Author: Ben Cope

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Labour has already opened the door for the Conservatives – or someone else

Like a midwinter’s morning, the new dawn broke with a shrug. Labour’s historic landslide, a mere seven weeks old, already has a greyish pallor, opening the door for another party disciplined enough to shine brighter.

That ‘Boring Keir Starmer’ was pure optics was clear to anyone with an eye on the quiet radicalism of Labour’s policy announcements in opposition. In public, stability, security and responsibility. In private, the foaming fanaticism of a party that was in the darkness for too long, promising ‘new deals’ for anyone or anything.

Such boldness is necessary given our predicament. The brokenness of Britain was the reason voters gave the Tories the boot. Fixing it requires a break from the status quo. Starmer was correct to target the country’s anaemic economic growth. So much of our present discontent – cratering public services, crumbling infrastructure and historic tax rates – is rooted in the fact that real average weekly earnings are lower than in 2008, and £272 below the pre-Financial Crisis trend. Debates on immigration are a distraction.

Since sunrise on 5th July, we’ve begun to see what these new deals entail. It has been deeply disappointing. Supercomputers scrapped, unions paid off with inflation-busting packages with no corresponding commitments of productivity improvements, only an invitation to come back for more, repeals of strike laws, threatening to slow Britain to a 1970s-style halt, and new housing targets, so unambitious that the country’s capital had its target cut.

With the country either on holiday, enjoying a summer of sport, or making the most of their supposed new ‘right to log off’, Starmer’s new Labour government hasn’t faced the scrutiny that this combination of unforced errors deserves. But his reckoning will come. You cannot declare growth a “national mission” and then undermine the conditions for it. Ed Miliband expending political capital overruling overzealous locals to build green infrastructure is welcome, but that alone won’t cut it.

Predictably, Starmer is asking the British public to be patient. “We will do the hard work to root out 14 years of rot … [but] it’s going to be painful … to accept short term pain for long term good.” Such was the hatred for the late Conservative government, unparalleled in modern times, that this will resonate for a while.

But there will come a time, late in his term, when the public’s good grace ends. They will look around and see that the man who promised them growth, who promised them a better life, has failed to deliver it. That the cause was tinkering with the National Planning Policy Framework or ditching the exascale will be irrelevant. After twenty years of comparative decline, watching other countries grow richer, Britain will become tired of being poor.

Having only just wrestled the highest honour of ‘who do you trust most with the economy’ from the Conservatives, Starmer could throw it all away. Ghosts of Labour leaders gone by were haunted by the slogan ‘Labour isn’t working’. The prize for teaching the public that they still don’t is there for the taking.

In the past, one would expect the Conservatives, after a false start or two, to rise to the occasion. But they start this race from unusually far back. Rishi Sunak’s disastrous election result has gutted the Parliamentary party, Liz Truss’ 49-day drive-by in Downing Street obliterated the Conservative’s reputation as the party of economic stability, and austerity, Brexit and the persistent sacrificing of young people at the expense of their older voter base means their situation may be irredeemable.

The other parties face different problems. The Liberal Democrats and Greens are awash with growth-crushing NIMBYs, the latter of which openly oppose growth on a philosophical level. While Reform, despite talking a good game on increasing productivity, will struggle to free itself from the populist cage it has constructed around itself, and, of course, carries baggage that puts them beyond the pale for most.

So, who will rise to the occasion, an existing party or one yet to be formed? Only time will tell. But to beat Starmer, they will have to learn from him. In just five years, he rescued Labour from the grip of Trotskyist feuds with ruthless discipline and serious politics. It’s just a shame Starmer can’t do serious policy as well.  

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The Westminster bubble gossips as Britain falls apart

Lindsay Hoyle, Lee Anderson and Angela Rayner: none of these political dramas solve ordinary people’s problems.

Lindsay Hoyle accused after breaking pledge to give SNP new Gaza ceasefire vote. The official NHS waiting list stands at 7.6 million, although the true figure is thought to be far higher. Rishi Sunak struggles to contain Islamophobia fallout over Lee Anderson’s comments. The United Kingdom has fallen into a technical recession, with real wages still lower than pre-financial crisis levels. Rayner hits back after being branded ‘hypocrite’ over house sale. Britain’s 4.3 million “missing” homes renders housing as unaffordable as it was in 1876.

The gulf between Westminster’s chattering classes and ordinary Britons has never been wider. Politicians and politicos have spent recent days gossiping about personalised political dramas of little wider significance – from Lindsay Hoyle to Lee Anderson and Angela Rayner – all the while, Britain becomes an objectively worse place to live. The public wants a reason to hope, but ideas and action are foreign currency in a Westminster bubble where gossip is the unit of exchange. Soon, the pressure will be on Keir Starmer to stop the rot.

Some will say this is unfair; that the controversies of recent days are genuine scandals that require wall-to-wall investigation. But even where this is true, the important details are squeezed out so all that remains is a meaningless, gossipy pulp. 

Whether the Speaker dispensed with convention due to threats from pro-Palestinian extremists is a matter of constitutional importance, yet most of the discussion has focused on the politics of the debate, i.e. why the SNP amendment was problematic for Labour and whether it should be re-tabled. Who cares? The public deserves to hear about a genuine constitutional crisis, but instead they’re handed a blow-by-blow account from inside the spin-rooms of each party, and lessons in arcane parliamentary procedure to rival Brexit prorogations.

The same is true for the Anderson story. Obviously, Anderson was wrong to suggest London Mayor Sadiq Khan was in the pocket of Islamic extremists. He refused to apologise, so had the whip removed. Case closed? Of course not. There’s seemingly unlimited mileage in the Palestine/Israel vs Labour/Conservative story – despite the issue having no direct relevance to the lives of most Britons – so on it goes. Whether Anderson joins Reform is treated as a matter of national importance.

Likewise, Rayner may well have questions to answer about the information she provided local authorities about her living arrangements. As she’s Deputy Leader of the Opposition, it’s reasonable for that to be newsworthy. But given the potential infraction appears minor, and one that occurred before Rayner entered politics, it’s hardly groundbreaking. And of course, the ‘revelation’ has only come about because of an unofficial biography by a former Deputy Chairman of the Conservatives.

At this point, I feel I should apologise for this tired account of the Westminster news cycle… because it is tiring. Britain faces very real problems: from ‘our’ sclerotic NHS, to the stagnant economy and exorbitant housing costs. All of these are making life in this country measurably worse, yet the only conversation Westminster is capable of having is: to scalp, or not to scalp?

Westminster seems incapable of solving any of these problems. With endless recesses, Parliament barely sits, and even when it does, it passes very little legislation. Take a look at the active Bills in Parliament that have made it beyond second reading and witness the sparsity of the legislative agenda. What big ideas is Rishi Sunak rushing to implement before the election? You’d get a better sense looking at the front pages than Hansard. All talk, no action.

