Will Hutton
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Political economist, author, Observer columnist, President of the Academy of Social Sciences and host of the We Society podcast. All views are my own!
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Articles by Will Hutton
Andy Burnham talks about ‘public control’ of the utilities but it’s a minefield. We can lead him through it
Andy Burnham came to power promising greater “public control” over the UK’s utilities, such as water and energy. His reasons for doing so were to cut what is described as the “privatisation premium” paid for public services by consumers, and to improve their quality. The plight of the stricken Thames Water exemplifies the scale of those problems.
The UK is home to Europe’s Silicon Valley – and its venture market could match it, too | Will Hutton
Schroders is a leading player in private capital and if its venture team says that the 'UK is home to Europe's Silicon Valley' then we should take it seriously. The level of VC investment in the UK in 2025 was almost as much as the rest of Europe put together and the UK has now produced over 200 unicorns just 6 years after going past 100, with 16 being added in 2025. However the clear contrast to the US is that the UK does not have anywhere near the same level of domestic capital.
What should the next G20 meeting do?
The upcoming meeting of the G20 in London in early April 2009 is crucial for the development of policies to stabilise the world economy and reform the international financial architecture. What will the G20 do and what should it do? Will Hutton, Danny Quah, Mick Cox and David Held debate the issues.
Them and Us: how capitalism without fairness is capitalism without a future
Will Hutton is executive vice chair of the Work Foundation taking up this position in mid 2008 having served as chief executive since 2000. He began his career as a stockbroker and investment analyst, before working in BBC TV and radio as a producer and reporter. Prior to joining The Work Foundation, Will spent four years as editor in chief of the Observer and he continues to write a weekly column for the paper.
Literary Festival 2013: Austerity on Trial
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Organisers: Professor Conor Gearty, Professor of Human Rights Law, LSE; Professor Aoife Nolan, Professor of International Human Rights Law, The University of Nottingham. Introduction: Conor Gearty (LSE Department of Law) and Aoife Nolan (Just Fair). Judge: Hugh Tomlinson QC (Matrix Chambers). Prosecution: led by Karon Monaghan QC (Matrix Chambers) with Jamie Burton (Doughty Street). Defence: led by Martin Howe QC (8 New Square) with Richard Honey (Francis Taylor Building).
By Hugh Tomlinson Verified, Karon Monaghan QC, Jamie Burton, Martin Howe QC, Richard Honey, Tim Frost, Will Hutton, Andrew Lilico, Ruth Swortzel Porter, Magdalena Sepulveda, Polly Toynbee Verified
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LSE Connect
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The Purposeful Company: a healthy prescription for UK plc?
Will Hutton, Chair of the Big Innovation Centre Steering Group and Colin Mayer of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford will present evidence from the Interim Report and indicate the nine headline areas in which they are developing recommendations for the Policy Report to be published in February 2017, which they help to co-author.
Inequality, Brexit and the End of Empire
In 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union – but has yet to leave its Empire past behind. What part did the long afterlife of the world’s largest-ever Empire play in Britain’s view of itself and world? And could a post-EU Britain, against all the odds, become less unequal?
This time no mistakes
Will Hutton's new book, This Time No Mistakes explores the errors of the last forty-five years as an attempt to create the utopia of free markets and a minimal state. This event is part of LSE’s free public events programme. Everyone is welcome to join us at our central London campus, or on a live stream from home, to hear from some of the most influential figures in the social sciences.
The death and life of the center-left
Since the 1990s, progressive parties have tended to combine globalist neoliberal policies with avant-garde social views. Life steadily became more precarious for large numbers of working people, who lost confidence in traditional left-of-center parties.
The death and life of the center-left
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British Steel must now join the modern economy, not be a prisoner of the old
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David Marquand: One of our Great Progressive Thinkers
Professor David Marquand's struggle both intellectually and politically to marry social liberalism with social democracy may have failed in his lifetime. But he was right, and anticipated what must happen. The decades ahead promise to be more propitious to his cause.
