If you read one thing from this list (pending) I would recommend this, from Philip McCann for the Productivity Institute, on the ways in which asymmetric capital shocks post 2008 financial crisis have led to entrenched adverse effects on the subsequent growth of productivity across UK regions. On issues I spend large chunks of time thinking about in relation to people’s quality of life and life outcomes (R&D, productivity, innovation, regional inequalities, work and dignity, economic and educational inequalities) it feels both significant and unexplored (other things are important too; but it doesn’t feel like there’s a shortage of discussion about planning reform, data centres, tax credits, skills gaps and so on). In many ways it feels emblematic of the British states tendency to self harm in the long term in pursuit of short term approval from specific subsets of the country - see also, this deep dive re the deliberate constraint of Birmingham’s economy postwar.