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About the author
Tim Leunig is a multiple international prize-winning economist, thinker, writer and speaker.
His “superpower is to see the policy solutions that everyone else just doesn’t see”.
In his decade as a senior UK government official he served as Economic Adviser to two Chancellors of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid, Rishi Sunak), as well as Senior Policy Adviser to six other UK Cabinet ministers in the Departments of Education, Health, Environment and Farming, and Housing. He also served as Chief Analyst and Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Education.
He invented Britain’s first ever jobs furlough scheme, saving more than 3 million jobs during the covid pandemic. At the end of covid he saved the UK hospitality sector by forcing landlords and tenants into binding arbitration, so that landlords could not shut down viable businesses for unpaid covid-era rents.
He also invented the National Funding Formula for England’s schools, ensuring all schools are funded fairly. He devised “Progress 8”, the method by which our secondary schools are evaluated, described by the then UK Parliament Select Committee chair, Graham Stuart, as an “educational breakthrough”.
He worked out how to keep the UK fed in the event of a hard no-deal Brexit, although thankfully that idea was never tested.
He is a Visiting Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics’ School of Public Policy, where he was a prize-winning Associate Professor in Economic History for the previous 25 years. As well as his prizes for teaching, he has won three international prizes for his academic work. He also taught at Oxford University, from where he graduated first in his year at both undergraduate and graduate level; he remains an Associate Member of Nuffield College and has held visiting Professorships at universities in the US and continental Europe.
He is Director, Public First Consulting, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, the Royal Historical Society, and the Royal Society of Arts, as well as a Governor of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
His work has been featured in every major UK newspaper, and he has appeared many times on the news and in documentaries on radio and television.
He has visited all 7 continents, opens his garden to the public to raise money for charity, and can be seen riding his silver Brompton folding bike around London.
About this substack
There are many excellent substacks offering commentary and analysis on public policy. Readers gain a better understanding of the problem, or an interesting and well-informed speculation as to what might happen.
This substack is different. Every single post will propose a policy solution to an issue we face. Most of these policy ideas could be implemented in any country, although a few will be specific to the United Kingdom.
Posts will range widely across social and economic policy, but will rarely stray into defence or foreign relations.
Inevitably, not every idea I have will be outstanding, or even sensible. But I would rather write up two ideas I am unsure of, and have both thought about by others than write up neither. A good idea left unspoken is lost to the world. A bad idea written up can easily be left to die a quiet death.
Sometimes a bad idea is a springboard for others to think more clearly about the issue. We stand on the shoulders of idiots, as well as giants. If my bad idea leads you to come up with a good idea, well, that is a post I am pleased to have written.
I will never write posts to be a contrarian, but I will follow the logic of the last two paragraphs. There will be times when I write up an idea that I have had, even when I am not personally convinced it is right. So, in the immortal words of Adele, “Just 'cause I said it, it don't mean that I meant it - People say crazy things”.
Finally, I write concisely. My readers will typically be busy people. I will edit, edit and edit again to keep the word count down. If I can spend time to save you time, I will. And if I can’t say it concisely, I probably haven’t thought it through properly. I am offering you short, content-rich, posts.
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