Ignore the re-heated Thatcherism but listen to Truss: we need a growth plan February 9, 2023 Liz Truss has played a blame-game for her failures. But her diagnosis was right - Britain is failing to touch the sides of America's plan for growth. On this front, at least, Rishi Sunak needs to listen, writes Josh Williams.
Lessons from the Met Police: We should give power to those who least want it January 18, 2023 What can we learn from the failures of the Met? That in politics as well as in the police, we need people who do it for the calling, not for the thirst for power, writes Josh Williams
Fusion energy may only heat a kettle but it will power future investment December 15, 2022 For seventy years, nuclear fusion has always, and only, been the next big thing. Its promise is tantalising: near limitless, zero-carbon energy. Unlike fission, its cousin which powers today’s nuclear plants, it also leaves no long-lasting radioactive waste. We have long known it is theoretically possible. In the most over-simplified terms, two light elements (like [...]
Britannia, Unchained from reality will be the ideological legacy of Liz Truss October 21, 2022 A month ago, just days into her premiership, I wrote that unless Liz Truss learnt to deliver a decent speech, she would be sunk. The prognosis was, it transpired, accurate. But my diagnosis was incomplete: her woeful speechmaking was just one of many political comorbidities. Her primary ailment was ideology. Liz Truss is an ideologue, [...]
If politics is about persuasion, Truss’ speeches need to be on life support September 21, 2022 So you don’t have to, I have re-watched a number of Liz Truss’ speeches.
Sajid Javid’s speech is one for the history books for everything but its substance July 7, 2022 Sajid Javid’s resignation speech, delivered to a packed House of Commons yesterday, was, in truth, not very good. His language was leaden. Cliches abounded. Metaphors were mixed and invariably, to use George Orwell’s term, “dead”: so overused that they “have lost all evocative power.” The delivery too was poor. At the critical moment, the climax [...]
It’s time to recognise our businesses would benefit from devil’s advocates May 27, 2022 As corporate speeches go, it was eventful. Last week, Stuart Kirk, head of responsible investing at HSBC’s asset management division, delivered a provocative speech entitled “why investors need not worry about climate risk.” One week and a media storm later, Mr Kirk is no longer a head of responsible investing. Instead, he has been suspended, [...]
Windfall tax would be sticking-plaster policy for a short-sighted government May 13, 2022 Nothing is certain but death and taxes, goes Benjamin Franklin’s famous quip. As war grinds on in Ukraine, we have no shortage of the former. The question occupying the Treasury today is whether one should lead to the other. Should the energy giants’ huge recent profits – a direct result of the war in Ukraine [...]
Founder culture is a form of tyranny April 28, 2022 Elon Musk may or may not buy Twitter. It was revealed this week that the sale, apparently agreed, has a $1bn break clause. If that sounds like a lot, remember that $1bn is small change to Elon. By my calculation, it is to him what the membership fee at my local, council-run swimming pool is [...]
Musk’s anarchic vision won’t help Twitter but a subscription model might April 14, 2022 In late January, an unknown investor began quietly building a stake in Twitter. A little over two months later, Elon Musk breached the surface. On April 4th, he revealed a 9.2 per cent stake. Though two days later an official filing corrected that to 9.1 per cent, Musk has become Twitter’s largest shareholder. Poor arithmetic [...]
