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Category: Features

  • India’s Legal Market Opening: A Game-Changer for UK Lawyers – Insights by Dinesh Dhamija

    India’s Legal Market Opening: A Game-Changer for UK Lawyers – Insights by Dinesh Dhamija

     

    In a sign of the growing openness of the India market, the Bar Council of India has said it expects to allow UK lawyers and law firms to operate in the country from the end of July this year.

    The move comes after some years of discussions and negotiations, including a court case in which the Society of Indian Law Firms tried to block the reforms. Leading Indian lawyers described it as a breakthrough for India’s legal market and he president of the Law Society of England and Wales,

    Lubna Shuja, called it “a significant step forward…[which] will create huge opportunities for solicitors and Indian advocates in both countries.”

    Fellow Law Society head Nick Emmerson, who took part in the negotiations, said: “As both our countries go through historic general elections this year, and the UK-India free trade agreement negotiations continue, our close ties are as important now as they’ve ever been.” It is vitally important for international businesses to be confident of the Indian legal system if they are to conduct the scale of trade that all sides wish to accomplish. For years, there have been gradual reforms of corporate regulations, which have bolstered this confidence, including the 2016 bankruptcy code, which enabled creditors to trigger insolvency proceedings against defaulting companies.

    In March 2023, there were initial efforts to liberalise the Indian legal sector and enable overseas firms to operate, but the action by the Society of Indian Law Firms postponed that until now. While there remains some resistance to reform, leading Indian lawyers such as

    Crrill Shroff at Cyril Amarchand Mangalas are enthusiastic about the prospect of more openness. “It will align with the India story of more global investment coming to take India to the next level, so there’ll be more quality work,” he said. There will be a greater focus on modernisation.”

    With US firms increasingly seeking to divert business away from a hostile China, Indian leaders recognise the urgency to harmonise their legal and commercial systems with international norms, to capitalise on the potential wave of inward investment. A rash of articles have appeared with headlines such as ‘For American Brands Worried About China, Is India the Future?’ based on projections such as Walmart’s plan to source $10 billion worth of goods from India by 2027, up from $3 billion in 2020. European importers are equally bullish. The prospect of a second Trump presidential term could accelerate this trend, pushing American firms further away from China and towards India.

    Indian legal eagles watching India’s legal market are rubbing their hands in expectation.

    Dinesh Dhamija founded, built and sold online travel agency ebookers.com, before serving as a Member of the European Parliament. Since then, he has created the largest solar PV and hydrogen businesses in Romania. Dinesh’s latest book is The Indian Century – buy it from Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1738441407/

     

  • Successful Government Transition: What Happens When a New Government Takes Office?

    Understanding Government Transition, Stuart Thomson

     

    Government transition between one of the two main political parties have rarely happened in recent years. Since the time of Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s the baton has only been passed in 1997 and 2010 and now again in 2024. But what really happens when such shifts take place?

    After any General Election there are always a number of new Members of Parliament (MPs) that are elected. This time around the churn has been much higher. The example is often given that when everyone arrives in Westminster for the first time, it is like a fresher’s week. There are lots of new people making new friends, catching up with old ones, finding their way around, and not really knowing what they are doing!

    Then there are the logistics of being allocated an office, sorting IT, and for many, recruiting an office team as well. They are nowadays provided with some notes on what to expect and a ‘buddy’ system is in place but the government transition process can still be a daunting prospect.

    The results this time around, especially for some Labour MPs, mean that victory will have been unexpected. This means resigning from their existing jobs with immediate effect. There is also then the impact of a very different sort of working day and week. It is not 9-5 which may sound fine in theory but takes time to get used to not least for those around an MP. There can also be issues about where to live as well.

    For the Government itself the key challenge is in getting up and running as quickly as possible. Once the PM has been appointed by the monarch, there will be a speech to deliver on the steps of Downing Street. This sets the tone of everything that will then happen and many literally go down in history.

    Then there is the hard work of governing to get on with, Ministers to appoint, and briefings with civil servants as everyone gets up-to-speed in their new roles. A PM also needs to start ringing world leaders as well as engaging on national security measures.

    One of the over-riding thoughts especially for this Government transition will be the first 100 days. They will already have mapped much of that out so that they can demonstrate a clear plan, deliver some quick wins, and show that they are different from the party which has just been removed from office. There will also be a King’s Speech to finalize, setting out the new government’s legislative agenda, and I would assume a financial statement from Rachel Reeves opening up the books and explaining what a poor state Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have left them in.

    It might be thought that the size of the majority will make life easier for Starmer but trying to manage such a large number brings its own challenges. Even from the moment he appoints Ministers he has to consider party management and whether he is brewing up potential trouble in the future. Government transition, even in the event of such a successful election campaign can be wrought with dilemna.