Westminster losing its capacity to discuss and address important issues isn’t new. Rather, there’s been a gradual erosion in politician’s confidence – and the media’s expectations – in their ability to effect change within their role. How could you not, when all the problems we knew about 10 years ago have steadily got worse? In response, many politicians now see themselves more as entertainers and commentators than legislators, with Anderson and Jacob Rees-Mogg hosting shows on GB News, Jess Phillips starting a podcast, and Neil O’Brien taking up Substack.

The result? An ever changing sea of politicians cum-media talking heads, fortunes rising and falling with meaningless stories, preaching about what needs to be done to a despairing public who just want them to actually do something. Frivolous, introspective and decadent, it gives end-of-days vibes.

Should he win the coming election, Keir Starmer will face huge pressure to turn this around and show the problem is the Conservatives’ and not Westminster in general. Even if Labour are content to play the gossip-game for the moment (there’s no incentive for them to show their hand this early), one can hope the radicalism of the National Policy Framework’s draft manifesto translates to action in government. Whatever your politics, surely movement in any direction is better than the present paralysis.

Andrew Neil went viral for describing Britain’s situation as “dangerous”, suggesting mass unrest. I disagree. If Starmer fails, don’t expect Britain to go out with a bang, but with a whimper. Yeats was wrong for saying the centre will not hold – sometimes it does. Civilisations don’t always fall and burn like Rome. Sometimes, they just decay. Look at Venice. We should all hope Starmer can be bold when it counts. 

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140 million Britons: Why mass immigration will get Britain moving again. 

Submission to TxP Progress Prize. Question title: ‘Britain is stuck. How can we get it moving again?’ Link to brief – https://txp.fyi/progress-prize. 

By Ben Cope and James Lawrence 

In September 2020, journalist and Substack author Matthew Yglesias published One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger. In his book, Yglesias argues that America is not overcrowded and needs a substantially larger population to compete with rivals such as China and India in the future. We recommend taking a similar approach in Britain, using immigration to grow our population by 1% every year to reach 140 million by 2100. 

Demographics are the key to long-term success, but its twin components are under threat in Britain. The fertility rate is low and falling, and natalist policies designed to increase it are likely ineffective. Immigration, on the other hand, though high, is unpopular and therefore at risk. We propose a system to bolster immigration’s popularity by prioritising both economic and cultural prosperity, safeguarding Britain’s demographics and long-term success. 

This country is rapidly resembling a geriatric ward. Fertility rates have been below replacement levels – 2.1 children per woman – since the early 1970s and are continuing to fall (currently at 1.55). At this rate, Britain’s native population will soon peak, before beginning to atrophy. Britain will become a land of pensioners, with nearly a quarter of the population being over 65 in 2035.

The results of this are well-documented. Older populations are less productive, grow slower, and lack innovation.1 In democracies, inverted population pyramids also skews politics towards the grey vote. This means higher spending on healthcare and pensions (which already accounts for over 30% of government expenditure), less long-term investment and more risk aversion. Stagnation becomes self-fulfilling. From a geopolitical perspective, flatlining populations and growth leaves us comparatively weak. We believe Britain has a role to play in defending liberal democracy in the future, and that this is therefore unacceptable. 

Like Yglesias, we acknowledge there are two potential solutions: create more people or invite more people. The first of these, the natalist cause, has rapidly risen up the political agenda recently. The more sensible policy remedies take either a libertarian or socialist feminist approach, including proposals to reduce childcare and housing costs and promote flexible work. Less practical have been socially conservative and paternalistic suggestions of creating a pro-natalist culture. Demographer Paul Moreland, for example, drew ridicule for suggesting the government tax the childless. 

But natalist policies – even the most sensible ones – lack evidence of success. The baby bust isn’t solely a British phenomenon, but one afflicting most of the world. Every developed country – bar Israel – has a fertility rate below replacement levels, as well as many developing countries such as India, Vietnam and Brazil. Several of these countries are putting natalist policies into practice, but to no avail.2 Hungary’s expensive natalist programme has failed to significantly reinvigorate its fertility rate, while the cost of childcare appears to have no correlation to births.34 Although we support supply-side measures that improve equality and deliver an economic return even if unsuccessful (i.e. more mothers working due to reduced childcare costs), they cannot be relied upon to increase Britain’s population. 

That leaves Yglesias’ other solution: import more people. But the British public don’t want it. Today’s high net migration figures – up to three quarters of a million a year – are grossly unpopular. The public consistently say they want lower immigration, and have supported parties and campaigns which promise it, whether that be the Conservatives, Ukip or Brexit. As such, politicians feel compelled to talk tough on immigration, even if, knowing slashing immigration would poleax the economy, they increase numbers through the backdoor (see Student visas, social care and teaching).5 But such deceptions can only ever be a short-term solution and threaten immigration in the long-run. 

It’s possible to create a land of 140 million Britons by 2100. Protestations about Britain being ‘full’ are simply false. In our model, in 2100, Britain would still use over 50% of its land for agriculture (down from 63% today), while maintaining urban density levels and green spaces. Heavy rainfall means water shortages are not an issue – unlike in most of the world given climate change – so long as we fix leakages and domestic regional disparities, while supplies of electricity, infrastructure and public services can all be maintained by a strong economy and sound planning system. Additional housing can be built simply by meeting the current 300,000 per year target (until 2040, conveniently when many planning authorities’ local plans will be updated), while the supply of talented immigrants is effectively unlimited for this century at least.6 

The stumbling block to achieving 140 million Britons is not physical, but cultural. For example, a survey of Ukip voters showed many would soften their stance on immigration if reassured about assimilation. We therefore need to create a popular immigration system that addresses these concerns while increasing Britain’s population by the necessary 1% per year. To achieve this, we should reform our work visa system and revolutionise how we communicate it – putting culture and transparency front and centre.

The Economist may have read the polls correctly when it said: “British voters want more immigrants but less immigration too,” but this underplays the public’s legitimate concerns. ‘Unskilled’ immigration lowers the wages of native workers in those industries, although it also lowers costs for everyone else. And immigration can lead to cultural change people are uncomfortable with, particularly when immigrants’ cultures are radically different from Britain’s. Acknowledging immigration can have trade-offs shouldn’t be taboo. Sweeping reasonable concerns under the carpet undermines trust in politics and grants undue legitimacy to racist Far Right politics.7 

We therefore recommend reforming the visa system to prioritise Britain’s economic and cultural prosperity. In practice, this means introducing a tiered points-based system, whereby more culturally similar countries have lower points requirements than those less similar.8 Countries would be regularly sorted by a list of metrics, such as GDP per capita, support for democracy and attitudes towards women.9 Australians – and indeed Botswanans – would currently find it easy to move here on work visas; Iranians and Sudanese less so. The aims, processes and outcomes of this new system would be communicated transparently. 

