TAP TALK: Its time to Start Talking Britain Up

TAP TALK is TAP's regular mailing to our 10,000 supporters. Get your copy direct to your inbox by signing up on our home page

30 September 2026

Yesterday, the Prime Minister told the Labour conference and the country that Britain isn't perfect. 

But he promised people "will believe again, we will hope again". 

We know the cost of living remains too high. Millions experience financial insecurity. Infrastructure needs investment. Housing is unaffordable for too many, and inequality holds people and communities back.

But there is another side to Britain that we don't talk about enough.

We are a wealthy, innovative and extraordinarily capable country.

We have world-class universities, science and research, creative industries, successful businesses and entrepreneurs, great cultural institutions, an extraordinary voluntary sector and communities full of people wanting to make things better.

Our problem isn't that Britain lacks talent, wealth or ideas.

It is that we don't always use them well enough—or share the prosperity they create widely enough.

And that is something we can change.

Britain can be ambitious again.

At Taxpayers Against Poverty, we don't believe campaigning against poverty should simply mean describing what's wrong. We want to talk about what Britain could become:

• Fewer people falling into poverty because we prevent it before it happens.

• Work and enterprise rewarded, with prosperity shared more fairly.

• Affordable homes built alongside the transport and infrastructure people need.

• Clean energy delivering warmer homes, lower bills and new industries.

• Towns and cities connected to opportunity.

• Entrepreneurs able to succeed regardless of where they started.

• A tax system that supports productive work while asking accumulated wealth and land to contribute fairly.

This isn't about lowering our ambitions because times are difficult.

It's about raising them.

From managing decline to creating prosperity

For too long, Britain's political conversation has focused on what we cannot afford.

We think there is a better question:

What could Britain achieve if we invested intelligently in preventing problems and creating prosperity?

That is why TAP has developed The Prevention Dividend.

Instead of waiting until people become homeless, sick, indebted or economically excluded and then spending billions dealing with the consequences, government should invest earlier where prevention works:

• Better housing and transport.

• Skills and enterprise.

• Warmer homes.

• Fairer taxation.

• Greater economic opportunity.

The return isn't simply lower future public expenditure.

It is prosperity created.

We want Britain to lead by example

Imagine Britain showing that a modern economy doesn't have to choose between economic success and social justice:

• Encourage enterprise and reduce inequality.

• Build wealth and share opportunity.

• Tackle climate change and lower household costs.

• Maintain strong public finances and prevent poverty.

Britain could become an international example of how innovation, enterprise and investment can go hand in hand with ensuring nobody is unnecessarily left behind.

That's a Britain worth talking up.

But positive change doesn't happen because somebody writes a good policy paper.

We have to campaign for it.

Powerful interests defend the status quo. Governments face immediate pressures. Long-term reforms get postponed. Good ideas disappear beneath tomorrow's headlines.

That's why TAP matters.

We take practical proposals directly to Government and Parliament. The Prevention Dividend, property-tax reform, Connected Britain, My Home Station, Green Prosperity and inclusive enterprise form one integrated agenda:

Prevent poverty. Build prosperity.

We don't expect Government to accept every proposal we make. But we will keep pushing, questioning, proposing and building support for reforms capable of making people's lives materially better.

And you make that possible.

Help us build the campaign

More than 10,000 people have joined the TAP movement.

To everyone who has donated already: thank you. Your support has enabled a small organisation to develop serious policy proposals, put them before decision-makers, engage MPs and build collaborations.

Now we need to increase that pressure.

We want to campaign for a Britain confident enough to reform what isn't working, invest in its future and ensure greater prosperity reaches everyone.

If you want to help us make that case, please support the campaign today.

Become a Prosperity Partner

A regular gift of £5, £10 or £20 a month gives us the dependable income we need to plan ahead and keep our campaigns moving.

Or:

Make a one-off donation

Britain has extraordinary strengths.

Let's stop allowing our national conversation to be dominated by everything we cannot do.

Let's talk Britain up—and then do the work required to make that optimism justified.

With best wishes,

Tom BurgessChief ExecutiveTaxpayers Against Poverty

P.S. Optimism without action changes nothing. TAP wants to turn positive ideas into practical reform—reducing the cost of living, preventing poverty and creating prosperity that reaches every part of Britain. Please become a Prosperity Partner today and help us make it happen.