    The Ministerial team will be appointing political and media (special) advisers, and Starmer too will be adding to the team already around him. There will be other appointments to be made as well potentially around engagement with business but we do not operate in a US-style system that sweeps out officials and replaces them with new political appointees. The British style of government is one of a smooth and seamless transition of power, rather than a sea change. The independent civil service means that a change from Conservative to Labour can happen, a new approach implemented, and new policies progressed almost as if nothing has really changed.

    Who said starting a new job was easy?

  • Opinion: Are General Elections in the UK still fit for purpose in 2024?

    Opinion: Are General Elections in the UK still fit for purpose?

    Finito World

     

    ‘Laugh about it/shout about it/when you’ve got to choose/anyway you look at this you lose.’ So sang Simon and Garfunkel in their song ‘Mrs Robinson’, and judging by the sheer number of people who voted for smaller parties and independents in the July 2024 general election, it would seem many feel the same.

    This isn’t about the result of the general election, which was the largest display of collective schadenfreude ever aimed at a UK government, but about process. When Sir Keir Starmer arrived on the steps of 10 Downing Street to announce that the country had voted for change, most people in the country inwardly assented. Indeed many Conservatives had been privately wanting their leadership to change tack for years.

    But then the question followed: what kind of change? Even when Starmer announced at the end of that first address to the nation as Prime Minister that he was heading indoors to get to work there was still a good deal of doubt as to what precise work he might be referring to.

    Would he empty the prisons as his new advisor James Timpson wanted him to? And how would his new Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood feel about, having said rather different things? Would Starmer raise taxes? And if so, which ones? And to do what?

    Labour’s campaign had been a masterclass in campaigning according to Napoleon’s dictum of never interrupting your opponent while they’re making a mistake.

     

    The format of our general elections had meant that by and large he hadn’t had to elaborate on his plans. This isn’t good for the electorate – and it’s not ideal for the Labour Party itself which will eventually disappoint partly because people have been projecting their hopes at this vagueness. “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views,” as President Obama wrote in The Audacity of Hope.

    At one point in his speech, Starmer said he would be ‘unburdened by doctrine’. This was good to hear, since we are crying out for sensible politics – but it’s difficult to think of a more ideological policy than the end to the VAT exemption for private schools.

    Starmer has said some promising things, but mainly people like the way he has said them, since that’s mostly what they have had to go on. At the tail end of 2024, positions will need to be carved out and crises will need to be responded to. Shakespeare’s Hamlet found out that there is nothing quite like events for forcing you into a display of your character which will smoke out your beliefs whether you like it or not.

    When it comes to employability, the subject of this magazine, the matter hardly came up throughout the six-week campaign – except tangentially in that there was talk of an increase in green jobs due to decarbonisation of the economy. Labour also stated that a ‘back to work plan’ would aim to increase the employment rate from 75 per cent to 80 per cent.

    The new Department for Work and Pensions secretary Liz Kendall spoke during her 2015 leadership campaign of her commitment to the living wage, and expressed support for worker representation on company boards – which Theresa May also at one time espoused. None of this is much to go on.

    In fact, the media must take a larger share of the blame for our lack of knowledge about the nature of the new government. The TV debates were once again ludicrous with the whole of the taxation or healthcare system having to be explained in 45 seconds. The manifesto coverage was slender, as were the manifestos themselves.

    The typical response from the media is that they must whittle the issues down in order to cater to voters’ dwindling attention spans. But what if there is a far greater hunger for detail than they think? One often hears its chief reporters speculating about how a certain matter is ‘only for people in the Westminster bubble’. The depth of emotion around politics at each election cycle makes on think that at 45 seconds into an explanation around tax, the people may not be tuning out – they may just be tuning in. To paraphrase Starmer, it’s time for a change.

  • Taylor Swift course at Basel University: Dr. Andrew Shields (Course Convener)

    Christopher Jackson interviews the course convener of the new Taylor Swift course who tells us how he became a Swiftie – and why the singer is worth studying

     

    Popularity and cultural importance and not always attributable to the same things. Bob Dylan is plainly popular and culturally important; Queen were popular but not necessarily important in quite the same way. Similarly, a whole range of unpleasant people become culturally significant, from Aleister Crowley to a range of unlovely politicians, without being in the least bit liked.

    The question of Taylor Swift has partly become so gigantic because there is a growing consensus that she seems to be both. Some are in denial about this: there are still people prepared to say that her phenomenon is somehow the product of a gigantic misunderstanding and that her essential talentlessness will reveal itself in time. But they are in opposition to a growing number of devotees who now include Prince William, Sir Paul McCartney and Hugh Grant – and millions of others.