This system would have its critics. Some would accuse it of prejudice. However, it’s our view that culture is important, differences between cultures affect the tendency to assimilate, and that Britain’s immigration system should reflect this.10 And although others would claim this system tars everyone in a country with the same brush, the alternative of one-on-one interviews with trained immigration officials wouldn’t be cost-effective, while tests to work out prospective immigrants’ values would – like the current citizenship test – prove ineffective. 

An intentional policy of increasing a country’s population in this manner would be without historical precedent. It will be critical that beyond creating a system that can be ‘sold’ to the public, institutions are put in place to ensure immigrants can assimilate and be successful, otherwise public support will rightly dissipate. If we cannot build at least 300,000 houses per year, for example, this policy is a non-starter. 

For years, immigration has found support among politicos and business leaders but proven unpopular with the public. We hope this system means immigration can work for everyone. 

Ben Cope is a strategic communications professional and political commentator. 

James Lawrence is a Liberal Democrat councillor and Physics teacher.

Annex 

Given the word limit, we’ve approached this as an opinion piece rather than a policy paper. There are, however, several points which we think would benefit from further explanation and evidencing, in particular, the population modelling methodology we have used. We understand this may be seen as a way of ‘gaming’ the word limit, so we have kept this section short and also understand if it cannot be part of the judging process.

Our base data set used the 2020 ONS data for births, deaths and net migration projections to 2045. We used the stated ONS figures for 2020 and 2021, with modelled births and deaths thereafter. ONS TFR numbers for 2020-2023 were used, with births=(TotalPop*TFR/2)/BirthFactor with the divisor birth factor calibrated from the 2020 and 2021 data. The death rate each year was calculated from the 2020 ONS projections and applied: deaths=TotalPop*DeathRate. TFR was linearly scaled between ONS 2025 prediction (1.53) and 2045 prediction (1.59), and thereafter linearly increased up to 1.73 in line with long-term TFR predictions.

We modelled seven different immigration scenarios: zero net migration, +100,000, +250,000, +500,000, +750,000, and 1% and 2% population growth. You can see the projections mapped below. 

All scenarios with net immigration 250k or greater, used these TFRs and death rates. For the 100k immigration scenario, we kept the TFR at 1.53 from 2025 onwards and incremented the death rate by 0.00002 per year beyond 2045. For 0 net migration we linearly scaled TFR from 1.53 in 2025 to 1.3 in 2100, and incremented the death rate by 0.00004 per year beyond 2045. This is to reflect the steady drop in native birth rate and therefore the relative increase in the rate of death as the rate of narrowing of the population pyramid increases.

Household requirement was determined by dividing the population increase by 2.4, the average household size.

The quality of our prediction drops the further from the original 2020 ONS data scenario that we diverge, as we do not model the population by age strata. By looking at similar types of projections in research papers, our model – even with the TFR and death rate adjustments in the low migration scenarios – undersells the population decrease, and oversells the amount of migration required for 140 million population prediction.

The full data set and graphed models can be provided on request.

Endnotes

1.  We acknowledge there are more recent papers on these three points, but we think they make the points most effectively.

2.  This is a potentially controversial statement, but we would ask natalist policy proponents to point to a single country where natalist policies have increased fertility, where it is likely the main cause. Efforts in China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Poland and many others have led to no discernible increase. 

3.  We note that although Hungary’s fertility rates have risen slightly since natalist policies were introduced, the increase has tracked similar rises in other Eastern European countries such as Czechia and Poland, where such policies were not in place. 

4.  For example, Aria Babu from the Policy Exchange points out that: “In Austria, the cost of a nursery place for two kids is 3% of an average woman’s income, whereas in Switzerland it costs 64% of her income, and those countries have the exact same birth rate.” Clip available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=gXcZnif4ne_01Q5l&v=NDkz8TFDsQ8&feature=youtu.be. 

5.  Ben wrote about this phenomenon recently for Reaction – https://reaction.life/conservatives-immigration-student-visa/. 

6.  In How Migration Really Works, Hain de Haas argued that falling global fertility rates mean immigration can only ever be a short-term solution to ageing populations. However, he comes to this conclusion using long-termist time frames outside of our scope. 

7.  We note the increase in ‘bell curve’ discourse among politically engaged accounts on social media. For example, popular accounts such as cremieuxrecueil frequently make assertions about the relative IQs of different ethnicities. This political economy played out this week when the University of Amsterdam published a report suggesting Somali immigrants have cost the state of the Netherlands significantly more than any other country. Report available here: https://demo-demo.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Borderless_Welfare_State-2.pdf. These views no doubt filter down into wider discourse, creating the illusion of legitimacy. 

8.  We would also recommend additional reforms to the system, including a removal of the cap on skilled migrants and a simplification of the process required to prove English language capability. The process to obtain citizenship should also be reformed so that it is a relatively swift, low-cost and accessible route to citizenship. 

9.  Other examples of potential metrics include: crime levels, violence levels, separation between church and state, attitudes towards ethnic minorities, and attitudes towards homosexuality. 

10.  This paper is instructive on this point: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-015-0552-1.

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Tories should stop pandering to boomers, tax them back to work 

The Conservatives must counter the narrative that they’re the party of the elderly by taking a hard line on older voters — even if that means forgoing the next election

The trouble with the Conservative Party right now is they don’t realise they’re already dead. And so, they continue pandering to older voters in the false hope it will bring them electoral salvation, when in reality they’re only digging their graves deeper still. 

This time, the government is trying to lure over 50s, who have driven a sharp national increase in economic inactivity since the pandemic, back into the workplace by exempting them from income tax entirely — perhaps for a year. 

The move is clear proof that the popular view of Conservatives as the party of the elderly is correct. Pandering to older voters at all costs isn’t a winning strategy. If the party wants to enjoy electoral success ever again, it must counter this narrative. It needs to start using a stick rather than a carrot, and it can start right now: Instead of coaxing indolent over 50s back to work with tax breaks, Conservatives should be taxing them for their inactivity.

The rise in economic inactivity among 50-64 year olds since the pandemic is understandably of great concern to the government. In May to July 2022, there were 386,096 more economically inactive adults in this age group than in the pre-COVID-19 period. Thought to be caused by the ‘Great Resignation’, this harms the economy by reducing the tax base and squeezing already tight labour supply.

But the government’s suggestion of waiving taxes for returning workers is a total non-starter. How satisfied would over 50s who’ve remained in work be if their early-retiring contemporaries returned on a red carpet of tax incentives? Expect a marked increase in sabbaticals if this proposal goes through. 

More importantly, this policy signals to voters the Conservatives are willing to put older generations on an unjustifiable pedestal. How could it be reasonable to introduce yet another policy that will increase generational inequality when so much of our national wealth is already tied up in boomer’s property and pensions? How can it be right that older people will be net beneficiaries of the welfare state when younger generations are expected to pay so much into a system from which they can expect so little in return?

