welcome

I write and research about power, place and what holds Britain together (or doesn’t). I’m a political writer and academic at the Open University, a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker, and the author of three books including Island Story, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize.

My current work is embedded in communities across England – the Fens, Barking and Dagenham, Gateshead – asking what it means to belong to a place the rest of the country has stopped paying attention to.

This site collects my writing, research and broadcast work. The blog is updated when there’s something worth saying (there usually is).