NEF’s 2022 reading list

With three prime ministers and four chancellors, this has been a busy year for NEF. We present a reading list of our most fascinating, interesting and insightful writing from 2022. From the cost of living scandal to the damaging legacy of right to buy, we hope you enjoy this selection of NEF’s work.

• Best interest at heart
  Back in February, Frank Van Lerven reflected that the cost of public debt was lower than it had been for pretty much three centuries – not that you’d have known it from the media coverage.
• Why don’t we just understand why it costs more to be poor?
  Inflation and the cost of living dominated our lives this year. In the Big Issue, Dominic Caddick explained how inflation doesn’t hit all of us equally.
• Fuel duty cuts in the UK will largely benefit the SUV-driving elite
  Rishi Sunak’s expected fuel tax cuts won’t benefit those in need, wrote Alex Chapman in the Guardian. The top fifth of households spend almost five times each year as the bottom fifth
• Unless Whitehall devolves its powers, ​‘levelling up’ is doomed to fail
  So-called missions to improve people’s lot nationwide require local knowledge and local powers if they are to be fulfilled, wrote NEF chief exec Miatta Fahnbulleh in the Guardian.
• The victim-blaming culture of housing associations has trickled down from the government
  There are 940,000 homes in England with damp and mould. This government should take a healthy share of responsibility for this, wrote Heather Kennedy.
• The cost of living class war
  Research shows that the poorest families are set to see their energy bills rise 7.5 times faster than the richest – proof that the cost of living crisis is entrenching the vast inequality that already scars modern Britain, wrote Chaitanya Kumar in Tribune.
• Post-2008 austerity has made EU citizens €3000 euros per year worse off
  The EU is obsessed with cutting national debts, rather than investing in public services, living standards and tackling the climate crisis. Sebastian Mang wrote for EU Observer about how EU governments could be empowered to invest in a better future.
• The damaging legacy of right to buy
  In the spring, Boris Johnson said he wanted to extend the right to buy to housing associations. But, argued Simon Hill, he was ignoring the grave costs of the policy.
• On a wing and a prayer
  Alex Chapman set out five ways the government’s irresponsible plans for aviation are putting us all at risk.
• Why don’t we just make our economy work for people and the planet?
  When facing down the climate crisis, we need an answer to the question that dominates our politics: how do we get the economy to work for everyone? Margaret Welsh tackled this in the Big Issue.

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