Instead of using a ‘carrot’ to entice older workers back into employment, the government should use a ‘stick’ to push them back in. Chris Smyth, the Whitehall Editor at The Times, floated taxing these workers back into employment, while political commentator Sam Freedman wrote a “big wealth tax including primary residence should sort it”.

Of course, both jokingly acknowledged that the Conservatives won’t do this. Smyth said this “obviously isn’t going to happen”, while Freedman responded to the Director at the Centre for Policy Studies, Robert Coville’s, dismay with a tongue in cheek reply, “what, you don’t think my patented ‘total electoral suicide’ policy is a runner?”

But these are exactly the kind of policies the Conservatives need to bring forward. The party faces a generational crisis. A recent YouGov poll put the Conservatives at 25% — hardly a winnable position — but that drops to just 16% for under 50s. Similarly, the Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch sent shockwaves through Conservative circles with his research showing millennials are bucking the trend by not becoming more right wing as they age. Not only have the Conservatives already lost 2024, these demographics show it’s possible they’ll never win again.

Conservatives should listen to Daniel Finkelstein and start acting as if they’ve already lost the 2024 election to accelerate their transformation into an electable party. The Financial Times’ Janan Ganesh’s sage advise to Keir Starmer offers lessons to the Conservatives about how to do this. Ganesh argued that Labour needs to act right-wing to convince voters they’ve moved beyond Jeremy Corbyn. Similarly, the Conservatives need to show they’re willing to take a tough line on older people to show they’re no longer a geriatric special interest group.

Policies aimed at young people will not be enough. Onward’s new Director Sebastian Payne’s focus on housing and childcare, though welcome, won’t cut it. Voters need to see the party has changed its colours by severing ties with its traditional, ageing base.

That may mean throwing the next general election, and it will require Rishi Sunak to swallow his pride and realise he’s a transitional Prime Minister, but you can only play the cards you’re dealt. Pandering to a demographic of waning importance is myopic.

If the Conservative Party is to have a future, it must slay its old self that’s reliant on old voters. Only then might it rise, phoenix like, reborn.

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In ‘Broken Britain’, a lack of vision serves Starmer well

EXETER, ENGLAND - AUGUST 15: Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer meets people at Park Life Heavitree community group cafe, to talk about Cost-Of-Living Crisis, on August 15, 2022 in Exeter, England. The Labour Party leader offered his proposal as the UK is experiencing rising inflation and a steep increase in the cost of gas and electricity. (Photo by Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)

An abridged version of this article appeared in City A.M.

Whether it’s Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, the Conservative’s risible record of government means it’s in Keir Starmer’s interests not to have a vision.

This should be Starmer’s moment. The Conservatives are pummelling the self-destruct button as skyrocketing inflation and crumbling public services make a mockery of the claim they are the party of stability.

And yet, there’s something missing. Starmer doesn’t have a vision, and people have cottoned on. What’s his big picture plan for where he wants to take the country? It’s impossible to say.

Many think this is a problem. People vote for ideas, symbols and visions, not gritty policy detail. How can Starmer expect to win an election if people can’t get excited about voting for him? But Starmer needn’t worry. Instead, he should recognise his lack of vision is a strength.

Not that the Conservatives will give him credit for doing so, as they point to the apparent vacuum on the opposite benches with relish. In The Daily Telegraph, Conservative campaigner Ben Obese-Jecty said Starmer’s position was “untenable” as he has “resolutely failed to define a vision for the country,” while Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges agreed Starmer has “no clear vision for tackling the cost-of-living crisis.” Even neutral arbiters such as the BBC and the Financial Times have concluded Starmer’s lack of vision is an electoral weakness.

Let down by their jockey, the Left have turned on Starmer with a mercilessness only Conservatives were thought capable of. Guardian columnist and left-wing campaigner Owen Jones posted a heated video on Twitter with the caption “You, @Keir_Starmer, are a liar, a conman, and a joke.”

Feeling exposed, Starmer has made a series of unedifying attempts to articulate his vision. In his campaign to become Labour leader, he made 10 pledges with a markedly socialist flavour. Not long into the job, he wrote a bland 12,000-word essay titled ‘The Road Ahead’. This year alone, he’s given two speeches setting out his vision, one in January and the other in July. It’s hard to escape the conclusion Starmer is reaching for something that isn’t there.

But Starmer shouldn’t debase himself with half-baked visions. Rather, he should be confident that his lack of vision is a strength. The Right are only using this attack line out of the frustration they can’t pin anything meaningful on him. Jeremy Corbyn’s 1970s style socialism made it simple to cast him as a loon. Starmer should take comfort that he can’t be tarred so easily. By casting the far-Left aside, he’s made Labour electable again. The fact campaign groups such as Enough is Enough have emerged to the left of the party is further evidence to voters that Labour is ready for government.

This isn’t a risk-free strategy. By not developing a vision of his own, Starmer could allow the next Prime Minister to set the terms of debate in their favour. Truss will cast herself as a radical ‘boosterist’ believer in Britain, and Starmer as a ‘doomster’ who is content managing the country’s decline. There’s a chance Starmer gets outmanoeuvred.

But as Britons choose between heating and eating this winter, as they spend hours waiting for an ambulance in moments when every second counts, as they see crime go unpunished and strikes bring the country to a standstill, they will tire of hearing another bold vision for sunlit uplands which never arrive. From the Big Society to Northern Powerhouse and Levelling Up, the Conservatives have won election after election selling dreams that didn’t come true. In Broken Britain, people want actions — not ideas.

In 2024, the Conservatives will be seeking a fifth consecutive term after 14 years in office, a tall order in the best of times. Starmer will win the next general election if he lets the Conservative’s risible record speak for itself. He cannot let the public’s economic misery become “Putin’s cost-of-living crisis”. He must blame the Conservatives for selling off Britain’s energy storage and failing to invest in domestic supply. Likewise, he cannot let NHS breakdown become “the long effects of the global pandemic”. He must blame the Conservatives for failing to adequately invest and modernise the country’s health and social care.

At the same time, Starmer should propose moderate policy solutions to the big problems. His plan to freeze energy bills was case in point. Starmer didn’t scare voters with a plot to renationalise energy, he simply showed Labour have solutions where the Conservatives offer none.

In politics, you only have to beat what’s in front of you. So long as Starmer resists rocking the boat by magicking up a meaningless vision, he will be the first Labour leader, apart from Tony Blair, to win a general election for 50 years. In 1997, Blair won a landslide saying, “Britain deserves better”. That message would serve Starmer well today.

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Looking backward and forward

In December last year, I wrote a letter to The Times criticising a comment piece by George Osborne where he argued the British Museum should keep artefacts gained through British colonialism. I wrote:

Sir, George Osborne makes a muddled case for retaining colonial plunders in the British Museum. Other nations have histories too, and keeping stolen artefacts to tell our story deprives other nations of the same privilege. Would we be happy if the crown jewels were displayed in a foreign museum? Osborne should do the right thing and return what doesn’t belong to us.

