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Category: Features

  • Opinion: Energy policy will have a role to play in the 2024 US election result

    Randall Heather

     

    One reason why Trump’s numbers are looking good is because the Biden-Harris administration is so incredibly stupid regarding energy policy – so much so that every increase in the price of oil will be seen as a creation of the Democratic Party.

    Let’s look at what Biden and Harris have contributed to energy policy. He got rid of the Keystone Pipeline, but that oil is still coming down from Canada on trains and barges and the likelihood of a spill is multiple times that of a pipeline. Nor will they issue any new permits for oil- or gas-drilling on federal land at a time when oil prices have been going up. This means that everyone’s underinvesting in oil because it’s not politically popular.

    All of this means that not only is supply being shut down but that demand is going up and it’s hitting people’s pockets every day. Really, when you come right down to it the best thing we could do as an energy policy is to drill like hell for gas – as there’s so much of it out there. The world is a huge methane creating machine: if you displaced all the coal fire generation with natural gas then the impact on the environment would be substantial. But the green lobby go after natural gas as if it’s oil or coal. But everybody knows you have to have some sort of bridge to build a solar-based energy policy.

    The truth is we don’t have an energy crisis – we have an energy storage crisis. As things stand, we can’t take solar and wind energy and save it at grid level. The technology doesn’t enable us to store it for any length of time whatsoever – and until you solve that problem, you can’t rely on solar or wind.

    Which brings me back to the Keystone Pipeline and the question of why Biden might be struggling in those states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan which he needs to win to retain the presidency, if he’s well enough to contest the election. There are lots of blue collar jobs associated with the natural gas infrastructure, and if you make an intervention like the one Biden did, then any adverse fluctuation in the gas prices can be justifiably placed at your door. Added to that, there’s not much spare capacity globally – expect in states like United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. But you can’t expect to switch off supply without some effect on prices, and therefore political ramifications.

    Biden is discovering this all too late. There’s the perception of a weak President – more than that there’s no real Bidenism that I can see which might amount to a core set of principles. It’s worth comparing him for instance with Bill Clinton. People forget that after Clinton came in in 1992, he immediately got cleaned out in the mid-terms, and had to work with Republicans. But he didn’t stick his head in the sand: instead he brought down the federal deficit and instituted some important welfare reforms. That led to a remarkably prosperous decade where the federal government even ran a surplus.

    That’s where Obama differed with Clinton. Clinton saw how he could make lemonade out of lemons – and it helped him in doing that, to have been the Governor of Arkansas. Obama, by unhappy contrast, had never run anything and it certainly showed. Biden suffers from the same affliction.

    What we’re witnessing with Trump’s resurgence speaks to a gap in America’s institutions: there’s no Leader of the Opposition in America. Trump has effectively been fulfilling that role by default – and you could say Nancy Pelosi did something similar from 2016-2020 during the Trump years. The system is too diffuse and lacks that gladiatorial atmosphere of parliamentary debate we see week in week out in the House of Commons.

    Politicians never debate each other except during elections and all interaction is done through the prism of the media.  No American President is called upon to do PMQs and the Cabinet meanwhile is absolutely invisible to the public. We’re paying the price of all that now – and who knows where it will end.

  • UK Climate Leadership: Government’s Opportunity to Lead on the International Stage in 2024

    Dinesh Dhamija presents the opportunities presented for the new UK Government to take a climate leadership role on the international stage.

     

    Marking a sharp deviation from the climate scepticism of the outgoing UK Conservative government, which disavowed environmental action, the new Labour administration has released ambitious green targets, with its eye on global leadership.

    This week the energy secretary Ed Miliband announced a £1.5 billion auction of renewable energy projects, sufficient to power 11 million homes, including 90 new solar farms with a capacity of 3.3GW and 20 new onshore windfarms. To attract bidders, the government had to face down opposition from local communities, who had hobbled the Conservatives’ renewable energy plans. Three major new solar farms have already gained approval, all of them in the east of England, in Lincolnshire, Rutland, and the Suffolk-Cambridgeshire borders.