    One thing which happens when you’re culturally important is that the universities begin to take you seriously, as they have long done Dylan, culminating in that Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Whether Taylor Swift will one day get the call from Stockholm remains to be seen but the ground is already being prepared. Dr Andrew Shields is the co-convener for a course in Taylor Swift studies at the University of Basel, and has worked at the university for 29 years. He tells me about his journey towards becoming a cerebral Swiftie.

    What is it that makes people sceptical as a lyricist of talent arising out of her particular milieu? “If people are treating her as someone who comes from pop, there’s some sort of history to the idea that popular music doesn’t have much going for it in the way of lyrics. But the actual milieu which Taylor Swift emerged from is country, and that all has to do with storytelling – and storytelling was one of the first things I noticed about her.”

    So when did he first hear Swift? “The first song I noticed was when a friend of mine played a cover of it at a gig in Switzerland in 2012. He played ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. I didn’t know it was by her but I saw immediately that it had brisk and vividly sketched characters.”

    A few years passed until Shields’ next encounter with Swift. “Later on, one of my daughters showed me a video of Swift’s song ‘Mean’. Recently I stumbled on how she said that the grain of sand that catalysed the song was a particularly nasty review of her performance at the Country Music Awards. I was bullied at school and so I like an anti-bullying song. Later when I stumbled on ‘Blank Space’, I came to understand that she was writing fiction. Even in songs where you think she may have just sat down and versified her biography, even there, there’s still fictionalisation.”

    I ask him if any specific lyric struck him. “In her song called ‘Mine’ there’s this amazing line: ‘You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter’. Today, when Swifties ask me what my favourite line is, which happens a lot, I say I will tell you the song, and you have to guess: they know immediately which line it is.”

    So how did the course itself come about? “By the time Folklore came out, I was on the way to being a Swiftie – I like the way that album has much more space. There’s room to think and make the music meander. I also noticed there were many more good lines in that album. When I got the email last year as to what I wanted to teach in the spring, I said maybe Taylor Swift, and then the email came back: “Great idea.”

    So did Shields and his co-convener Rachael Moorthy need to advertise the course? “I had to write a course description and that was posted in December in the list of courses.” The interest was immediate. “Some were Swifties who said: ‘This is awesome’. Others came to us and said, ‘I’m not an English student, but can I take it?’ We reached a peak where 180 people had signed up for the course, and we had a room originally for 90.”

    The course itself looks at Swift purely from the literary criticism perspective – it doesn’t cover her exceptional business decisions down the years. “People said to me, ‘You’ll be able to explain why she’s such a megastar!’ Well, she writes good texts and that’s an explanation!” Shields says.

    So how is the course structured? “Throughout the semester, we address one album per week, after an introductory session on Swift’s early song ‘Tim McGrath’. That seminar was about rhetoric and ambition, and Rachael spoke about her song ‘The Lakes’ where she described the relationship between that song and the Romantic poets’.

    In one interesting week, Shields landed on perhaps Swift’s most famous song ‘Cruel Summer’. Shields recalls: “I picked that song because of the line: ‘What doesn’t kill me makes me want you more.’ I ended up talking about aphorism. That’s because Swift is here playing with a Nietzschean aphorism. I then talked about how her texts themselves become aphorisms out of which her fans make new aphorisms by playing with them.”

    For Shields, the way in which these songs have entered our collective consciousness and then been toyed with by us all, is testament to the quality of the work. “The way the Swifties work with the language shows the quality of her texts – and the quality of her writing does play a role in the sheer scope of her success.”

    This scope is indeed extraordinary and at time of writing seems to know no particular bounds. So what will students who take this course go on to do careers-wise? “People who study English in Basel often end up as High School teachers,” says Shields, “but I also have a whole bunch of former students who are journalists.

    Two of the people who interviewed me this term about the course were former students. Others also go on to fill roles in the HR space. We also have a lot of psychology students take the course who now get the chance to see what it’s like to delve into literary texts as literary scholars and push beyond and really leave behind the issue that it must be because people can identify it that’s what makes it good.”

    What is wonderful about talking to Shields is his sheer enthusiasm, which is a lesson in itself about how we learn, and we decide to with our lives. It is one, of course, shared by Swift – and by all those who achieve success in life.

     

  • Fatima Whitbread: World Champion javelin thrower on her campaign to improve the social care system for children: “We’re all in it together”

     

    Christopher Jackson

     

    I meet Fatima Whitbread at a restaurant in Westminster and immediately warm to her kindly down-to-earth manner. Whitbread is one of our best-loved athletes, having won the World Championship in the women’s javelin in 1987, and a former world record-holder in that event.

    We sit in a corner and order our food, which prompts reminiscences about Whitbread’s relationship to diet when she was a top athlete: “You are what you eat – for me, when I was a competing athlete I was constantly working three times a day training. Most of my competitors were six foot and I’m 5 foot 3 so my diet had to be right. I was on a diet of about 8,000 calories a day which is a huge amount, usually women are on 2,500-3000.”