I decided I wanted to explore why I disagreed with Osborne in greater detail. Luckily, an opportunity presented itself. I was in the process of applying to join Young Voice’s Contributor Programme, and the application required a long-form article. Now that the process is complete (I am on the programme!), I can share the article I submitted.

Looking backward and forward

A few months ago, I went through a spell of listening to noughties pop. Old-school Rihanna and Beyonce, some Avril Lavigne and Lily Allen, and dare I say, drops of James Blunt and Nickelback. It was harmless sepia tinted nostalgia.

You can hear the era’s optimism through its music. Austerity was yet to bite, Brexit and Trump hadn’t happened, and even climate change seemed a distant concern. Politics was fought between third-way doppelgangers who appeared to know what they were doing. Watching old videos of politician’s speeches, it’s tempting to imagine today’s problems being solved by yesterday’s logic.

But eventually the high must end and you look around and see the world is different now. Darker, more divided and less certain. What were once bold visions of the future now look like relics of a bygone age.

Failing to move with the times is dangerous. Not only does it stop you from seeing the world as it is, but it prevents you from imagining the future as it could be.

George Osborne is stuck in the past. In a comment piece in The Times, he maintained the British Museum is more important than ever, claiming it is still right to be proud of Britain’s history. Justifying the Museum in noughties rhetoric, Osborne basks in its glow long after the light went out.
Now Chairman of the Museum, he’s in denial society has changed, in no small part due to his work as Chancellor.

Osborne disregards the issues of the day with Blair-like self-assurance, presenting a lazy vision of harmony as the solution to the culture wars. ‘Why can’t we just get on and use common sense?’ Assuming unity as both easily achievable and immediately desirable is patronising to a society having very live debates over how to interpret its past.

Branching into pseudo-intellectualism as he strains to uphold outdated values, Osborne claims the British Museum draws more from the grand philosophy of the European Enlightenment than the tarred British Empire. Putting to one side the two were inextricably linked, Osborne neglects that the European Enlightenment was the foundation of quasi-scientific justifications of racism.

It’s unsurprising Osborne then embarks on a civilising mission of his own. He presents the British Museum as a “museum of the world, for the world”. But what if the world doesn’t want to in be his museum? Osborne should have learnt from Brexit that you can’t force globalism on people. Choice matters.

Osborne’s elitism shows why failing to move with the times is dangerous. He dodges the important question of the day: should the British Museum keep artefacts stolen through colonial plunder?

Around the world, countries have asked for their national treasures back and we’ve had the audacity to say no. Osborne’s offer of loaning items back reeks of a school bully lending back the lunch money they stole.

Preoccupied fighting yesterday’s battles, Osborne doesn’t see the opportunities the future holds. The museums of tomorrow will be exciting technology-driven experiences.

When I visited the British Museum recently, I was struck by the feeling it’s a 20th century experience. Wandering through rooms of undoubtedly significant but painfully dull ceramic pots, it’s easier to imagine the souls of bored schoolchildren than Ancient Mesopotamia.

Osborne’s new £1bn plan to renovate the Museum’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems shows a failure to imagine a future better than the past. Modern technology is revolutionising how we interact with the world. Museums should be no exception.

4D and virtual reality could give visitors immersive experiences, allowing them to feel part of the history they came to see. Similarly, blockchain technology has the potential to break down long-standing barriers of power and exclusivity. If the British Museum wants to be a museum “for the world,” it could upload its’ collection to an open-source catalogue, not the NFT store it’s currently trialling.

In 1888, Edward Bellamy wrote in his classic Looking Backward: “Human history, like all great movements, was cyclical, and returned to the point of beginning.” He was writing in an age of cholera and penny farthings, not blockchain and VR. Using new technology, Osborne should wrench both himself and the British Museum out of the past and into the future, making it a true museum of the world while showing he respects everyone in it.

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How to shoot a lame duck

Keir Starmer must be licking his lips. His opposite number has been found guilty in the court of public opinion of thinking he’s above his own rules. In doing so he has shown a callous disregard for the suffering of millions during lockdown. The message is clear: we weren’t all in this together.

Boris Johnson is squirming under the weight of his own contradictions. He tried total denial – ‘there were no parties’. Then he shifted the blame onto officials – ‘I didn’t know there were parties [sorry Allegra]’. He then claimed these events weren’t parties – ‘what you’re looking at there is a classic work gathering’. And now, we have the best of the lot – ‘I thought the party was a work event’.

Johnson’s weasel apology only stoked the fire. Twitter is ablaze with calls for the PM to resign, as flash polls indicate this issue has real cut-through. Starmer’s own tweet calling for Johnson’s resignation has received over 100k likes.

Fire and fury is all well and good, but how does Starmer actually finish him off? After all, Johnson has shown his government can survive monumental moral failures:

Covid – 150,000 dead, the highest in Western Europe.

Cost of living crisis – passed onto those with least to give.

Corruption – take your pick… £4 million for a Lordship, £31bn for a Track and Trace that doesn’t work, a whole host of crony covid contracts and No. 10 decorations.

Like a bull, Johnson shrugged off these seemingly mortal blows. The question remains: how do you remove a leader whose moral authority has dissipated?

Basics first, one must clearly and powerfully articulate their failings. Starmer’s performance in PMQs yesterday was case in point. From the dispatch box, Starmer made clear that Johnson had broken the ministerial code, as well as the nation’s trust, and should therefore resign. Bada bing bada boom, no?

‘Sorry, was that not enough?’, Starmer might be asking this morning. ‘How is he still standing?’.

Starmer is learning that the final blow can prove elusive. He cannot allow this opportunity to go to waste. He must go two steps further.

Firstly, he must implicate Conservatives in his failings. Today, Starmer should table a vote of no confidence. He should declare that Johnson has failed to do the honourable thing and resign and must therefore be forced by Parliament. For Johnson to remain, Conservative MPs would have to vote FOR Johnson. That is, say all of this is ok. If they fail to defenestrate Johnson, his failings will be theirs. They will be eyeing their re-election prospects when they make that choice.

Secondly, Starmer must show passion. His performance at PMQs was a fantastic first step. Johnson’s apology wasn’t just baseless, it was “worthless” and “contemptuous of the British public”, showing him to be “a pathetic spectacle of a man that has run out of road”. Such emotion legitimises the hurt and anger understandably felt by the public and shows Starmer ‘gets it’.

This approach may not be Starmer’s professional instincts, but he must keep it up. People want a politician that fights because they want to believe they’re worth fighting for.

“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter”.

Starmer could learn a thing or two from Hemmingway.

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Will Social Enterprises change mainstream business?

I was lucky enough to complete the University of Surrey’s Masters module on Corporate, Social and Environmental Responsibilities alongside my work at Eterna.