    These projects are an initial step towards the tripling of UK solar power promised by the government, alongside its pledge to double onshore and quadruple offshore wind generating capacity. At the same time, solar-based generation across the UK is rising rapidly: it reached 2 terawatt hours per month for the first time in June 2024 and produced around 25 per cent more electricity this summer than in the same period of 2023. Rather than pandering to the oil lobby or appeasing NIMBYs, the Starmer administration hopes to show global leadership on climate action. Ed Miliband will attend Cop29 in Azerbaijan later this year, then host a 2025 conference with the International Energy Agency.

    Energy activists such as Harjeet Singh of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative have urged the government to act decisively by announcing a new ‘nationally determined contribution [NDC]’ – the official term for an emissions reduction plan. “The UK has a critical opportunity to set the bar for climate leadership and equity by announcing a robust NDC,” he said.

    Climate experts point out that, with the United States in the throes of an election, and France and Germany both in political limbo, the UK can step up and demonstrate leadership. “It would be good to see the UK including its fossil fuels phase-out commitment within its NDC,” added Singh. “This would show the way for others to follow.”

    Energy secretary Ed Miliband has already visited Brazil, current president of the G20 group of developed nations and host of Cop30 in 2025. These initiatives are important for the future of renewable energy and the fight against climate change. I’m pleased to see the Labour government grasping the nettle early in its tenure, while it enjoys a large parliamentary majority and can ignore sniping from the sidelines.

    It’s too early to claim any kind of breakthrough or tipping point from this government, but it’s good to see evidence of its direction of travel towards a greater climate leadership role. Long may it continue.

     

    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/

     

  • Clive James: Interview reflections from his friend Sir Tom Stoppard

    Christopher Jackson hears from the 83-year-old playwright about his old friend Clive James, and finds evidence of a moving friendship

    I’m sometimes surprised by how quickly dead writers recede. It amazes me that John Updike will be 13 years dead in January 2022; Philip Roth departed four years ago. The same with VS Naipaul. Christopher Hitchens has been dead nearly a decade.

    In each instance, you find the writer’s profile declines at their death; for one thing they’re not around to promote their books. Dead poets need advocates. Two year on from Clive James’ departure, it’s very soon to worry about his posthumous reputation – and too soon to reappraise.

    But as these two years have passed, and the world been changed utterly by the pandemic, I’ve found myself thinking about his work. But then that’s no surprise. As readers know, poems like “Japanese Maple”, “Holding Court”, and “Leçons des Ténèbres” have a habit, as Larkin’s did, of loitering in the memory.

    I never met him, though I did get to interview him over e-mail towards the end of his life. What Clive would have thought of the pandemic is anyone’s guess. Housebound in Cambridge for his last decade or so, it seems likely that he would have found the humour in the pandemic just as he did in so much else. But the fact that he never clapped eyes on the words Covid-19 and coronavirus is now the principal distance between us and him. Perhaps it’s the first hurdle his poetry has to traverse: it needs to touch us now.

    The memory of Clive can still stir people into action who don’t usually feel like doing media. One is Sir Tom Stoppard who was friends with Clive. Having been through Hermione Lee’s monumental biography of Stoppard and found little but passing reference to Clive, I decide to see if Stoppard is in the mood to reminisce.

    To my mild surprise, an email comes back. “You’ve sent me back into Clive’s “Collected” for an afternoon,” he says. “I’m grateful because the reading rebuked me for not having read so many of these poems before (and forgetting many I had read).”

    If you want to imagine where Stoppard is writing from, it’s worth watching Alan Yentob’s recent Imagine documentary, which shows the playwright in a country house with enviable gardens, and a number of pet tortoises.

    The Stoppard-James friendship is an intriguing one: of writers working in the late 20th and early 21st century their work seems to me the most likely to last, not just because of the richness of their output, but because of their infectious quotability.

    Here – plucked at random from his oeuvre – is the James voice for those who might have missed it: “Santyana was probably wrong when he said that those who forget the past are condemned to relive it. Those who remember are condemned to relive it too.” On Peter Cook: “He wasn’t just a genius, he had the genius’ impatience with the whole idea of doing something again.”

    And here he is on Stoppard: “The mainspring of Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead is the perception – surely a compassionate one – that the fact of their deaths mattering so little to Hamlet was something which ought to have mattered to Shakespeare.”

