People. Fixing the system.
REMOVE PRIVATE INTEREST
FIX HARM
REWARD CREATION
We've had enough of systems that make us fat, stupid and poor because harm is profitable, education has failed, with most people owning nothing, whilst taking is rewarded more than making.
So, let's make addiction unprofitable, teach like the Finns, make every citizen an owner of society, reward making not taking and stop the system harming us.
All of this becomes more achievable the more we kick private interest out of politics.
— Max Quittenton, Interim Leader.
Speakers Corner, Hyde Park.
Every Sunday between 12 - 2pm.
Dress code: whatever you feel good in + a touch of hot pink.
Five ways to fix the system.
REMOVE PRIVATE INTEREST
MAKE HARM UNPROFITABLE
THE CITIZEN OWNER
REWARD MAKING NOT TAKING
TEACH LIKE THE FINNS
People are good. You, me, and we are the world's most valuable natural resource. Humankind's generosity — when properly supported — has the potential to create wealth that transcends not just economics, but imagination itself.
To maximise human flourishing. We aim to accelerate the move towards a society that provides individuals with the freedom, health and safety required to be who they want to be and to give what they want to give.
To design systems with love. Then earn the trust and respect necessary to build them. PIP's role is not to direct the goodness of people, but to recognise it — and to design systems accordingly. Systems that collectively make human flourishing inevitable — not just aspirational.
Many parts of the UK's systems do work — those parts need protecting. Sadly the same systems also harm us. We know what that harm is because we feel it. It shows up in our lives and the lives of our loved ones. The causation of the majority of the harm can be summarised by saying — private interest has nudged politics further and further away from serving the public interest. Removing private interest entirely from politics is unrealistic. However there are very significant improvements that can be made. First and foremost we must give politicians both the incentives and the necessary support to remove the majority of private interest from our politics. Only then can they truly get to work fixing harm and rewarding making, not taking.
Short-term, high impact
This is the keystone reform. If incentives at the top are wrong, everything downstream gets distorted.
Currently political parties rely on revenue generated from membership, events and donations to operate day-to-day and to run campaigns. By linking political funding directly to votes, parties are directly incentivised to win the support of the public — not private interests e.g. wealthy individuals, corporates, lobbyists and unions.
What people want to feel: "My vote actually matters now." Less cynicism, more engagement.
Note: Trust and engagement in politics is at an all time low. There is much more that can and should be done to make politics more engaging, accountable and credible. This is just the biggest, quickest, most cost-effective and impactful lever to pull. Labour brilliantly introduced the Representation of the People Bill recently, closing some loopholes to shut out foreign interests.
Timeframe —Immediate (1–2 years)
Proof of success —Measurable shift in policy focus toward broad public benefit. The end of large private donations. More votes cast.
Visible, emotional
History & many of today's global societal problems make it clear that simply banning things — does not work. Some examples of meaningful changes might be:
Treat addiction and harm as a system design failure, not just a personal failure. Stop creating conditions that incentivise business, corporates and criminal organisations to profit from harm.
Some examples of meaningful change:
Make extraction, addiction and harm more expensive than creating value. Prevention & contributing becomes more financially attractive. This is where people feel the system is personally failing them: health, mental health, food, tech addiction.
What people want to feel: "The system is finally on my side." Less blame, more support.
Timeframe —Short-term (2–5 years)
Proof of success —Reduced obesity and addiction rates. Lower NHS burden. Changes in product design across food, apps and alcohol.
Medium-term shift
Dramatically expand who automatically benefits from the system.
Right now wealth concentrates at the top. The public backs risk but doesn't share the upside. Incumbents, asset holders and corporates are favoured by policy.
After this: Citizens own an increasing slice of the system itself. If people don't own anything, they don't benefit from success.
What people want to feel: "I actually have a stake in this country." Not just wages — ownership.
Timeframe —Medium-term (5–10 years)
Proof of success —Growing sovereign fund. Monthly citizen dividend no matter how small. Reduced wealth inequality structurally, not artificially.
Economic engine
Make building the default path to success. Tax work, production and creation less and less.
Right now it is often easier to extract than create. After this it becomes easier to build than block. Not growth at all costs — but growth through real value creation.
What people want to feel: "It's finally worth trying to build something."
Timeframe —Medium-term (3–7 years)
Proof of success —Increased business formation. Increased housing and infrastructure delivery. Productivity growth.
Long-term societal reset
Finland leads the world in education. Let's learn from their success. They didn't achieve excellence by working harder within a broken system — they redesigned the system around trust, equity, and the recognition of human value.
In the 1970s Finland was a struggling agrarian economy with a mediocre two-tier school system. Their transformation into a global leader was a deliberate 40-year systems design project.
They now have:
The UK's challenges are larger but so are the opportunities. Finland's model offers the best possible proof of concept for larger countries like the UK.
Three keys to their success:
Timeframe —Long-term (10+ years)
Proof of success —Decrease in need for mental health support. Higher social mobility. Higher PISA scores. Teacher retention increases. Social cohesion. More mothers in government. Trust in society's systems. And a lot more time for sauna.