     

    But Whitbread’s story isn’t an ordinary one. Her childhood is enough to make you fight back tears. She was abandoned as a child and spent her early life in care. “I was left to die,” she recalls. “A neighbour heard a baby cry and called the police. They rammed the door down and rescued the baby. I spent the next seven months in hospital with malnutrition and nappy rash – I’m pleased to say I’ve recovered from that.”

     

    Whitbread says this matter-of-factly and I find it hard to feel that there is residual trauma: she is serene, and I will come to learn that this has to do with the rare sense of mission she feels about fixing the social care system. “The reason it’s been my ministry is that I was made a Ward of Court by Hackney Borough Council. I spent the next 14 years of my life in children’s homes. These were institutions with large numbers, all run by matrons – and our emotional needs were not really being met.” Whitbread then gives me a heart-breaking detail: “My first five years were spent in Hertfordshire.

    I spent a lot of time in the playing room which faced the car park. I remember whenever I saw anyone come in I’d say: ‘Is that my mummy coming?’ A lot of us children felt that way. Nobody ever really sat me down to discuss things. There was nothing at Christmases – nothing to indicate there was anybody out there for me.”

    One day Whitbread’s mother did turn up, when the future World Champion was five years old, and this led to an unspeakable set of events. “That morning I sat in the foyer. There was an opaque glass window and the matron opened the door and a large lady with curly hair came in –  but she never looked across to me or made eye contact. Then there was a lady with mousy hair, duffel coat on, smiling and engaging and I thought: ‘That must be my mummy’.”

    But of course, her mother was the lady with the curly hair: “In all the journey down to the next home in Hertfordshire, I sat in the car and nobody spoke to me. The biological mother never spoke to me. We got to the next home, a small residential place, and I was told to go through to the garden. There was a little girl of four there, and I started playing with her. I was about to go down a slide, and then I felt a hand on me: “You look after your sister otherwise I will cut your throat.’ Those were the first words my biological mother said to me.”

     

    what happened to fatima whitbread

    Another appalling episode occurred when Whitbread, aged nine, was taken out of the home and raped “at knifepoint” by her mother’s then boyfriend. There seems to be no other word for this than evil. But incredibly, the story has a happy ending. “Sport was my saviour. I was at a netball match and I saw a javelin on the floor and it seemed interesting to me. Then a voice behind me said: ‘I see you looking at that javelin. Would you like me to teach you to throw it?’ This would turn out to be her surrogate mother. “Through that I discovered the love of the Whitbreads,” she recalls.

    All this amounts to a damning indictment of the social care system as it was in the 1970s, but more worrying than that is that it isn’t necessarily leagues better today. In fact, it seems an issue which governments don’t want to go near. “In many respects it’s the same. I’ve seen governments come and go, and the care system really is broken. It’s not serving the children well.”

    To say that Whitbread is a passionate campaigner is to riot in understatement: throughout our conversation I can sense the intensity with which she used to throw a javelin has been transferred to this admirable mission. She is also, of course, a loving advocate as she knows exactly what she’s talking about – precisely what it feels not to have your needs met as a child. Knowing the terror these children are experiencing, she knows the dimensions of love required to fill these gaps. “I’m a great believer that children are our future, and that what they become will define what our society will become.”

    So what’s the goal of Fatima’s campaign? “I want to build happy lives, better communities, and a better society, and the only way we can do this is with collaborations,” she tells me. “I’ve confirmed a two day summit next year for the 23rd and 24th April at the Guildhall in London. We’re non-political but we do need cross-party support. We want to harness the power of one voice and bring the four nations together. There’s a lot of good work on the ground level but there’s no collaboration.”

    The summit will include young people (‘they’re at the forefront of everything’), as well as decision-makers, charities and donors. What Whitbread is aiming at is nothing less than “the rejuvenation of the system” through strategic partnerships. “I want to bring the private sector in too,” she says with her bright, kindly eyes flashing.

    “We’re looking at employability initiatives for our young people who are between 18 and 25 year olds to help upskill our young people. 27 per cent of our young people suffer from mental health problems too – and affordable housing is another issue which we need to tackle. The people in the system don’t have Mums, Dads, aunts and uncles to advise them and, appallingly, the government wipes its hands of it. In addition to all this, when they leave the system, 33 per cent of them in their first two years end up homeless.”

    But the forces of darkness likely haven’t reckoned on the astonishing energy of Whitbread. “It’s down to me to use my lived experience and Olympic platform to meet people, to get through doors, and get the campaign together.”