    So how far do they go back? Stoppard says he finds it hard to remember his first associations with Clive. “The past is mostly fog. I can’t remember how I first met Clive. Early on, he took me to join in one of those “famous” literary lunchings (Amis, McEwan et al).”

    I note how from Stoppard’s perspective, these lunches, which sometimes form a slightly obligatory part of our literary lore, have vanished into the ether.

    Clive and Tom have both spoken publicly about the way in which Clive used to send the playwright his poems – but again there is no mention of it in Lee’s book.

    So did Clive send Stoppard his poems? “Yes he did, during his last few years, send me some poems for comment.” And did Stoppard ever offer suggestions, and if so did Clive ever accept them? “He sometimes accepted the point,” Stoppard continues. “But I haven’t kept my letters and remember no instances. I don’t think I sent him my plays.”

    In plays like Arcadia, the action turns on a hapless biographer desperate to get at the truth of the past, only to find that the past hasn’t been properly preserved. It’s interesting to find that the playwright is himself cavalier with preserving communiqués of obvious literary interest. Stoppard has pulled off the trick of making me feel like a Stoppard character.

    But what comes across instead is that Stoppard genuinely admired Clive’s work: “I hugely enjoyed his writing, poems and prose,” he continues. “What I enjoyed, aside from his craft, was the way his store of cultural trivia (about Hollywood, machines, films, sport, etc) was intermixed with the real erudition.”

    But has Clive’s reputation suffered a bit precisely because he could do so much? “I guess that this connects with that: a lowbrow intellectual with a highbrow appreciation of the commonplace.  From Auden to Weissmuller.”

    I have to look up Weissmuller who, though he sounds like he ought to be a philosopher, turns an Olympic swimmer, the subject of a Clive poem ‘Johnny Weissmuller dead in Acapulco’. It’s in the Collected, so no doubt it popped into Tom’s mind because he’d read it that day. It’s a very Clive thing, to visit his poetry then find yourself sent back to your laptop to look up a forgotten athlete. I’m not sure if there’s another writer who so often sends me to Google.

    We tend to punish people sometimes for knowing too much; we suspect the heart is losing out to the head, and sometimes as in poems like ‘Jet lag in Tokyo’ (“Flat feet kept Einstein out of the army”) or Whitman and the Moth (‘Van Wyck Brooks tells us Whitman in old age/ Sat by a pond in nothing but his hat’) it might be that Clive is too concerned to tell you what he knows before he tells you what we really want to know: how he feels.

    But Stoppard, who is known for complexity in the theatre, favours simplicity in poetry, and this is why Clive’s poetry has merit for him: “In addition, he is always an “easy” poet, his poems come across wholly at first reading, everything declares itself in one shot, like an Annie Liebowitz photo (as Clive might say).”

    I ask Stoppard which poems in particular he values. Stoppard gives a thoughtful response. “The last long “The River in the Sky” just flows along, doesn’t it, as though dictated, but how difficult to bring it off.”

    This is assessment reminds me for some reason of what Andrew Marr once told me: “I read that poem, and thought how wonderful that there’s somebody on this earth who’s actually read something.”

    This sense of Clive as keeping the lights on on our behalf is perhaps an underestimated aspect of his achievement: there’s always a sense that he was doing it for us all. We felt included in his project and that’s an integral aspect of the affection in which he continues to be held.

    Stoppard has another important point to make. “There’s an exhibitionist in him, and perhaps exhibitionists aren’t really trusted.

    Clive was as much a fan as a star.  Most stars are careful not to show fandom to too many too often. But Clive couldn’t help himself.  He went overboard for those he loved.  I felt overestimated by him, as many did, I hope and suspect. But his approval mattered to me.”

    Stoppard also has some favourites from James’ vast oeuvre: “Although he wrote bigger, greater poems, I love ‘Living Doll’ a lot. The poem I’ve read aloud most to more people is ‘The Book of My Enemy’.”

    This sends me back to ‘Living Doll’ which I hope everyone who reads this will look at. It shows what James was able to do by the end: poems where the performance has receded before the urgency of what has to be said – and said clearly and musically.

