Leah Millthorne

Read the full report by Reclaiming Our Regional Economies, a collaboration between leading not-for-profit organisations:

🖊️ Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES)
🖊️ @thrivingplaces.bsky.social
🖊️ @cooperativesuk.bsky.social
🖊️ @neweconomics.bsky.social

cles.org.uk/publications...

Our new report out today outlines how our care system facilitates the extraction of value and wealth from places and local public service budgets, and explores what our communities, local and strategic authorities, and national governments can do about it. 📝💸📈

🎟️ Tickets now on sale for CWB Summit 2025!
📅 3 July | 📍Manchester

Join changemakers, grassroots leaders and policymakers to explore how local democracy and community wealth building can shape fairer economies.

🎤 Andy Burnham, Grace Blakeley + more
🔗 cles.org.uk/events/cwb-s...

New CLES analysis shows that Trump’s 10% tariffs on UK exports will hit hardest outside London.

🚗 West Midlands: £330m drop (car exports)
💊 East of England: £240m drop (pharma, aerospace)
⚙️ NI: £40 per person lost

📖 Read more: cles.org.uk/press-releas...

Care Full Launch Event Care Full is launching! Sign up here We’re excited to launch Care Full with an evening to inspire new ideas and action towards a more caring economy. Join us to hear about Care Full’s a…

We're excited to launch Care Full with an evening to inspire new ideas and action towards a caring economy.
Thanks to: @autonomy-institute.bsky.social, @wstronge.bsky.social, @simonduffy.bsky.social & @emilykenway.bsky.social for their support.

You can sign up here: carefulleconomy.co.uk/launch/

🚨 New Report 🚨

What could we get if schools, hospitals and universities sourced more food locally? A stronger economy, better sustainability & healthier communities!

📢 Feeding the Future explores how public procurement can transform Sheffield’s food system.

📖 Read more: buff.ly/h4i34Yt

🚀 Work in local economic development? Join the next CLES Open Hour—a relaxed, open space to connect, reflect & recharge.

This month, we're talking procurement act & spending review - what they mean and how to respond to them.

Free & open to all! Sign up here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cles-open-...

Local Growth Plans need to confront the key growth questions: "growth of what?" and "growth for who?" if the plans are truly going to deliver the increases in living standards the government is aiming for. Emmet (NEF) & Tabitha (Coops UK) set out the detail... 📑

A very important feature of the Reclaiming Our Regional Economies programme is working out how to reduce runaway wealth extraction in our places - from health and care, to food, to housing. 1/2

🚨 New blog: Why investing in local public services is foundational to economic growth.

A thread on how local government drives prosperity—and why restoring funding could create jobs, boost growth, and strengthen communities. 🧵👇

At CLES, as well as supporting local public sector anchors to generate maximum social value from their expenditure wherever we can, we're also working on gathering and sharing best practice in the ways greater public value can be delivered outside of the confines of procurement exercises. 🌱

New national procurement policy will prompt and support public institutions across the country to generate greater social value from their procurements, and deliver greater wealth and wellbeing for their local communities as a result. 🤝

Want to challenge inequality and build a stronger economy? Two very different (but equally exciting!) jobs going at CLES:

🌍 Trustees – Help steer our vision for economic justice.
📊 Researcher – Lead on policy-shaping research.

Apply now 👉 cles.org.uk/jobs

"It seems the government does have honest intentions, but that needs to be followed up by action"

CLES's Sean Benstead on BBC Politics this morning, talking growth plans, Green Book reform and the regeneration of Old Trafford.

Full episode here ➡️ www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

"Infant mortality rises for third consecutive year in England.

Risk of death for babies born in poorer areas is almost three times higher than in wealthier postcodes, figures show."

The UK is a declining econcomy with a few extremely rich people.
amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/n...

Quote from the Telegraph: "Labour will on Tuesday unveil a flagship back-to-work plan that does not include a crackdown on sickness benefits in the latest blow to business."

The Telegraph is furious that it hasn't got the ceremonial benefits bloodletting it was promised & has branded it "the latest blow to businesses" 🤣

Business owners around the country waking up this morning & thinking "What?! No crackdown on ill & disabled people? May as well just shut up shop then"

scrap that, this one turned out to be scarlet fever, another one of the victorian-sounding bugs off the bingo card 🥵💔

1. I’m thinking aloud here, as I really don’t have the answers. This is a thread about the political challenge of the very large numbers of young men now supporting the far right. I’m writing it without blame or derision. I’m just trying to find a way through. 🧵

atm AI is probably a lot quicker than you but worse than you at your research job 📚✍️ but if you've only got 2hrs to get it written... you may as well go with chatGPT?

The abolition of work is all well and good until one considers that I need an excuse to wear my little outfits.

Been meaning to buy a copy of Vulture Capitalism for a while now but turns out today is the day! 🤓

"In a truly free market society, pervasive private power of the kind wielded by Blackrock should not exist."

As Keir Starmer meets Blackrock head Larry Fink, I've published an excerpt from Vulture Capitalism on the rise of Blackrock, and Fink, on my Substack.
open.substack.com/pub/gracebla...

(poorly) baby daughter sleeping and snuggled into her dad on the sofa

little one has caught hand,foot&mouth for the second time since she started at nursery in OCTOBER. the barrage of bugs since her first day has been something else 🤧🫣 when will it end?

Today is equal pay day - the day when women in the UK effectively work for free for the rest of the year, because of the gender pay gap 🙃

To mark the occasion, I've made 'Women of the North' starter pack of the incredible northern women you need to follow...

go.bsky.app/P6Hu5Qk

Awesome! Just followed that mega list ✅ (& thanks for including me 🥹)

Our condolences to the family of John Prescott on his passing today.

An advocate for local and regional economies, John spoke at launch of CLES, and was President until 1997. Later, he wrote the foreword to this paper on the future of English regions: cles.org.uk/wp-content/u...

This one!

Nice to have an excuse to re-intro our lovely non-profit think-do tank! Get in touch for collabs to explore new ways to create economic systems change. & if you're an anchor institute and want to deliver more local wealth for your community... we'd love to work with you 📥🤝🌱