We don't need followers.theman@publicinterest.party
We need builders.
Which are you?
STAY UPDATED
By Max Quittenton, Founder & Interim Party Leader
Dont.
No really dont. I am and nothing motivates me more than when someone tells me not to. So yer, dont ;)
They tell you not to in all those ways we're used to when it comes to doing just about anything outside of predictable. Apparently, these well intended nay sayers can see the future. Well they can't can they. All they can see are the stories they have trapped themselves with.
I've always found if you do nothing, nothing happens. If you do something, something happens.
The best thing about not paying much attention at school is that it's been a damn sight easier to forget all the rubbish they tried to convince me of. If anyone tries to convince me they know what's actually going on — I don't listen. Nobody knows. No really, no one actually knows. It's super weird. Teachers on the other hand spent their entire careers telling us with certainty they knew what we needed to know and guess what — they didn't.
I trust scientists more than most because they are all in agreement that they don't really know what's going on. Sure, scientific understanding has not just opened the aperture it's allowed us to bend reality to our will. Which is fun but... reality is far far stranger than anything we can imagine or even tell each other about. It's there to be experienced, enjoyed, experimented with and explored from any and all angles.
You get to make sense of it yourself, on your own terms. Plenty of people want you to follow their story, believe what they believe but even if they did know that'd spoil all the fun. Not knowing is where the adventure really begins.
One of the first things people ask me is how do you start a political party? Like anything — you choose to. Exactly what happens after that... well I have no idea. We'll find out.
Democracy doesn't just happen by casting a vote. You, me and we have to make it happen. Holding the powerful to account is the most important function of democracy. Right now we have a situation where the most powerful people are not the people in government.
What we are living through is the rise of Brotocracy — which is essentially Kleptocracy in a t-shirt.
Great men give their gifts away, freely. Then there are those who do philanthropy. Those who now find themselves in that predicament of having more capital to allocate than most medium sized countries — these poor little darlings are not to blame. More often than not they've gotten there by working hard and creating unbelievable value for the rest of us — they have earned the right to be intolerable. And even if they didn't good luck to them. Life is not fair. But! Society should be. And who has more responsibility than most for society... well yes politicians but really — you do. And me. My point is — we're all complicit. We've all allowed this to happen. Been perpetrators and victims. Deciding who's to blame or who is the most virtuous is not working — it'll never work. It'll only ever divide us into smaller and smaller groups. So, how about we stop doing that? How about — no one is to blame. How about — we're all to blame. How about we all take responsibility and recognise that it is our systems and stories that are hurting us, making us angry, poor, fat and stupid. This is where we need to pour our attention. How do we fix our systems? What does fix even mean? Let's start with reducing harm. How about that?
If you really need an enemy to get angry at then may I offer you my personal favourite. The devil, most of you seem to call him alcohol. If you really think about it long enough you'll realise it is him. A suave, sophisticated confident — a malign spirit, a daemon, a fallen god — that'll encourage the worst bits of you to come out and ruin just about everything. To reward himself he'll gradually sneak everything of any value out of your pocket and into his. Some say money is the root of all evil but money is rarely responsible for getting vomit on anything.
And if alcohol is the Devil it leaves me wondering where the rest of those characters are... some of us know. Most of us don't. I didn't until fairly recently. Saying alcohol is the devil sounds like a call for prohibition. But it's not — because we are already living in prohibition. I am doing the opposite. I am calling for the end of prohibition together with the end of profiting from addiction and harm.
The biggest harm of all is being inflicted by alcohol — so let's face that first.
There is no political expert out there that would recommend taking this position — is there? Well screw it. If all I wanted was power I'd have made very different choices in life. I want the best time possible and the only way that happens is if everyone else is.
Everyone seems to believe alcohol is too popular, that there is too much money made. People just want to have fun. Be able to relax. Socially lubricate. Drink in moderation. Just have one every now and then. Yes, yes, yes. Haven't you had enough of the bargaining yet?
Alcohol hurts us in ways you don't need me to describe. Just look into your own experiences. What it's done to loved ones, friends, family and even those you just chance past on the street. It is the single biggest cause of harm in our culture and we're doing next to nothing meaningful to address it.
The numbers alone are staggering. 28 people per day are killed directly from alcohol. Not through contributing to the most lethal long-term diseases — which it absolutely accelerates, dramatically. I am talking directly killed, today. A&Es on weekends are a war zone. £30bn of the NHS's £200bn budget is spent on dealing with the direct fallout — domestic violence, street violence, almost any violence, overdosing, drink driving, accidents — then there is productivity loss and broken families. And those are just the big hitters. It doesn't account for all the boorish miserable wobbly behaviour we're all inflicting on each other every single time we get together. Enough is enough and it's not just me thinking this. It's mostly younger people seeing through the hazy mirage that swallowed so many of me and my contemporaries.