    There remain doubters here and there about Clive’s poetry, but my sense is he got awfully good towards the end in a very short space of time. It was an astonishing, courageous old age.

    Of course, you don’t do that without being pretty good to begin with. My sense is that as the years, and centuries go by, no one will mind whether he did his best work late or not – just as we don’t first read ‘The Tower’ as late Yeats. Buttressed by time from the circumstances of his life and death, we’re more likely to read it as Yeats.

    It’s generous of Stoppard, who is extremely busy, and has also earned a right to some peace and quiet, to answer these questions. But it’s clear that the generosity is towards Clive’s ghost, not me. I don’t delete his email as he apparently deleted Clive’s – but as I finish work that day, it’s a pleasant thought to imagine Tom spending the afternoon with Clive like that. May he spend many more. 

  • Cricket Nostalgia: Henry Blofeld on PG Wodehouse, Ian Fleming and the Remarkable Cricket of the Past

    The great commentator Henry Blofeld permits himself a moment of cricket nostalgia about his upbringing and the cricket of his youth

    At my age, you’re permitted to look back a bit – to think of the circumstances of one’s family and the ways in which the world is changing. A bit of nostalgia never goes amiss when you’re in your eighties as I am.

    As I do this, I realise it’s the small things which tell you rather a lot. I recall that my father was a great reader aloud which is something which happens less and less today – but if you don’t do that you miss the sound of words, and it’s that which can really connect you to a writer. My father not only had a beautiful voice but was extremely articulate and was really an academic I suppose. Wodehouse was one of those authors he introduced me to between the ages of 10 and 16 – and taking those books close to my heart has shaped my life. It’s dated, of course, but it’s very funny.

    Sometimes Wodehouse seems to come near to my own life. There’s a book by Wodehouse Psmith in the City which describes an extraordinarily similar path to my early career. Wodehouse was in the City, and so was I – at a merchant bank called Robert Benson Lonsdale. I was there for three years; Wodehouse, of course, was quietly writing novels during his ordeal. But you could say that both of us were rather out of place and rather eager to leave.

    I was very lucky to get into sports-writing. One of my heroes was John Arlott, and that led me into an interest in the batsman Jack Hobbs. Arlott adored Jack Hobbs – Hobbs could be said to be the greatest batsman ever produced. He played his first test match in Melbourne in 1907, and played his last test in 1930 – the sort of longevity we’ve seen recently in the fast bowler James Anderson.

    Hobbs and Sutcliffe together were the most extraordinary pair – just as Anderson and Broad were. Hobbs and Sutcliffe even made runs on old-fashioned sticky wickets in Australia. He must have been the most supreme technician and was every bit as good in defence as Geoffrey Boycott – but in attack he lived in another world.

    I sometimes hear it said that bowlers used to appeal in somewhat meeker way in the 1940s and 50s. One hears it said that bowlers, seeing a possibility of a leg before wicket decision, would politely enquire of umpires: “How was that?” But this is sometimes exaggerated. I think of lots of photographs of cricket in the old days and they all go up like mad. It might perhaps be that distance may have learned a certain enchantment. Do people really think there was an age in life when bowlers were uncorrupted? I fear not.

    And distance lends lustre in lots of ways. WG Grace was an amazing cricketer, of course. In fact he was one of the greats – but not a great man. He comes quite badly out of the chapter in my book in 1882 when he ran out Sammy Jones when for all intents and purposes the ball was dead. That was entirely reprehensible and an appalling thing to do, and it was more appalling in 1882 than it would have been in 1982.

    Of course, in that year, Botham ran out Geoffrey Boycott – but that was done deliberately as he was sent in in Christchurch. It took Botham two balls and was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. He pushed it to the offside and a lot of sashaying up the pitch, and “Yes-no-wait!” After he was run out, Boycott said: “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve ruined my average!” I can’t remember what Botham said in return, but it was something very flowery and Boycott withdrew in a sulk.

