Join us at Building Abundance: How Britain can flourish in the age of AI

A Works in Progress conference on economic growth, state capacity and AI at the London School of Economics on December 3rd.

Oct 29, 2026

Join us on December 3rd at the London School of Economics. RSVP here.

Britain struggles to build almost anything: houses, infrastructure, data centres, and everything else. Its economy is anaemic. It has the most expensive energy of almost anywhere in the world. Its labour market looks dangerously exposed to shocks to professional services. The British state is paralysed and unable to act.

Two years ago, when we published Foundations: Why Britain has stagnated, these were important facts for anyone who cared about reviving Britain’s economy. Today, they will decide whether Britain thrives in the age of AI or goes the way of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and twentieth century Argentina.

You are invited to join us at Building Abundance: How Britain can flourish in the age of AI, a day of ideas for rebuilding Britain’s economy and state so it can adapt to and embrace artificial intelligence and other opportunities for growth.

It will be held on Thursday 3rd December at the London School of Economics, from 1pm to 7:30pm (doors open 1pm for a 1:20pm start). This is hosted by Works in Progress in association with the LSE Law School and School of Public Policy. Tickets are free.

Our keynote sessions feature former Prime Ministerial advisors Dominic Cummings and Morgan McSweeney in conversation on the decline and fall of British state capacity, and John Fingleton on what the government has and has not done to put his review of nuclear regulation into effect, one year after committing to implement it in full.

Other speakers include:

Sam Bowman, Ben Southwood and Samuel Hughes on why nearly every attempt to get Britain building has failed;
Rachel Wolf on what the public really thinks about economic growth and AI;
Luis Garicano on messy jobs and Britain’s labour market;
Julia Willemyns on why Britain needs gigawatt-scale compute, and how to get it built here;
Saloni Dattani on why fixing clinical trials is the best industrial policy Britain could have;
Michael Dnes on building the first new tunnel under the Pennines since 1954;
Robert Boswall on how to finance and power the data centre buildout; and
Daisy Christodoulou on why VAR matters for state capacity.

This is a half-day event, and we cannot admit people mid-way through. We look forward to seeing you there!

RSVP now.

Jojo

I am not sure that Britain, as a country, has a future. See this article:

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At Least I Know I’m Free

—Matthew Hennessey

Every few weeks I get a social-media reminder of a shocking factual reality: The U.K. is poorer than every American state. Think about that. It’s extraordinary.

The U.K. presents as a sophisticated, globally competitive country. The world speaks English, after all. The sun never sets on the supply of exquisitely talented British actors, writers and musicians. But as the Journal reports, the U.K. is suffocating under the weight of its bloated welfare state. A hardly believable 10% of the British population claims to be sick or disabled.

Something’s rotten in Doncaster. The Atlantic writer Idrees Kahloon calls the U.K.’s economic malaise a “case study in self-sabotage.” Over the past 20 years, he writes, a British economy “gripped by sclerosis” has dragged down quality of life in the U.K.

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https://wsjfreeexpression.substack.com/i/221648046/at-least-i-know-im-free