To conclude the module, I wrote an essay on social enterprises. I am posting the essay below. If you want to see the final submitted PDF, with references, please follow the link below.

I’d like to thank the module convener Dr Walter Wehrmeyer for putting together an excellent course. Your feedback has been invaluable. I will be sure to swot up on Friedrich Hayek’s Law, Legislation and Liberty!

Will Social Enterprises change mainstream business.pdf

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Will Social Enterprises change mainstream business? Why and how?

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it”.

In Brazil, near the city of Manaus, two tributaries of the Amazon River confluence. One is light coloured, filled with sandy sediment, while the other is much darker, carrying black soil. When the two streams collide, they run parallel to each other for several miles, creating an extraordinary visual spectacle, before eventually mixing. The phenomenon is popularly called the Meeting of Waters.

It is tempting to see mainstream business as the dark, dirtied water, stubbornly resisting the light of social enterprises, before finally succumbing. Unfortunately, the waters are, forgive the pun, murkier.

The academic study of social enterprises is flourishing, as the sector booms. Despite much toil, a conclusive and substantive definition proves elusive. All definitions acknowledge social enterprises are mission orientated organisations aiming to create social value. However, the acceptability of profit is contentious. Originating in America, there is a growing belief that profit can be a means to an end, with the likes of N. Sladden going as far to suggest that profit maximising operations can be ringfenced. We can agree on the essentials, UK social enterprises are organisations that operate to achieve defined social value, and this aim is integrated throughout the business. The existence of profit is therefore inconsequential.

This is an era of unprecedented opportunity for social enterprises. Mainstream business, the culture of traditional big business, was humiliated by the Financial Crisis and is determined to demonstrate its social value. Stumbling in the dark in search of purpose, it has fallen at the steps of the social enterprise church. Social value is in vogue and social enterprise is the zeitgeist.

But are social enterprises really driving this change? There is limited evidence to suggest mainstream business’ recent conversion has had anything to do with social enterprises. Indeed, due to its own actions the impact of social enterprises has been frustratingly neutered for years. The effects of social enterprises’ inability to influence mainstream discourse is all too evident in the flaws of mainstream business’ new model.

But after all, “no force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come”. While top-down attempts by social enterprises to affect change have failed, this revolution will succeed in its second act. Post Financial Crisis culture will eventually be reflected in the public sphere through a bottom-up groundswell. The defining lines between government, business and society will blur and social enterprise will cease to be a meaningful category of description, as its principles transcend into the universal.

Business has symbiotic relationship with society, both reflecting and shaping cultural norms. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, economists led by Milton Friedman ushered in an era of shareholder capitalism, where profits were prioritised over all other outputs. The rugged individualism of Ayn Rand became a state religion. Greed was good, there was no such thing as society, nor any alternative.

Suddenly, it all came crashing down. The Financial Crisis of 2007/08 was a watershed moment. Greed was bad, and it was everywhere. Business went from good to evil in months as its legitimacy as a creator of innovation, wealth and jobs was questioned.

Change was not immediate. Despite the foresight of the likes of Lord Turner, most mainstream business continued an ill-fated quest for businesses as usual. But society had changed, making the status quo untenable. The global protest movements of 2011 signalled a new political economy that demanded equity. Since then, business has undergone a radical transformation as it came to understand it needed to play a greater role in society, epitomised by Larry Fink’s leadership of BlackRock.

This presents a monumental opportunity for social enterprise, as mainstream business pivots towards social value. Many in the movement recognise the opportunity. As early as 2006, Abagail McWilliams and Donald Siegel realised there was significant crossover between corporate, social responsibility and social enterprise values, while Social Enterprise UK repeatedly talks of the movement’s growth. There is a sense of inevitability about mainstream business looking to existing models that suit the zeitgeist.

It seems as if all roads lead to social enterprise. The Financial Crisis was not the only spur towards social value orientated organisations. The rise of anti-globalisation movements, existent before the Financial Crisis, have led to a returning admiration for small is beautiful. This was reinforced by COVID-19 lockdowns, cultivating new localism movements while rebalancing the relationship between employer and employee. The rise of the internet has led to an era of pluralism and awareness, creating a generation more motivated by social issues. As millennial and Gen Z generations are entering the workforce and becoming consumers, they are demanding change.

This multi-pronged zeitgeist funnelling society towards social enterprises means we must lift our heads from the narrow confines of the literature to recognise the panorama of movements drawing on similar themes. Principles of social value have deep roots in the progressive tradition. What of the Levellers, the Diggers and the Chartists, the seedling Christian socialists and even the proto anarchists of Against the Grain and The Dawn of Everything? Surely, we must rescue them from “the enormous condescension of posterity”, recognising social enterprises are providing the contemporary framework for a perennial propensity.

This change is possible. While scalability is a controversial issue in the literature, there are real-world examples showing social enterprises can go big in the mainstream. Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus pioneered the concept of microlending in Bangladesh to customers too poor to qualify for loans from traditional banks. Through his mantra of “social development from below”, Yunus showed organisations can deliver social value at a national scale, while also solving the problem of insufficient capital. Social enterprises are also proven competitive suppliers. AB InBev enjoyed an “impact premium” from Brazilian social enterprise Green Mining. Lastly, alternative business models are dependable value creators and innovators. Seetec’s Ann-Marie Conway describes how improved employee wellbeing translates into innovation. There is conclusive evidence that social enterprises can provide systems level change.

This is offers the contemporary social enterprise movement three reasons for optimism. Firstly, it suggests the current movement towards social value in business is a glacial, long-lasting shift akin to those studied by the Annales School, rather than a flash in the pan fad. Secondly, it adds legitimacy and recognition to the principles of the movement, as a sense of social value has been a permanent feature of the human experience. Finally, its strong track-record shows social enterprises can be trusted to deliver. It is their time.

The recent business trend of corporate purpose exemplifies this. By answering the fundamental question of ‘why does this business exist’, it challenges mainstream business to put social value at the heart of all operations. If implemented fully, corporate purpose is a synonym for social enterprise. While many mainstream businesses will admit the integration of their purpose is an ongoing process, given their intent to deliver social value, perhaps social enterprises have already won.

“So we keep on waiting, waiting on the world to change”. Without meaningful action, the social enterprise movement is relying on the zeitgeist to drag mainstream business towards its model. Any public relations professional would tell you that is not enough, you need to deliver a narrative.

Unfortunately, mainstream business is changing independently of the social enterprise movement. Proving an absence is challenging. Here, we must look for where we should be seeing social enterprises. For instance, a social enterprise representative has never spoken at PRWeek’s annual Purpose Summit. McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company and the Boston Consulting Group all fail to mention social enterprise in any of their corporate purpose research. Likewise, PwC neglects social enterprises in its corporate purpose material, despite creating a “Social Entrepreneurs Club”, apparently a separate endeavour. Unsurprisingly, Harvard Business Review (HBR) does not mention social enterprise in any of its corporate purpose or corporate, social responsibility content, despite churning out a glut in recent years. Corporate purpose and social enterprise should be kindred spirits, but there is no evidence of dialogue between the two movements.