     

    what happened to fatima whitbread

    Fatima’s UK campaign is seeking private funding in order to roll out an ambitious scheme across the country. For only £20 a week – which translates to £1000 a year – individuals or companies can sponsor a child in care to take part in weekly activities around technology, sport or art – according to what the individual’s interests are. “I want to make sure every child has the chance I had to become an Olympic champion.

    I want to put them on a human path to reaching their potential and their goals.  Every child has a right to a safe and happy childhood, but if they do end up in the care system, they need to have a safe, secure pathway to come out of that system, to be educated properly, and to feel secure that there’s a proper foundation for the future. In that way, they can break that cycle and live a proper independent life so that history won’t repeat itself when they have a family. I believe we can manage that: it’s not impossible – in fact it’s very doable.”

    Others agree and have pledged their support – especially those in the new Starmer administration. “We have a charity dinner on the first night where Lord John Bird, the founder of The Big Issue will speak. Sir Keir Starmer has pledged his support as have members of his government such as has Yvette Cooper. The Timpson family do a lot of work in prisons and they are also on board.”

    what happened to fatima whitbread

    Prisons are very important to the campaign. “I do a lot prison visits,” Whitbread says. “I want to engage with young people so they have something to go to. That’s half the problem for young people when they come out: there’s nothing to come to. Then they realise they’ve got a warm cell, food and friends inside and it’s a wasted opportunity for life. We have these collaborators but who don’t talk to each other, which is a shame. We’re all in it together.”

    Whitbread is one of those rare people who has found a second act in life – and she is pursuing it with the same passion that she did the first. There is a possibility that if we heed her call, we can all hand on a better life to the children of the future.

     

    To learn more go to: fatimascampaign.com

     

  • Photo essay: Career Insights from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards 2024

    Insights from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards 2024, Christopher Jackson

     

    At Finito, it is one of the most regular things we hear on the wish list from our young candidates: I want to do something to help the planet. This is always wonderful. Very often, when the wish is first formulated, it amounts to the shape of an intention, and the candidate’s journey is to find out more about what career possibilities really lie ahead.

    These can be both exciting, and perhaps a little bewildering, in their abundance. There are people out there who work in nature documentaries, who earn their living studying lion population numbers, who work for the Natural History Museum as curators, marketers, or social media experts. There are lawyers who specialise in environmental issues, and entrepreneurs who are exploring every kind of business to tackle climate change. Our concern for the planet rightly proliferates across the whole of society.

    In a sense, this is the economy now – it might even be that there will be very few jobs soon which don’t help the planet. And yet, though it’s often important to delve deeper into the sort of thing we’d actually like to do, at Finito we have tended to find that the intention is so strong that a candidate who wants to work in this area will always find a way to succeed.

    The reason for this is because the motivation is there. And the motivation is there because the natural world is always reminding us of its beauty and its fragility.

    The Wildlife Photographer of the Year, the world-famous exhibition from the Natural History Museum, has been going since 1965, and this year is returning to the Dorset Museum & Art Gallery. It consists of over 100 photographs which together form an impressive catalogue of the natural world. This is our planet, our only home. Quite frankly, it’s a knockout on every conceivable level.

    Sometimes we see nature as vaguely comical as in Zeyu Zhai’s lovely image of a sea bird scarpering across shallows with prey dangling from its beak.

    At other times, it is full of a kind of critical dynamism: we see Max Waugh’s water buffalo, with one alert eye, splashing through water: we don’t know if it is fleeing a predator, or seeking food – but we know that his life is a struggle and that it will need that alertness every second of its life. Meanwhile Amit Ashel’s pair of fighting mountain ibexes show that a sort of balletic grace – and an astounding fearlessness regarding heights – can show itself in the fight for a mate.

    What it is doing all this for is, of course, the mystery. How do caribou know when to begin their great migration across Canada and Alaska and how do hungry wolves know they are about to embark on it? How do bears know that after hibernation there will be grass in the uplands but critical body mass to be earned from the salmon in the streams who are coming there in droves to mate? They are not told it – but they know it. Everything is in exquisite balance; it couldn’t be better.

    The glory of nature is a universal experience. Today the competition receives entries from over 90 countries. It is remarkable to consider that every second we are alive this kind of beauty is happening in every hidden square inch of the world: mountain, or ocean depth, or cave recess. If this heartening knowledge isn’t a sound basis on which to build a career, I don’t know what is. And you can also be a wildlife photographer too.

    Zeyu Zhai
    Amit Eshel
    Max Waugh

     

    Mike Korostelev
    Isaac Szabo
    Solvin Zanki. Two-coloured mason-bee (Osmia bicolor), the bee is building its nests in a empty snail shell. The bee provisions the snail shell with chewed balls of pollen and nectar and seals it with a layer of debris.

