Politics Urgently Needs More Imagination. Competence Alone Will not Save us from this ‘Polycrisis’

Geoff Mulgan argues that the United Kingdom suffers from an “imagination gap” that impedes its ability to navigate multiple crises, manifest in short-sighted policies and over-reliance on past solutions. He explains how politics, financing, and academia contribute to the gap and provides historical examples where imaginative experimentation helped solve crises. Mulgan concludes that “it is assumed that progress depends on combining far-reaching imagination with highly competent implementation. Yet over the last few years, Britain has too often suffered from the opposite – stunted imagination and incompetent implementation. As we grapple with the polycrisis for (likely) years to come, we will need both imaginative creativity and good implementation. Competence alone will not save us.”