This is social enterprises’ own fault. They have not capitalised on the widespread public support for the movement. In 2019, a YouGov poll found that nine out of 10 people would prefer public services to be delivered by social enterprises as opposed to the private sector, while a whole litany of polls show the public want social value business. However, Social Enterprise UK, the representative body of UK social enterprises, has failed to mobilise a meaningful campaign to affect change. Its content does not articulate why this is the moment of the social enterprise. To make a revolution, you need to declare one. Even its members, who should be its fiercest advocates, are disengaged. Social Enterprise UK claims there are over 100,000 social enterprises in the UK, while having only 3,000 members. Despite having over 60,000 Twitter followers, its engagement is terrible as its content fails to resonate. A pinned tweet announcing its keynote annual awards is waiting to receive its tenth like at the time of writing.

Beyond poor communications, the movement is disappointing because of its narrow understanding of itself. There is a conspicuous refusal to place social enterprises within the rich tradition of progressive business models and social movements, and as such it lacks the touchpoints to convert latent support into political capital. Contemporary alternative business models such as cooperatives and mutuals are no better. Resisting scale, innovation and globalisation means they fail to realise their “heroic” self-images. Even their advertising has the meek messaging, ‘we’re old fashioned, but nice’.

This failure of branding has made it hard for successive governments to boost the sector, despite political will. Tony Blair placed social enterprise within his Third Way ideology, creating the Social Enterprise Unit to help the movement deliver competitive services and enable active citizens to create inclusive communities. Gordon Brown increased funding despite the Financial Crisis, while David Cameron placed social enterprises within his Big Society vision. Similarly, Theresa May believed social enterprises were part of the citizenry obligations central to her One Nation conservativism. More recently, however, Boris Johnson has expressed limited interest in the model, to the movement’s frustration.

Not capitalising on a receptive political class has led to the social enterprise movement being shunted around government. Blair’s Social Enterprise Unit was subsumed into the Office of the Third Sector, then into the Office for Civil Society, before entering the weak named Civil Society and Youth Directorate. During this time, it has been relegated from the Cabinet Office to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. Despite initial zeal, the social enterprise movement has driven itself into political irrelevancy.

The failure of social enterprises is a tragedy for society. Without the guidance of a strong social enterprise movement, mainstream businesses’ actions are falling short of their bold new promises. Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden promises to turn the company into an environmental force for good drew derision from campaigners. Similarly, PepsiCo received widespread ridicule for its 2017 advert featuring Kendall Jenner handing a can of Pepsi to a Black Lives Matter protestor, supposedly a solution to systemic racial police brutality. From greenwashing to ‘wokewashing’, the public is becoming understandably sceptical about mainstream business’ new attempts to deliver social value.

This threatens the opportunity in its entirety. If the public’s hopes for good business are dashed as mainstream business pursues profit over purpose, despite claiming otherwise, then the public will become disillusioned. Carl Rhodes’ Woke Capitalism suggests this process may have already begun. Social enterprises are wasting the chance of a lifetime.

But looking for the impact of social enterprises in contemporary mainstream business is misguided. “The revolution will not be televised”, nor declared by Larry Fink, written in HBR, or discovered through government consultation. But it might just be tweeted.

If we put our ear to the ground and listen for subtle shifts in the moral economy of the English crowd, we can make predictions where the political economy will move next. However, even the extended literature lacks a convincing model for change. As such, we must rely on common sense assumptions about causation.

The public’s shift towards social value is glacial, meaning short-term failures from the social enterprise movement do not spell disaster. Just as the public forced business to change in the wake of the Financial Crisis, they will do so again when the corporate purpose movement is deemed to have failed. Indeed, the public, made up of both consumers and employees, is likely to become less forgiving as millennial and Gen Z generations take centre stage.

This time, mainstream business will not be able to go it alone. The distinctions between business, society and government are already blurring. The Government has now made social value a key component of outsourced bidding applications, while alternative business models are increasingly collaborating. This change is not yet meaningful, but it will accelerate. The coming “mission economy” will see an integration of business, government and society towards social value goals.

This could manifest as a wellbeing economy. Based on metrics such as the Genuine Progress Indicator, currently unmet community needs would be delivered by hybrid organisations, inspiring community ethos, reintegrating socially excluded individuals as projects avoid mission drift. Society will move away from a dog-eat-dog “favela” mindset towards Amartya Sen’s concept of “flourishing”. Academics of neoliberalism study Chile for a glimpse into the future. For us, Scotland’s rich communitarian culture could offer a surprisingly useful portal.

These changes would render social enterprise a redundant category of description. If society becomes an integration of structures towards social value principles, then it has rather outgrown the term. We do not need a social enterprise in every town, we need every town to be like a social enterprise. Recognising this as the end goal would be a sign of maturity from the movement.

In conclusion, social enterprises have failed to change mainstream business despite its key principle of social value fitting the zeitgeist informing new business ethics. This is due to the movement’s inability to communicate effectively and failure to conceive itself as part of broader progressive traditions which has hamstrung government attempts to support it. Yet social enterprises may still succeed despite themselves. Both as employees and customers, the public’s commitment to social value is unlikely to waver. They will not accept “blah blah blah” for long. Existing trends towards an integration of business, society and government will accelerate, aligning structures with the key social enterprise principle of social value. Voltaire’s Candide: The Best of All Possible Worlds would take on new sincerity.

There are key areas for future research. We need a rigorous model of how change happens. Only then can we understand causation and make objective assessments on how social enterprises will change mainstream business. Similarly, we must understand the timeframe which this social shift will happen in. These two areas of research will be twin pursuits.

This essay has put forward a radical, if millenarian, integration of business, government and society towards social enterprise principles. An understanding of what this will look like will cross disciplinary divides. Social enterprise scholarship must recognise its unique voice in these discussions.

Lastly, this analysis places the social enterprise movement within the long history of progressive movements. It is surprising this has not already happened, but an exploration of this history would undoubtedly be fruitful.

This long list of areas for further research suggests an essay with limitations. There is one more worth mentioning. The question asks for a prediction on the impact of social enterprises on mainstream business, whereas this essay makes a broad prediction about the future of the economy within the context of social enterprise principles. This makes causation difficult to ascertain, yet it is as close as we can get before future research is undertaken.

A more empowering question to ask may be, what should happen? We live our lives in one great river. Disparate currents can separate us temporarily, but we must always remember, “this is water”. We must use this knowledge to shape our collective destinies.

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Year 2070

Yesterday, world leaders descended on Glasgow for COP26 to discuss our impending doom.

Over the next two weeks, most of us won’t be in the room. We’ll watch on as our leaders play games of 4D geopolitical chess with our collective futures.