     

    Olivier Gonnet
    Alex Mustard

     

     

  • Opinion: Joe Biden and the Pitiless Society – A Powerful Reflection on Media and Morality

    Joe Biden and the Pitiless Society, Finito World

     

    The question of whether we should feel compassion for our politicians is a complicated one. For some in today’s media, our leaders have surrendered the right to our pity by seeking to rule over us. Journalists talk of ‘holding politicians to account’: it is as if, if they don’t, some inherent venality will suddenly emerge.

    Under such a view, without the presence of a harsh media, all politicians will immediately begin to cheat and lie. Hard-bitten journalists therefore have the opportunity to congratulate themselves, after each uncovering of political malpractice, that a form of public service has been undertaken.

    We have seen during this election cycle in the UK, with the gambling scandal, that there is never a shortage of people in public life doing silly things. Sometimes, the tone of the coverage doesn’t allow the perpetrators room to express sincere remorse: if they do express regret at their own actions, we will say that we led them unwillingly to that expression.

    Perhaps we did. But we must be careful to remind ourselves that we didn’t lead them there necessarily from a superior position. Except for the very few who on this planet may be in a place of genuine enlightenment – and how many of these really are there alive at any one time? – we are usually observing some version of human frailty which we also in some greater or lesser degree possess ourselves.

    This is even more the case when it comes to old age. ‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee,’ wrote John Donne, for whom the bell tolled, as he had predicted in 1631. His words have remained true ever since.

    The sight of Joe Biden struggling on stage last night in the First Presidential Debate was a sad one, not just because of the specifics of what he said, or failed to say – but because it is also touches the universal. One day, suddenly or slowly, we shall all find the faculties we had relied upon desert us – and few of us shall be on stage when it happens.

    It was heart-breaking to watch. Yet one notes sometimes an air of excited glee in the coverage. “Biden bombs!” ran The Daily Mail headline. “Joe-Matosed,” chipped in The Sun. This is the British media, and a degree of excitement at others’ misfortune is perhaps to be expected.

    But interestingly, those broadly on Biden’s side exhibited a similar sort of surprise at the fact that President Biden, like all the billions of people who aren’t president, is also subject to the laws of nature. Here is Chris Cillizza, a pundit on the Democrat-leaning CNN, writing on X: “He looked old. His answers trailed off repeatedly. He was hard to understand. He would stop in mid sentence and move on to something else. I NEVER thought he would be this bad. Stunning. Truly.”

    There is a note of amazement here which amounts almost to enjoyment of Biden’s predicament – as if that predicament weren’t also ours. Why did Cillizza never think this would happen? Did he think that Biden, by virtue of being president, had somehow the power to reverse the irreversible?

    Sometimes, the mockery of Biden has a sort of worship of power on its reverse side. The implication runs something like this. Doesn’t he know he’s president and that this sort of thing is unseemly? Can’t he sign some sort of executive order against his own decline?

    Our surprise at Biden’s mortality shows how disconnected modern Internet politics, and the security state, makes us from reality. Our way of life seems to sever us from compassion because the stage seems so vast and we are perennially cut off from those who take to it.

    By seeking to rule over us, Biden has signed up to scrutiny in a whole range of ways. Good journalism is to monitor public life with an air of humility, knowing that we’re seeking to ward off the sorts of faults in our politicians which we also share.

    But something changes when we get to a situation like this. It is a moment to pause, and allow ourselves the pity for someone powerful which we have almost come to think we’re disallowed.

     

  • Those Are My Principles: Michael Moszynski on Government’s Powerful Role in Fostering Innovation

    Michael Moszynski

    I am not a fan of Government trying to ‘pick winners’ in the economy (remember DeLorean?) but it does seem to me that some help to encourage people to start-up new enterprises is a good thing, especially when our economy was flat-lining in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

    Launching a new global ad agency, LONDON Advertising, two weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, my partner and I received no financial assistance from the then Labour Government, so we had to risk our post-tax savings to fund our new enterprise.

    So, along with a number of other business people, I lobbied the Government for this to change and in 2012 was delighted to see George Osborne introduce the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme to encourage investment in start-ups (the most risky stage of any business).  This was the most rewarding incentive for investors to put money into new companies anywhere on the planet.

    Unfortunately, Osbourne’s 2012 budget was overshadowed by the ‘Pasty Tax’ row and the SEIS announcement was not featured in the news.  I rang the Business Editor of the Times to complain and was astonished to find out that even he was not aware of it.  So, on the spot I made a proposal that my start-up firm would put up £100,000 to fund another start-up if the Times would cover the story.

    He got his Editor to agree, who then invited me to speak at The Times CEO Conference. This enabled me to persuade the Prime Minister, David Cameron, to announce it at a business event at No.10. The next day, the front page story of the Times Business Section led with “Clarion call for the next big thing comes all the way from Downing Street” with details of our a prize of £100,000 to fund a new digital agency and how people could apply for our Dragon’s Den-style competition.