    I am sometimes asked about my surname, since it is used in the Bond novels, and I suspect Ian Fleming thought of it because of me. I knew Fleming a bit, but I didn’t exactly think much of him – and I don’t go to the Bond films to see my family name written in lights. Fleming and I were elected to Boodle’s on the same day; I had dinner with him and my first wife in Jamaica, when I was 22. I was quite young to be meeting such well-known people. I suppose that did make me more confident later on.

    And confidence would come in handy in my career. In the early days of broadcasting, doing reports of county matches, stopwatch in hand – that was a very hairy business and to do that one had to have a certain confidence.

    Sometimes one had to commentate in rather bizarre situations. I can also remember sitting on a sack of sawdust in the groundman’s office at Sydney at the back of the Noble stand without any windows at all, doing a report for Sport on Four. I can also recall doing reporting on a total eclipse of the sun from Bombay – not to mention reporting on the riots in Lahore during the 1977 Test Match. It was nothing if not varied.

    I do wonder about the future of the sport. I can see the point of One Day Cricket in the same way I can see the point of instant coffee – which I find quite undrinkable. One Day Cricket was introduced as a financial palliative, and it’s not ideal in my view. Perhaps one day we’ll have the ultimate cricket match where each side will have one ball, bowled in front of 100,000 people. I wonder what WG Grace and John Arlott would make of that – and PG Wodehouse for that matter.

     

  • Hard Truths About Fossil Fuels: Dinesh Dhamija’s Call to Action

    Dinesh Dhamija calls for urgent action at the upcoming UN Summit of the Future to address the devastating impact of fossil fuels on the planet.

     

    When the world’s political and business leaders gather in New York next month for the UN-sponsored Summit of the Future, they will have to confront an elephant in the room.

    Despite record temperatures around the world, with at least 10 countries registering 50 degrees centigrade, rampant wildfires and a mass bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef,  the Summit’s pre-announced ‘climate pact’ makes no mention of fossil fuels. This omission brought a scathing response from 77 world leaders and Nobel prize-winners: “The extraction and burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of the climate crisis, fuelling extreme weather, fires, lethal heat, droughts and flooding that are threatening lives and livelihoods around the planet,” they wrote in a letter to the event organisers.

    “Yet this isn’t the end of the carnage – the extraction and burning of fossil fuels undermine all 17 [United Nations] Sustainable Development Goals, including jeopardising public health, fuelling conflict, exacerbating social inequalities and threatening biodiverse ecosystems worldwide.” There is a wilful blindness to the harms of fossil fuels, caused by the mutual dependence of some politicians and big oil and gas companies, and abetted by electorates who are understandably reluctant to pay now for to benefit future generations (even if those beneficiaries include their own grandchildren).

    At a time when international cooperation is at a low ebb, with geopolitical tensions and insularity replacing the globalisation of recent years, the world needs a new rationale for multinationalism. What better than something which threatens all of us, and for which there are already proven solutions: renewable energy in the form of solar, wind and new areas such as tidal power generation.

    “We call on the UN to ensure that the Pact for the Future includes robust commitments to manage and finance a fast and fair global transition away from coal, oil and gas extraction in line with the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit agreed to by nations in the Paris Agreement,” added the signatories. “If the Summit of the Future does not address the threat of fossil fuels, it will not be worthy of its name, risking undermining a once-in-a-century opportunity to restore trust in the power of international cooperation.” As the consequences of fossil fuel use grow increasingly hazardous to human life, while the remedies are increasingly affordable and accessible, we’re surely approaching a tipping point.

    Until then, it’s crucial that voices such as these 77 objectors are heard, heeded and amplified.

     

    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/

  • Friday poem: Chess by Laura Murray

    Chess

     

    Sometimes, impatient just to have things happen

    I take your pawn, knowing you’ll take mine.

    How else will the game develop? We can’t skirt each other

    endlessly, and I respect how the game deprives

    us both of room. Better to get on with it:

    brotherhood doesn’t exist on this board.

    Instead, there’s hardship, competition – this medieval

    game, a form of early capitalism.

    I love the pensive bishops, the tangential rooks.

    I love the knights, their horses flailing in battle –

    but they keep jumping into the future

    where the tanks and the nuclear bombs are:

    aggression rises as it does in modern nations.