Britain needn’t be cowed by wrecking-ball Trump, it should seize opportunities in Europe, Canada and beyond
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Britain needn’t be cowed by wrecking-ball Trump, it should seize opportunities in Europe, Canada and beyond
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The founding fathers baked reason, truth and free speech into the US. That’s all gone now
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Spending big on defence is a win for Rachel Reeves, Britain and the world
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The corporate commitment to purpose
by Will Hutton Illustrations by Jan Robert Dünnweller One step back, two steps forward – purpose remains on the march. Unwavering corporate commitment is needed to make it work. It should not need to be said, but companies are social organisms populated by human beings. Of course, they are supported by contractual relationships and, to stay alive, must make profits over time.
Promoting green growth does not make you an ‘eco-nutter’. It’s the only way forward
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Promoting green growth does not make you an ‘eco-nutter’. It’s the only way forward
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Evidence can improve public debate, not just policy
Use social science to fight misinformation and temper the national conversation, says Will Hutton More than two millennia ago, Plato argued that a precondition for successful democratic debate was that everyone should have a similar level of education and access to hard, true facts. Those preconditions hardly apply today.
Farmers have hoarded land for too long. Inheritance tax will bring new life to rural Britain
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Investment drives growth. That’s why gloomy forecasters are so wrong about the budget
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Britain’s wealth gap is growing. Its malign effects seep into all aspects of life. It’s a national disaster
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Social science’s task is to forge the We Society
Britain needs the intellectual foundations of a new social contract, says Will Hutton The elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, in 1979 and 1980 respectively, brought the curtain down on the social democratic post-war social settlements in the UK and the US. In their place, a reduced state and ever freer markets would be relied upon to self-organise to a richer, freer future. Individuals and individualism were better foundations for action than any collective ‘we’.
‘Levelling up’ began five years ago. Now we’re more divided than ever. Is this the UK’s fate?
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Britain could be a sci-tech superpower – if the Treasury stopped holding it back
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Pension reform is the key to unleashing investment boom and turning round stock market
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Will Hutton in Conversation with Jessica Elgot
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Thatcherism, austerity, Brexit, Liz Truss... goodbye and good riddance to all that
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Thatcherism, austerity, Brexit, Liz Truss... goodbye and good riddance to all that
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Thatcherism, austerity, Brexit, Liz Truss... goodbye and good riddance to all that | Will Hutton - NewsBreak
Illustration: Dominic McKenzie/The Observer The Tory party in three weeks’ time promises to be in a more ruinous, even life-threatening position than Labour was in the aftermath of the 2019 general election. Labour at least had a route to recovery after an epic defeat – to blend mainstream and centre-left opinion around a pragmatic programme for government, to eliminate all traces of antisemitism and to marginalise its toxic extremists.
Socialism isn’t a dirty word. It’s simply about wanting to make a fairer society | Will Hutton
Clement Attlee, centre, after Labour’s landslide victory in the 1945 general election. Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive Socialism is what a Labour government does, pronounced Herbert Morrison, one of the titans of the Clement Attlee administration in the 1940s. It wasn’t a very good answer then to the perennial doctrinal disputes about what constitutes socialism that have haunted the party since its foundation in 1900 – and it works no better in 2024.
We’ve got the talent and the tech. So why can’t Britain grow its own world-beaters?
Companies are deserting the FTSE because of a shortage of investment – but there is a solution Britain had it in its power to be a genuine hi-tech superpower. Instead, the opportunity slipped through our fingers, as we have been “tech-stripped” on a monumental scale. On one estimate, up to half the FTSE 100 could now be populated by vigorous British tech companies but those are all now foreign owned with one exception, Sage.