So yes, the devil. I, we — are coming for you. And no. We're not going to let our hatred for you bring the worst out in us. We're not going to demonise those who dance with you. We're not even going to shut you out. We're just going to uncloak you and shake you from our daily lives by unhooking you from capitalism. Good luck sneaking in without branding and profit to disguise your intent. Perhaps we should even make you free to the most addicted, provide them with a safe medical setting to get their fix with the support of sympathetic professionals. That'll really unmask you.
This all sounds very un-fun doesn't it. Anti everything? Well I am not at all. I am just anti profiting from harm. That's it. Ok, maybe I am anti alcohol — but can you blame me?
Let's lead the world in something worthwhile. Let's give alcohol its smoking moment and while we're at it let's hit sugar and ultra processed food with the same treatment.
And at the same time, let's phase out prohibition altogether. Step 1 is rescheduling all the substances with evidence of medicinal benefit — of which there are many — to Schedule 2. There is huge potential here but I'll need more than 1,500 words to elaborate meaningfully. Step 2 might well be decriminalising the user. But let's be very careful. Alcohol and nicotine serve as a stark warning for how not to do it.
So there you have it. How to start a political party. Be repeatedly told don't — then choose just about the most culturally nuclear enemy possible. Oh, make sure you have no idea what you are doing and just keep going.
Speeches, conversations and ideas.
Public Interest Party — Interim Constitution
Politics in Britain is broken. Not because of bad people but because of a bad system. A system where private money buys public policy. Where party loyalty matters more than public interest. Where careers matter more than constituents.
The Public Interest Party exists to fix the system. Not to replace one set of rulers with another. But to change the rules themselves.
We are a party of independents united by a common purpose. Evidence over ideology. Reason over loyalty. Public interest over private gain.
The sole purpose of the Public Interest Party is to serve the public interest.
The public interest is defined as the greatest wellbeing of the greatest number of people over the longest possible timeframe. Including future generations.
Every decision, every policy, every vote by every PIP representative shall be measured against this single standard.
Policy must be grounded in the best available evidence. Where evidence is unclear we say so honestly. Where evidence evolves our positions evolve with it. We have no ideology to protect. Only the truth to pursue.
Every PIP representative is independent. They are elected to serve their constituents and the public interest. Not the party. Not donors. Not career. There are no whips. There is no party line. There is only conscience guided by evidence.
Every penny of PIP funding is publicly visible. Every decision making process is open. We have nothing to hide because we take nothing that creates the need to hide.
We tell the truth even when it is unpopular. About alcohol. About addiction. About wealth. About what works and what doesn't. Political honesty is not a weakness. It is the foundation of genuine trust.
We do not have all the answers. We will make mistakes. When we do we say so and correct course. A party that cannot admit error cannot learn. A party that cannot learn cannot govern.
PIP stands on six pillars. These are non negotiable. Any representative speaking or acting under the PIP name must uphold all six.
PIP accepts no donations from corporations, lobbying organisations or individuals whose primary interest is financial return on that donation.
PIP accepts small donations from individuals who share our values with no expectation of policy influence.
All funding is publicly declared in real time on our website. Every penny in. Every penny out.
State funding linked to votes received shall be the primary long term funding model for all political parties. Achieving this is PIP's first legislative priority.
Any person may stand as a PIP candidate provided they:
There are no whips. Representatives who find their evidence based judgement conflicts with the majority of PIP colleagues are free to vote their conscience provided they explain their reasoning publicly and transparently.
Misrepresentation of PIP values is the only ground for removal of the PIP name. The values are written here. Either you represent them or you do not.
The PIP Leader acts as a Guardian.
The Guardian's role is to protect the values of the party, represent PIP publicly and model what a PIP representative looks like in practice.
The Guardian has no power to instruct representatives how to vote. No power to expel members without community agreement. No power to accept funding or make policy commitments without transparent process.
The Guardian serves at the pleasure of the PIP community and may be replaced by community vote at any time.
The Treasurer is the most trusted role in PIP because clean funding is the foundation of everything we stand for.
The Treasurer publishes complete accounts in real time. No exceptions.
The Treasurer may not accept any funding that would not withstand full public scrutiny.
The Treasurer is appointed by community vote and serves transparently.
When evidence is clear — follow it.
When evidence is unclear — say so honestly and explain the uncertainty.
When values conflict — return to the core question. What serves the public interest most fairly over the longest timeframe?
When PIP representatives disagree — let them disagree publicly with full transparency of reasoning. Evidence based disagreement is democracy working. It is never a crisis.
The four questions every PIP decision must answer:
This constitution may be amended by community vote with full transparent debate.
No amendment may contradict the core purpose in Article 1 or remove the six pillars in Article 3 without a full public consultation.
The constitution belongs to the community not the leadership.
We are not here to win power for its own sake.
We are here because the window to fix democracy from within is still open. Just.
We are here because people deserve a system that serves them.
We are here because the evidence is clear and somebody has to say it out loud.
We are a party of independents. United by purpose. Guided by evidence. Accountable to everyone.