    Even today, we still experience the frail type,

    whose power is predominantly symbolic

    who can only dodder one space at a time.

    And then there is the truly regal one –

    who, suddenly, half by chance, finds supremacy –

    like the queen moving along a vector

    nobody had foreseen, and she transforms our life.

     

    — Laura Murray

     

     

  • Joseph McDonald on his Inspiring Experience with the Finito Bursary Scheme

    Christopher Jackson updates readers about progress on Finito’s work with a particular student from the Landau Forte Academy

     

    At Finito, we are sometimes asked why it is that one-to-one mentoring works: one possible answer is that people are complex.

    During our lives – and especially our early lives – experience can often feel bewildering. Things come at us fast, and contradictory impressions are arrived at. Soon the world can seem insoluble.

    There is no better way of tackling all this than the concerned help of a mentor. At Finito we take it a step further and make sure that our candidates have the benefit of numerous mentors: the reality is that it takes time and a degree of luck to establish the right kind of mentor-mentee relationship. This means that students often need to try several mentors before discovering the right one.

    At Finito, not all we do is aimed at those punch-the-air moments: the place secured at a top university, the new job, the promotion. These are rewarding, of course, but they’re very far from the whole story.

    More typically, mentoring is full of small wins – it can open up onto a world of quiet reward, and subtle attainments. Sometimes when you look back at the road travelled, you can be surprised by how far you came by small steps. But it usually happens that in these more mundane things might be contained the seeds of some important revelation.

    All these factors are present in the fascinating story of Joseph McDonald, a Bursary candidate of whom we at Finito World are proud.

    McDonald is one of our mentees on the outstandingly successful Bursary Scheme, which we continue to conduct in partnership with the Landau Forte Academy. Finito mentor Andy Inman, who was instrumental in setting up this arm of the bursary, remembers his first impressions of Joseph when he was introduced to us.

    “Joseph is, by his own admission, not particularly social. He doesn’t like groups and crowds, and has very little home support to speak of. The important thing to realise when you have a candidate like that, is that small tasks become big things.”

    When Joseph joined our programme, he was about to leave to take a computer science degree at Lancaster University; he was already in a state of anxiety about what life would be like for him. “I was nervous about making friends and finding the right friendship group when I first came to university,” he tells us. “This is something that I struggled with in the past at school. It was definitely my number one priority upon arrival.”

    Inman decided that Joseph required a caring, nurturing mentor and he couldn’t have made a better selection in this than Coco Stevenson. “I knew that Coco would look after him,” Inman recalls. “What was required might sound insignificant but they were not to Joseph: we’re talking about things like packing lists, and so forth – all the pre-university tasks which you have to do before the leap to university. Some of these things, of course, a parent should do – but for whatever reason Joseph doesn’t have that.”

    Inman’s remarks are a reminder that as we go on in life, we typically come to know the world and forget what it was like not to be sure about things we later come to regard as obvious. Inman recalls: “It was mentoring at its most granular, in a way – all about the detail. How would Joseph get to university? How would he make applications for student loans? Where would he shop for a duvet and for cutlery?”

    But what Joseph most feared was Fresher’s week. “Most people would love that, but for Joseph it’s really the antithesis of what he enjoys – so he had to be talked through that.”

    Stevenson stepped up and in time developed a profound relationship with Joseph. She tells us she was mindful of the magnitude of Joseph’s achievement in getting to university at all: “Joseph is the first in his family to go to university and we should remember that Lancaster University has one of the best Computer Science courses in the UK,” she tells us.

    But Stevenson also never lost sight of the difficulty for Joseph: “Going to university is a major transition in a young person’s life and is all the more difficult coming out of a pandemic – especially when you are a neuro-diverse person, as the world is not always set up for people who are not neurotypical,” she continues.

    Stevenson gives us her first impressions of Joseph: “My mentee was not especially confident in the months leading up to moving to university and there were a number of worries and concerns.”

    Difficulties of this kind must be tackled head-on, and together, Coco and Joseph began to explore the issues: “Working regularly together, we were able to ‘workshop’ issues, come up with strategies and plan for eventualities,” she recalls. “Planning and strategizing helped enormously in accomplishing tasks and not being derailed by unforeseen things.”