I’m sure I won’t be bursting anyone’s bubble to say that the conference is bound to be a disappointment. Even the nation’s cheerleader of a Prime Minister has been playing down expectations, while the Chancellor’s decision to cut tax on domestic flights is yet another example of governments failing to take the necessary action (don’t get me started on Modi).

COP26 will come and go, and the eco-anxiety afflicting my generation will remain.

We’re young, the future should seem a long way off. Instead, we’re pommelled by memory trips of a future trauma at every turn.

Gen Z’s eco-anxiety is rooted in a rational fear of the future. The tone of reports from the world’s foremost climate scientists has become apocalyptic. From the IPCC’s “code red for humanity” to the UK Environment Agency’s “adapt or die”, experts have come to resemble a backseat passenger screaming and shaking the unconscious driver of a car about to plunge off a cliff.

While today’s pensioners grapple with falling annuities, the challenges facing my generation in retirement will be existential.  

Brace yourself, we’re going in a time machine to a world in the not too distant future, entirely of our own creation…

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He said, “I’ve been to the year 2070, Not much has changed but they lived underwater”.

Predicting the future is a difficult game. It’s one thing to know what will happen, but quite another to know what people’s priorities will be. Bill Gates received great credit for his 2015 TED Talk warning of the devastating impact of a flu like virus, yet is also widely believed to have said, “640K ought to be enough for anybody”, referring to computing RAM, just 41 years ago.

Some things, however, feel like a sure-fire bet. Humanity will continue to pump greenhouses gasses into the atmosphere for the foreseeable future (along with committing a raft of other climate sins), and as such, we will suffer.

A short article isn’t enough to describe ‘The Toxic Event’ in any detail, it’s best left to the IPCC’s most recent report, but it can be reasonably summarised with David Wallace-Wells’ chapter titles in his apocalyptic The Uninhabitable Earth as: heat, hunger, drowning, wildfire, disasters longer than natural, freshwater drain, dying oceans, unbreathable air, plagues of warming, economic collapse and climate conflict.

This ‘new normal’ will shape nearly all aspects of life. For business, an ideology of ambitious green pledges becoming hygiene factors – with net zero taken as a given – will already be decades old. By 2070, the challenges humanity faces will be so obviously existential that businesses will have to be seen to innovate towards meaningful solutions. This will be their purpose, not just part of a mission economy, but a mission humanity.

There will also be a range of social challenges unrelated to the climate crisis, though no doubt extenuated by it. Some will depend on where you live. In Europe, low and falling fertility rates will lead to an increasingly aging population which could make the maintenance of basic state functions unviable. Conversely, Africa’s booming population will catapult its economies towards the top of the GDP rankings. However, the regional inequity of the impact of climate change may mean they are ill-equipped to provide for these colossal populations. It is not farfetched to imagine a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, where the victims of the climate catastrophe flee towards the perpetrators, who are no longer capable of caring for themselves, let alone tens of millions of others.

If this isn’t dystopian enough, we could also be contending with Artificial General Intelligence. Read Max Tegmark if you want to think we could align AI with our goals, and in doing so achieve a quality of life previously unimaginable. Read Nick Bostrom if you think the road to technological singularity is likely a forgone conclusion. The implications of this would be, by definition, unimaginable – but almost certainly bad. Perhaps Stanley Kubrick didn’t have it right, maybe Hal 9000 will have the last laugh. Then we’ll really be busted.

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The meaning of Liz Truss

It is a curious feature of politics that politicians only appear impressive before or after they enter senior office, never during. Prior to entering the fray, fresh faced youngsters with a glint in their eye ooze public spirit and hope. A cynical public is taught to believe again, and the individual is elevated to high office. They then find themselves in a Sisyphean nightmare where they are doomed to be outed as a bastard or an idiot – and they’re lucky if it’s not both. The wise ones walk quickly down Downing Street on reshuffle day, eager for the relief that lies inside.

We may be witnessing an exception to the rule. Despite a lack of media attention [edit: no longer the case!], Liz Truss, the new Foreign Secretary, is intent on delivering on a clear ideological vision, providing populist clarity to Brexit’s vagaries.  

Like many before her, Truss entered politics with a vision. She was the driving force behind the group of 2010 neo-Thatcherite Conservatives who authored the now infamous polemic Britannia Unchained. Its authors, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Skidmore and, of course, Truss, are now in high places. But Truss alone retains the book’s integrity, as the others have, in their own way, failed to deliver on the promises of their youth.

During her two-year stint as Secretary of State for International Trade, Truss followed her principles and successfully delivered 70 trade agreements. In doing so, she has become quite possibly the only minister to exceed expectations in their response to Brexit.

As a reward, in the reshuffle Truss replaced Raab as Foreign Secretary. It is already clear Raab will be remembered as Truss-lite, a disciple rather than a visionary who pursued the cause without equal fervour or lucidity. Truss said it herself, she’s more ideologically motivated than most politicians. As such, she is likely to offer a much clearer vision of what Global Britain will actually mean.

This is why the Conservative Party loves her. She offers hope of an intellectual heft and clarity of vision to muscle Brexit into reality. She outlined this manifesto for an offensive, free trading foreign policy tying Britain’s digital economy to the fast-growing Tiger Economies of East Asia at the Policy Exchange in mid-September, and again at her Conference speech.

Truss grounds these lofty intellectual arguments in the concerns of ordinary people. She coined the phrase ‘Lidl Tories’, working class people who support free trade due to concerns about food prices (interestingly harking back to free trade debates during the early twentieth century). In doing so she appeals to the Conservatives new ‘Red Tory’ voter base.

Truss doesn’t have it all figured out just yet. There are crucial questions to answer if she is to turn her post-Brexit vision into a success; how to square Global Britain’s internationalism with the levelling up agenda’s insular tendencies, how to balance post-covid appetite for interventionism with the desire for a ‘Singapore-on-sea’, how can Britain meaningfully reach out to our self-declared partners in the Indo-Pacific when they are quite literally half a world away, can post-Brexit Britain afford to deprioritise Europe, should Britain follow the lead nineteenth-century free trade advocates and aspire to ‘goodwill between all nations’ or will she double down on Raab’s hard line on China, what policies will she use to achieve all this, and how can Global Britain deal with the reality that many Britons simply don’t want to be global?

Truss’ legacy will depend on her ability to answer these questions. As she grapples with them over the coming months, for better or worse, we will get a flavour of what her political career, and ultimately post-Brexit Britain, will mean.

It would be foolish to dismiss her, bringing up unfortunate Conservative Party Conference speeches of the past (that cheese speech). As we have seen in her recent performances, she is uniquely positioned to deliver on the Conservatives popular post-Brexit pledges, while providing a rare example of a politician who ‘came good’ on their promises.

While most looked to Boris Johnson’s predictably bombastic keynote speech to define the Conservative conference, we shouldn’t write off Brexit’s awkward visionary.