Ben Cooper

I'm honoured to have been selected by @MHPC for their 30 to Watch Politics award for under-30s. I've been selected alongside some other amazing young people. And I couldn't have done it without amazing team at @thefabians. #30ToWatchPolitics

📺 Watch the full discussion about our new report 'Housing the Future' with @BenCooper1995 and Palma Oxley from our new explainer series 'The Briefing' on YouTube👇 youtu.be/KvvJtCICODo?si…

🎙️Hear from Head of the Fabian Housing Centre, and author of Housing the Future @BenCooper1995 about his new report 👇

Read Housing the future here 👇 fabians.org.uk/publication/ho…

Increasing rural, remote and island housing supply through a statutory ‘right to build’ for small community schemes, a single permanent ‘Building Rural and Island Housing Fund’ worth £20m per year, and support for self-builders.

Reshaping affordable and social housing funding by introducing a five-year, inflation-linked settlement for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (£6.5bn in real terms over five years), with a further five-year indicative settlement, and creating a £500m Social Housing Quality Fund over ten years.

Recommendations include reforming the planning system to restore a presumption in favour of sustainable development and create simple decision making in places where development already exists; and allowing councils to set planning fees to recover costs.

The report sets out a blueprint for housing in Scotland, including a fresh target of 350,000 homes by 2036

Nine of the top 10 worst years for housebuilding since the second world war have occurred since 2007

This is equivalent to the size of Edinburgh or twice the size of Aberdeen

Modelling shows this leaves a total shortfall of a quarter of a million homes against the SNP's 2007 pledge

Rather than increasing, annual housebuilding is down 26 per cent since 2007-08, with just 19,177 homes completed in 2024–25 – from a peak of 25,788 in 2007–08

📢 New Report - Housing the Future: How Scotland can build homes again, by @BenCooper1995 for @ScottishFabians and Fabian Housing Centre Unambitious policy choices have created Scotland’s worst housebuilding slump since the Second World War 🧵

📢 New Report - Adopt, Innovate, Transform by Senior Researcher @sasjkia, supported by @FDA_union. As artificial intelligence plays an increasingly prominent role in our lives, the government is rightly using its potential to rewire the state. The long-term efficacy and sustainability of our public services will rely on finding smarter, more efficient ways to deliver for the public. Drawing on survey data and insights from three focus groups, this report examines the challenges civil servants face in shaping the government’s AI agenda. It sets out five priorities to help address these challenges and unlock the full potential of the workforce. 🧵

Our Head of Editorial, @IggyWood, talks through our latest member mailing - featuring the spring edition of Fabian Review, 'Winning Women', and our new pamphlet on the UK-EU relationship, 'Pressing Reset'. Landing on doorsteps soon!

For avoidance of any doubt. No, we at @YouGov have not changed *any* methods in response to Farage or Reform. What we have agreed to do moving forward is publish an extra question in all our VI tables. And we *never* made/make ‘tactical voting adjustments’ to our headline VI.

Labour is at risk of being ejected out of power by a populist wave from Reform and the Greens. So how should the party respond? I argue in my @labourlist column that Labour embrace its own authentic tradition of populism. labourlist.org/2026/03/ben-co…

Considering the last week, a room full of millionaires mocking a working class caretaker with Tourette’s is not a good look. It is not brave. It is not edgy. It is punching down at a disabled man who cannot control his neurological condition. After everything he has endured, that is not comedy. It is cruelty dressed up as it.

Sorry for more Tourette's discourse but I'm upset

Biggest point of ‘I Swear’ inspired by John Davidson, that goes viral was this scene, for a reason. It's trying to normalize tourettes and explain to people that they can't control it. Forcing a person who has tourettes to apologize for every single thing is hell, shame on you.

This Labour government succeeded where the Tories failed – legislating to abolish Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and transform private renting. Now Reform want to repeal our Renters’ Rights Act and deny tenants the security, rights and protections they’ve secured. Disgraceful.