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Colin Talbot has had what can best be described as a ‘squiggly’ career. Leaving school (and home) at 16 in 1969 to go and work initially for ICI pharmaceuticals research, he didn’t become an academic until over two decades later (1990), after a very varied work history including manual jobs, being a telephone engineer, and being a local government officer.

Since then Colin spent nearly 3 decades as a full-time academic, and part-time consultant and adviser to various governments and public services in the UK and internationally.

Although he’s been thinking about human organisation, and especially why and how humans co-operate, for most of his adult life, Colin freely admits he’s never really thought much about co-operatives as such until fairly recently. He’s realised this ‘blind spot’ is not just a personal quirk, but seems deeply embedded in our public realm political-economy. This conversation explored why he thinks that is.