    In fact over 1,400 people answered the call from over 60 countries, including Iraq, Moldovia and Vietnam.  The winners were two young UK graduates who had the idea of automatically turning tweets into video messaging, using tags linking specific words to relevant Getty stock footage.  To cut a long story short, our £100,000 SEIS investment helped the company secure £4m of investment to build and launch the product, making it the most funded tech start-up in Europe.

    We named it “Wordeo” and in its first week it secured more users than Snapchat did in its first six months.  Unfortunately, whilst hundreds of thousands of people tried Wordeo, it did not achieve ‘product market fit’ so we did not get the repeat business to fuel our ‘rocket’.

    But our initiative did help promote SEIS and the early stage investors in Wordeo benefited from up to 78% tax rebates on their losses.  Since 2012 over 53,000 new businesses have used the SEIS scheme, generating over £50b of new investment in the UK, many of which have found long-term success.

    So, whilst any dream of becoming a tech billionaire was put on ice, it was fortunate to still have the day job of running the ad agency, which we had built to become a robust business.

    The challenge running a small to medium sized business is how can the Founders be rewarded for all their investment, risk and hard work and reward their staff without selling out to a bigger company?

    Well, in 2014 the Conservative Government introduced Employment Ownership Trusts (EOT), with the objective of helping to create more employee-owned businesses.

    For the owners, it means they can take any unpaid dividends and future profits (to the value of the business) without paying any income or capital gains tax.  Plus they can continue to run the business without working for a new boss.  For the employees, there is absolutely no downside – and they even can access a tax-free bonus whilst the Founders are being paid out of the profits.

    Once the Founders have been paid, the Trust can issue the profits as dividends to the staff. Or, if the company is sold in the future, then the value is shared out between the employees. And for the business, it has a brilliant mechanism to attract and retain great staff, retain its independence and create a true legacy for its founders.

    My partner and I sold 100% of our shares to our own EOT (you can choose the amount with a minimum of 51 per cent) in 2018 and last year completed our five-year earnout period.

    We survived a terrible time under Covid when we lost 80 per cent of our revenue in one month and in our recovery plan set out financial targets which we have met and allowed us to pay all our staff a one month bonus at year end.  As I explained to our team at our end of party, if we achieve the same result over the next three years my partner and I will have had the value of our shares paid off and the value of their bonus in year three will be worth a year’s salary each.  You could describe it as the ultimate win-win.

    The third area which I believe this Government has helped successfully grow is our tech sector, which is now the third largest in the world, with our tech startups valued at £996 billion.  This is the result of the quality of our educational institutions, the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs and underpinned by the SEIS scheme. As we have seen with the recent Microsoft announcement of its £2.5 billion European AI hub in the UK, we are well placed to embrace the benefits of AI.

    I believe Rishi Sunak is correct to identify that the UK can take a leadership role in the technology which will help us grow our productivity.  Only by growing our economy will we be able to fund services to help the less fortunate in society. I am witnessing AI’s impact through my advisory role with one of the world’s most successful AI companies. This business is dramatically changing the financial performance – and significantly reducing the carbon footprint – of many of the world’s most energy-intensive businesses.

    Of note this is a US company that decided to co-locate in London. This is another win-win outcome that can in time be extended to all sorts of business activity and help not just make more profits, allowing for more investment and jobs, but also make the world a greener place.

    So in conclusion, whilst I believe Government should not be a crutch that businesses rely on to support them, I do believe Government can help create a positive environment to help unleash the country’s entrepreneurial potential.

     

     

     

  • Event Report: London’s Luxury Elite at the Residence of the Jordanian Ambassador His Excellency Manar Dabbas – A Powerful Evening of UK-Jordan Cooperation

    Finito World reports on a remarkable evening where new opportunities opened for cooperation between the UK and Jordan

     

    It was the writer of the book of Hebrews who explained the importance of hospitality: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” This important lesson has not been lost on His Excellency Manar Dabbas, who at an event co-hosted with Finito at his residence in West London, proved himself the perfect host.

    In fact if hosting is an art, then it might be that every night masterpieces are being created at the Jordanian embassy. The event was attended by a group of exceptional individuals from the luxury sector including CEOs and leaders from brands as varied as Fabergé, Trevor Pickett, Kiki McDonough, the Design Centre Chelsea, Almacantar, D.R. Harris, Hirsh London and David Morris Jewels. Rounding off the guest list, there was Guy Martin from Carter-Ruck, Kamal Rahman from Mishcon de Reya, the CEO of Coutts, Mohammed Kamal Syed and revered aviation leader David Scowsill.

