NewsUK NewsPoliticsThe National Conversation aims to ask everyday Brits their visions for the kind of country and community we want to live in as part of a huge national survey of what unites, and divides us00:01, 18 May 2026Why is it that some of life’s biggest questions we never get around to asking? I don’t mean the meaning of life or why Donald Trump is orange– but questions like what kind of country you want to live in? What kind of community do you want your kids or grandkids to grow up in?‌Sure, you get asked to vote in elections – but those tend to be about which Prime Minister you want - or perhaps more importantly - don’t want. They focus on how much tax you want to pay, how much should we spend on the NHS, what do we do about immigration?‌These are important questions, but because the electoral cycle is too short and the decisions often too immediate, they very rarely get to the fundamentals about what kind of country we want to build together. Yet without that vision it often feels like something is missing – that we lack a shared picture of what we have in common to bring the country together.‌READ MORE: EMBARGO 00.01 Brits invited to join ‘National Conversation’ to share visions for future of communities and countryREAD MORE: Labour leadership live: Brexit battle begins as Burnham and Streeting camps bid to succeed Keir StarmerThat feels even more true now. As politics fragments across five or six parties, every want-to-be Prime Minister is trying to get the 30% of support that might win them an election. None of them are really trying to appeal to even half of the country, let alone all of it.‌The era of politicians or leaders defining the nature of our country and communities has passed – we simply don’t trust them enough. So if that vision won’t come from our leaders – where will it come from?I think we already know the answer to that - It will come from you. And the good news is that for the first time there is a serious attempt to do this. It’s called the National Conversation and it starts today.Its aim is to ask each of us to set out our vision for the kind of country and community we want to live in. Through a national survey run by Oxford university and local conversations around the country – the plan is to enable everyone who wants to to set out our vision for the future.Article continues belowIt doesn’t have to be grand or complicated, it’s about our personal views on what unites us, what kind of communities we want to live in, what we think is important to share. In the past, people-powered research at this scale would have been impossible – too complicated and too costly.But AI enables us to get millions of points of data and map the themes that unite them. By the end of the summer the aim is to have mapped out what we have in common, what unites us and what kind of country and communities we want to live in. All based on our collective input.So please – take a few minutes to have your say on the country you want to see. Go to the survey here and share your vision for our shared future. It’s too important to leave to someone else.Brendan CoxBrendan Cox is Co-Founder of Together Coalition and a campaigner. He is the widower of Labour MP Jo Cox, who was murdered in her constituency on June 16, 2016Choose Daily Mirror as a 'Preferred Source' on Google News for quick access to the news you value.‌NHSDonald TrumpPolitics