The British Left used to build. Not just dream, not just debate, not just deliver softly worded white papers. It built. It built the NHS, social housing, the Open University, railways, clean water systems, the very bricks of Britain’s post-war prosperity. It turned ambition into institutions.

It made progress tangible, something you could live in, be treated by, go to school in. Now? We can’t even build a wind farm without a decade of consultation, a planning inquiry, and a protest about newts. The party of Attlee is fast becoming the party of big speeches and broken pavements. And while we faff around, Britain stagnates. Our homes are unaffordable, our infrastructure is ancient, our productivity flatter than a pancake. Our energy bills are sky-high.

Our trains are slower than they were in the ‘70s. Our politicians around every issue, terrified of backlash and incapable of bold delivery. Somewhere along the way, progressives lost sight of progress. Worse still, we let the right monopolise the word growth and turn it into a synonym for trickle-down economics and shareholder handouts.

We let them redefine aspiration as greed, prosperity as elitism, and abundance as some decadent royal feast — gilded, gluttonous, and out of reach for the rest of us. And what did we do? The Left turned inward, philosophising about fulfilment while the country demanded infrastructure, investment, and boldness.

Because here’s the simple truth: growth is a progressive value. It always was. It’s what built the future last time, and it’s the only thing that can do it again now. When we talk about economic growth, we’re not talking about numbers on a spreadsheet or yachts in Monaco. We’re talking about capacity — the capacity to build, to solve, to deliver. Growth isn’t about more for the sake of more. It’s about better.

Better homes, built where people want to live. Better energy, clean and cheap and everywhere. Better work, driven by technology that liberates rather than exploits, augments rather than replaces. Real infrastructure, everything from broadband to battery storage, railways to rooftop solar.

That’s the vision the newly launched Centre for British Progress is putting on the table. Set up by a coalition of progressive thinkers, tech reformers, and campaigners, the Centre for British Progress isn’t here to write more policy pamphlets for dusty bookshelves. It’s here to fight for a political reset, where the left stands unapologetically for abundance, human flourishing, and delivery that people can actually feel.

Backed by Labour MPs like Chris Curtis & Yuan Yang, advised by campaigning visionaries like Hannah O’Rourke, and steered by some of the brightest science & technology talents in the country, the Centre for British Progress has one mission: to make the progressive case for growth so compelling, so loud, and so rooted in real people’s lives that the government has no choice but to act.

I don’t think they’re here to nudge Labour, they’re here to hold Labour’s feet to the fire. People aren’t dreaming, they’re drained. They’re done waiting. They waited through austerity. Waited through the pandemic. Waited through Partygate, Brexit chaos, stagnation. Now Labour has the keys. The time for excuses is over. If you can’t build the future now, when will you?

And let’s be clear: if Labour fails to show it can deliver real material change — visible, tangible, felt on every high street and housing estate — it won’t just lose votes. It’ll lose the mandate, the moment, and the movement. The disillusioned aren’t sitting quietly. They’re drifting, angrily, towards Reform UK. Not because they love Farage, but because he sounds like he’s offering action when everyone else offers excuses.

That’s the vacuum Labour risks creating. Not just a lost mandate, but lost generations, handed over to chippy populists happy to trade resentment for power. It’s not enough to not be the Tories. That’s not a plan, that’s a vacuum. People rightly
want warmth, safety, mobility, and dignity, and they want it fast.

That means housebuilding on a post-war scale. It means energy independence through nuclear, wind and solar. It means a planning system that works for the next generation, not just the loudest local councillor, or elderly homeowner. It means saying the quiet part out loud: scarcity is a political choice. It’s not natural. It’s not noble. It’s just bad government.

And it means confronting Labour’s comfort zone. Because too much of the current Labour movement is still stuck in the management mindset — tweaking the system, keeping its head down, terrified of tabloid headlines. It risks becoming a party that has power, but forgets how to use it, or why working class people even gave it to them in the first place.

That’s the role that the Centre for British Progress is taking — not to throw rocks from the sidelines, but to get their hands dirty and change the conversation. They embody a pro-growth, pro-tech, pro-building agenda that’s rooted in working class Labour values. The Left must not be afraid to say: yes, we want more. Not for shareholders, but for working class people.

Because the stakes are too high. If Labour fails to seize this moment, if it lets fear of backlash override the need for action, it will not only waste its mandate, but will hand the country back to the reactionaries. To those who believe Britain can’t build, can’t lead, can’t thrive. And the worst part? People will believe them. Because they’ll be the only ones offering a direction, even if it's backwards.

So let’s get serious. The future won’t wait. Growth isn’t optional. It’s the foundation of everything we care about — dignity, freedom, opportunity. And the left must reclaim it, not as an apology, but as a mission. That’s what the Centre for British Progress is here for. Not to write essays in silence, but to kick the door down and say: no more drift. No more dithering. No more polite decay. Either the left builds again, or it makes way for those who will.