Count Binface’s manifesto, made for Makerfield and tweaked for Clacton, is a rare point of light in today’s Stygian political landscape. Could there be a more concise satirical takedown than ‘I will cut your taxes and raise everyone else’s’ or a sharper transport policy than ‘Wifi on trains that works; also trains that work’? This weekend offers a last chance for mischief-makers to suggest a matching agenda for Andy Burnham, before the real ragbag of inner-Labour compromise is unveiled over the coming weeks. Here’s my four-point contribution.
First, don’t nationalise anything, not even Thames Water. You – that means we, your taxpayers – can’t afford to buy utility companies, you certainly can’t confiscate them from share- and bondholders, and you know in your Blairite heart that however incompetent the private sector may sometimes be, state ownership was worse. Your much-vaunted Manchester ‘Bee Network’, imposing co-ordinated timetables on private bus operators, looked like nationalisation but wasn’t. That’s your model.
Second, appoint an enterprise tsar who’s not a Labour donor and definitely not the motormouth green-energy tycoon Dale Vince. Give your tsar an office next to yours (yes, in Manchester as well as Downing Street) with a blue-sky brief to devise policies that will rescue British entrepreneurship from everything Rachel Reeves leaves behind. If you want a home-territory candidate, how about John Roberts of Bolton, who founded the billion-turnover appliance retailer AO World for a £1 pub bet?
Third, appoint an energy secretary whose one-line brief is to bring UK electricity costs down, by whatever means necessary, to the European average: at least a 30 per cent cut for domestic users, deeper for business. Sack the minister if that’s not achieved within 12 months. And while you’re at it, scrap those Starmer steel tariffs that have piled even more cost pressure on what’s left of British industry.
Fourth, appoint anyone but Ed Miliband as chancellor, even Count Binface.
America first
David Potter, who died last month, was the scientist turned entrepreneur behind the Psion Organiser, a handheld device launched in 1984 at a time when British electronics were at the forefront of global advance. He ranks with Sir Clive Sinclair, creator of the ZX Spectrum personal computer, and Hermann Hauser, co-founder of Acorn Computers and the Cambridge-based chip designer Arm, as pioneers who deserved to stand alongside the titans of Silicon Valley. Mike Lynch, creator of the Autonomy software venture, was a later but more controversial candidate.
The fact that no one from over here has ever joined the digital hall of fame can largely be blamed on a relative lack of financial support at every stage, particularly the absence of ‘patient capital’ prepared to take long-term bets on brilliant ideas, and the inadequacies of the London stock market. Potter himself said in a 2016 interview: ‘I think in hindsight that we weren’t American enough. I don’t mean that the Americans have anything superior to offer in a wider sense. But what they do have is a culture and infrastructure which is very focused on taking enormous risks… In London you had to be concerned about shorter-term profit. I think if I had been in America I might have done what [the Amazon founder] Jeff Bezos did: never worry about profit at all.’
David Potter was a great British innovator but – like the most richly rewarded of all risk-takers, Elon Musk – he was born in South Africa and left as a student. How different might Potter’s destiny have been if, as Musk did, he had gone to America?
easyJet’s fate
Another aspect of the transatlantic imbalance is the flow of attractive British businesses into the grasp of US private equity – a trend I apologise for banging on about, but one which represents a serious exodus of value and potential. The latest target is easyJet, for which a £5.5 billion offer from one US private-equity player, Castlelake, has been trumped by richer terms from another, Apollo – an apex predator of the sector.
What next? Worryingly, the Financial Times quotes research that says the airline could be worth £7 billion if broken up into its component elements of aircraft, landing slots and package holidays; or made more profitable by shrinking its ratio of employees per plane to match Ryanair’s. Either way, both the risk and the reward will be in American hands – but the likeliest loser is the British or European passenger in search of courteous service and on-time low-cost travel.
Hair today
I’m in Yorkshire for the rest of July, avoiding the airless heat of London and enjoying our beautiful county’s summer menu of modestly priced entertainment and pork-pie picnics. The Ryedale music festival – which I helped privatise 30 years ago when the local council no longer wanted to pay for it – is now recognised as one of Britain’s finest. The Three Inch Fools, touring a riotous show called King Arthur and the Holy Fail, set a national benchmark for high-energy outdoor theatre. And the 1812 Theatre Company at Helmsley Arts Centre, of which I’m also a proud founder, has just staged a spellbinding production of Educating Rita that provoked a new train of thought.
Willy Russell’s play is about self-realisation through higher education for a young Liverpudlian hairdresser, mentored by a boozed-up middle-aged tutor. Premiered in 1980, it now counts as a classic alongside George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion of 1913, which it echoes. And it’s almost as dated, because today’s sad reversal is that no one would urge a bright twentysomething to study poetry at university as a path to a better future. Even without AI, everyone knows there are too many graduates, too many bad teachers and far too many useless degrees. Hairdressing, on the other hand, is a respected skill, a vital contribution to the social fabric, and a job for life.
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