     

    Speaking in his spacious, immaculate home, the Ambassador began with a broad welcome, and made it clear that Jordan is very much open for investment – and eager to receive visitors: “It’s one thing to hear about Jordan while we’re sitting here in London, but it’s quite another to go and see for yourself,” he said, as everybody mentally consulted their diaries.

    However, given all that is going on in Gaza, it was necessary to reference the unfortunate situation in the region: “It is very sad to see what is going on. You have peace when you have people who understand another’s concerns. Wherever there’s a storyline on one side, there’s always a counter-narrative on the other. We used to have leaders who can understand the importance of compromise,” he explained.

    This amounted to a moving call for peace. The Ambassador spoke throughout with a genuine sense of the sadness of the situation, always with the understanding that these matters are extremely complex and require our best efforts to find ways towards resolution.

    For Dabbas, that work is going on in London. “I am focused on promoting Jordan as a business destination for different people – I am talking to Tories and the Labour think tanks, the Muslim groups and the Jewish groups. My chief concern now is that the discourse on the streets of London remains political and doesn’t become religious. Is it easy? Unfortunately it is not – but there’s still a lot we can do. There are challenges out there but also opportunities. But we’ll not see peace in the future unless we see some fundamental change.”

    His Excellency went onto say that Britain faces a stark choice when it comes to the geopolitical conflicts in the Middle-East. “You can work with us and pre-empt and avoid, or wait until it explodes in our face and then react,” he warned.

    Dabbas spoke with infectious love about Jordan, giving real insight into what makes his country so special. He discussed the tourism sector, and also surprised guests by telling us that The Martian, Aladdin and Dune were shot in Jordan – as indeed was the classic Lawrence of Arabia. “There are a lot of opportunities,” he said, as the superb Jordanian food materialised before the guests.

    “What’s missing sometimes is we’re not promoting as much of what we do in Jordan. We don’t have oil, but in a way that’s a blessing. Instead, we have top-notch human capital. When it comes to IT labour, for instance, for a lot of British companies who want to move away from the political complexities in China, Jordan is the best solution.”

    Trevor Pickett asked if Jordan was easy to partner with, and whether the country hosts trade fairs as Turkey famously does. “Craftsmanship is what Jordan is good at – you must come and visit and have fun,” His Excellency replied. “We have fairs which are not as big as the ones you might have in Turkey. Come and see for yourself: you can make your decision according to your business models.”

    The ambassador was also asked what the benefits are of doing business in his country: “Jordan is not just Jordan; it is the gateway to Iraq. If you want to sell to Iraq, you have to come to Jordan. Jordan is the most moderate and forward-thinking country in the region.”

    Mishcon de Reya partner Kemal Raman asked how the country manages to cultivate neutrality, and what can be learned from its extremely positive international reputation. “When you say Jordan, people smile – other countries, people don’t,” she observed. “I couldn’t agree more,” replied the Ambassador. “Others would pay billions of dollars for just one per cent of the respect His Majesty the King has across the world. When he speaks, everyone listens. We pride ourselves on our royal family.”

     

    And how is it that this reputation is so secure? “Legitimacy is an aspect of this – we don’t have struggles, we have a constitution. We are a principled country. Compared to our neighbours who have huge wealth in oil and gas, we decided our wealth should be our soft power. We have always been true to our foes and to our friends. What we say in private is the same as what we say in public.

    In America if I say I’m from Jordan they think I’m talking about Michael Jordan. If I mention King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein they say how much they love him! You rarely see a monarch who has such a level of daily engagement with his people. This is what defines us.”

    His Excellency was also asked about the nature of the role he has. “When I first arrived here I realised I had to understand the importance of the parliamentary system. It is quite a big job in itself: you have over 600 MPs and over 800 Lords – the challenge is how do you manage to see each and every one of these? Even if I do meetings on a daily basis, I wouldn’t be able to get through them all!”

    In addition to that His Excellency engages regularly with the government: “It is challenging to be able to reach as many policy-makers as possible and explain why the Middle East is important, let alone Jordan. Then I have to engage with media and think tanks.”

    It is difficult, he says, to plan his diary. “I receive probably 20 invitations per day. That can be a little confusing – sometimes you have to do everything to decide whether it’s something you would go to for the second time or not! You have to be on top of your form to influence policy.”

    So what would His Excellency say to young people considering a career in the civil service? “I have many meetings with university students,” Dabbas explained. “I tell them that I knew I wanted to pursue politics from a very young age. I also tell them to follow their passion – but it’s always possible to have that without the capability. Sometimes it can be the other way round – you need to have both.”

    This was sound advice – and it was issued to a roomful of people who had followed theirs, and who went out into the Kensington night, happy that their own decisions in life had led them into the company of such a remarkable man.