Katherine Gieve obituary
Katherine Gieve was one of the founding members in the mid-1970s of Rights of Women, which campaigned for women’s financial and legal independencePhotograph: from family/none My friend Katherine Gieve, who has died aged 74 of lymphoma, was a solicitor who specialised in family justice and children’s law. Her calm, compassionate empathy with her clients, combined with great legal skill and professionalism, propelled her to become one of the UK’s top family lawyers.
Voices: 1997 all over again? The state we’re in today is even more precarious
2024 has eerie parallels with 1997 . Then, a politically out-of-time Tory government was decaying before our eyes. The triumvirate at its head – John Major , Michael Heseltine and Ken Clarke – may not have believed in the pure milk of Thatcherism, nor its bastard child, euro-scepticism, but they were trapped in a party already beginning to lose its head to an increasingly confident hard right.
June 2024
A teenager piloted a Channel dinghy. After it sank, he was charged with manslaughter
May Contain Lies by Alex Edmans review – fake news rules… and that’s a fact
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May Contain Lies by Alex Edmans review - fake news rules… and that’s a fact
Americans approach the 2024 presidential election with mounting foreboding that it will be characterised by deception.Photograph: Castle City Creative/Getty Images “What is truth, said jesting Pilate – and would not stay for an answer.” Thus philosopher Francis Bacon dramatised the opening of his famous Of Truth essay.
This time no mistakes
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Frances Cairncross - Things Can Only Get Better, the Remix
Things Can Only Get Better, the Remix By Apollo 448pp £25 Subscribe or Sign In to read the full article For People Who Devour Books
Labour’s chance
The shift in Britain’s political mood has been so sharp and sudden that both main parties are bewildered. Conservatives recall that it was only four years ago that Boris Johnson’s position as prime minister seemed unassailable: even two years ago they were level-pegging with their rival. Can it really be true that they are hurtling towards electoral oblivion?
This Time No Mistakes
How to Remake Britain Narrated by: Alastair Campbell, Will Hutton Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity. Please try again later Please try again later Please try again later Please try again £7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility. Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Ditching European trade for China and India was ever a poor bet. Now it’s a farce
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Ditching European trade for China and India was ever a poor bet. Now it’s a farce | Will Hutton
President Xi Jinping, left, stands for photographs prior to a dinner hosted by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, right. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP The world has changed since, post-Brexit, “Global Britain” set itself to “pivot” from sclerotic Europe towards booming Asia. Always a fanciful idea that disregarded Asian realities, it has now become farcical.
Ditching European trade for China and India was ever a poor bet. Now it’s a farce
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The Chronicle for May – compelling chronicles from Head of Zeus
Welcome back to theThe Chronicle!As always we are delighted to share our news about historical fiction and non-fiction reads publishing across Head of Zeus' imprints. It's a bumper month for us in terms of historical publishing. We have paperback editions of Elodie Harper's The Temple of Fortuna and Dan Jones' Wolves of Winter as well as Tim Hodkinson's Sword of the War God and Eleni Kyriacou's The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou.
Conservatism’s biggest failure is the despair it has created about Britain’s future
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The UK is trapped in a cycle of political, social and financial turmoil. But there is a way out…
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The UK is trapped in a cycle of political, social and financial turmoil. But there is a way out…
Illustration by Steven Gregor. Illustration: Steven Gregor/The Observer If there is any consensus in our otherwise fractured, toxic national debate it is that we cannot go on like this. Our economy is in crisis, exemplified by an annual £100bn shortfall in public and private investment, which must be lifted decisively for Britain to break out of today’s triple whammy of stagnant growth, productivity and living standards.
For the birds? Far from it. At last Rachel Reeves has given Britain a plan for economic liftoff | Will Hutton
Rachel Reeves giving the Mais lecture at the Bayes Business School last Tuesday. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA Chancellor Jeremy Hunt likes to tell business leaders not to worry about political instability and more policy upset. He claims to be carefully building policy that will survive – win or lose the next election. If the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, succeeds him, accepting nearly all his proposals, be reassured, he says, there will be continuity rather than change.
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