chrismwhayes
&
@adribuller
covered in the
@guardian
.
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📣 New research 📣
Passive funds, investment funds that track a particular market index to determine where to invest, have massively expanded since 2008.
They now represent one third of fund holdings in the FTSE 100. Let’s explore why this matters 👇
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NEW ANALYSIS: Shell spent almost 2x as much on marketing as it spent on “Renewable and Energy Solutions".
Our briefing from
@chrismwhayes
&
@adribuller
.
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We need to rethink who owns data in our society - and how collective ownership can help us take on the tech industry. ✊
Our report on Digital Public Assets:
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🚨 New: Shell's latest results underscore why Big Oil cannot be trusted to deliver a just energy transition 🚨
Analysis by
@sophieFlinders_
reveals they've paid shareholders over 11x and invested in fossil fuels almost 6x what they have invested in low carbon this past quarter.
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💥Common Wealth is hiring💥
We are excited to announce two job opportunities in our team:
🗞 Press and Digital Communications Lead
📊 Senior Data Analyst
Follow the link to find out more about the roles 👉
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Did you know that in 2023, Amazon, Microsoft & Google poured more capital into AI start-ups than any other investor?
Our new report with
@CeciliaRikap
reveals the extent to which Big Tech companies use the cloud to control the entire AI ecosystem. ⬇️
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Supporting rural communities involves more than just attracting tourists. Areas like rural Scotland need affordable homes, good, unionised, green jobs and broadband infrastructure. 💪
Listen to our Director of Research
@MiriamBrett
on a panel with
@RuralHousingSco
👇
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New polling confirms public ownership of energy has widespread net support.
It is popular because it works — as our modelling shows it could save households hundreds of pounds a year.
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Today, Centrica and Shell have published eye-watering profits.
Firms across the energy sector are making extraordinary profits while household energy bills soar, highlighting the fundamental problems embedded in the ownership and operation of the energy market🧵
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Nice to see a writeup of
@sarahljaffe
's new book in
@FT
today.
On Wednesday, we're co-hosting a launch for the book, w/
@AmeliaHorgan
&
@daliagebrial
speaking alongside Jaffe about workplace democracy, union action + more.
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🚨 Here’s how to raise over £20bn from fairer taxation of income from wealth 🚨
Our new report with
@IPPR
from Joseph Evans,
@ChrisMWHayes
&
@GeorgeDibb
looks at fairer ways of taxing dividends & share buybacks 👇
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There are now 2 distinct visions of GB Energy:
The incremental but crucial return of public ownership, or an investment vehicle derisking the private sector to the detriment of the public sector balance sheet
GBE will be a key indicator of a future Labour govts climate ambition
“[GB Energy] is a publicly owned company that is investing”
Labour campaign coordinator Pat McFadden says the party’s planned public energy company won’t be a producer of energy but will invest in climate-friendly projects
#BBCLauraK
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“It is an illusion to expect the private sector to do the government’s work without extracting a higher price. The best way to de-risk investment is simply for states to invest themselves”.
@chrismwhayes
and
@BrusselerMel
in
@NewStatesman
Spotlight.
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The War on Drugs has failed, but a market-focused approach to legalisation may replicate the injustices of racialised capitalism. We need to find new ownership models for a legal cannabis market that challenge injustice.
Our new report out today
#420
🗓️
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With the Scottish Programme for Government due to be released soon, read our report by
@L__Macfarlane
and
@MiriamBrett
setting out a transformative economic vision to drive a just, sustainable recovery at this critical time.
New report out today 🚨
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Who owns the North Sea?
Explore our interactive map from
@SophieFlinders_
to find out who profits from oil and gas extraction👇
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🚨 JOB ALERT 🚨
We're hiring a Director of Policy and Advocacy. Are you excited by designing bold solutions? Do you like building coalitions for systemic change?
If so, we'd love to hear from you! ⬇️
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NEW RESEARCH 🚌
Our briefing, by
@sanha926
, Joseph Baines and
@MiriamBrett
, shines a light on the impacts of bus privatisation and deregulation, and calls for bus ownership to be reimagined to serve the needs of communities, the environment, and workers.
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🚨 New research🚨
Today Common Wealth is releasing The Green Recovery Act – our guide to transforming the UK’s legal framework to deliver a green and fair future. 📜
The Act sets out 9 key policy recommendations from
@ewanmcg
⚡️
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Privatisation is a continual disaster for the well-being of the public & of our economy.
Our water system is not just failing, it's endangering our health.
Public ownership is the only way to see the infrastructural investment necessary for the maintenance of our water system.
BREAKING: People have been told to boil their drinking water after 22 cases of a waterborne disease were confirmed in South West England.
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
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NEW: in Q3, for every $1 BP invest in low-carbon, it is investing $26 in fossil fuels.
BP’s Q3 results confirm the company is a ‘cash machine’:
🤑Profits $8.2bn, more than double Q3 2021
💰 Dividends up 10%
📈 Share buybacks $2.5bn
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We have a new report co-published with
@a_free_ride
out today, looking at how we can ban fossil-fuelled private jets from UK airports by the year 2025. Here’s why carbon inequality matters 👇
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