    Stevenson used her experience of university life to begin to create a plan for Joseph. Joseph now recalls this fondly: “We discussed the kind of activities I could get up to, including the structure of academic events and the social events I could engage with outside of my studies. Coco encouraged me to convert my ideas of involvement into a more solid plan that helped me find my grounding as I began living away from home for the first time.”

    Soon the pair of them had alighted on a strategy: “Coco explained that societies are fundamental to finding people with similar interests and a great place to make friends. She advised me on how many societies to attend, and how to approach the problem of deciding which societies I would continue attending. This was how I became part of the Sober Society, and I am so grateful to Coco for this.”

    Gradually, Joseph began to feel confident, oriented in his new location, and in time able to feel at home. Stevenson looks back with satisfaction at the way in which Joseph’s sense of self developed in those early months at Lancaster University: “Each small step led to successes which in turn led to increased confidence and satisfaction. My mentee went from unsure and nervous to confident, assured and assuming various leadership roles, as well as achieving academic and social success.”

    One of the core principles of Finito’s mentoring is that we want to be there for the long haul for our candidates. Coco and Joseph remained in touch as Joseph settled in, and Joseph still talks today of how the checklists and preparation that they made together helped him focus on his lecture content.

    But then, a chance came up, and Joseph joined the Sober Society. Joseph remembers: “The Sober Society isn’t a recovery program and does not require you to never drink alcohol but provides a safe space for non-drinkers to have fun and an alternative for those taking a break from alcohol. I was enjoying participating in the events the Society had put on such as game and film nights.”

    By regular attendance, Joseph soon discovered another opportunity: “It was announced at one of the events that the Society would soon be holding its annual hustings for the executive positions in the society,” he recalls. “As a new society formed only in that October of 2021, there were only two full time members of the executive, so they were looking for more to fulfil other roles. It was suggested by a friend of mine that I should apply for treasurer. I was uncertain of this since I was concerned it would create more work than I would be able to handle at this early stage of my university life.”

    By this point the mentor-mentee relationship was far advanced. “Upon a call to Coco, I was reminded of the advantages of holding such a position. Such positions are seen positively by future employers as it shows leadership, commitment, and initiative. As one of the two candidates up for the position, I won the vote.”

    Joseph’s tenure as Treasurer of the Sober Society was a huge success. He presided over a period of expansion: “By the end of the first term, we had over 150 members. This meant we were already one of the larger societies on campus. Issues surrounding alcohol are close to our hearts within the executive, so we were ecstatic at our success.”

    And this success in turn began to be noticed: “After the end of the 2021-2022 academic year, our president was contacted via our Instagram account by student blog Student Beans. They were interested in the values of our society and studying Sober Societies across the country. This was representative of our success.”

    Joseph began to create plans for the future of the Sober Society and for his own future, even planning a collaboration with other sober societies at Manchester Metropolitan University with trips scheduled to destinations such as Edinburgh. In addition to this he also got a girlfriend.

    But this is where the story shifts: unfortunately towards the end of his first year Joseph got into an incident at the university, an altercation in which a door handle was accidentally snapped, when Joseph reacted to something a fellow student had said about his girlfriend. Joseph wasn’t at fault – indeed had shown admirable judgement – but the situation sadly rattled him and he decided not to intercalcate.

    It was at this point that Finito deepened its involvement still further, as Coco voiced concerns with the Finito management about Joseph’s mental health. Mental health has been a core aspect of Finito World and we sought immediately to have him assessed by Paul Flynn, the brilliant CEO of leading mental health organisation AddCounsel.

    Flynn explains: “When I spoke with Joseph he was on antidepressants, and my sense was that he had better support from Lancaster University than people usually get in these situations.”

    Flynn then relayed his advice to us: “One of the challenges Joseph has is around resiliency: whether that links back to the way he’s wired up or not, it’s something that needs to be looked at. If it isn’t taken care of, then it will resurface. A very good CBT-based therapist should be able to support but so could a coach with expert knowledge of resilience skills.”

    Before setting this up, we asked about Joseph’s desire. “When you get a coach you’ve got to be sure there’s that level of desire, and a wish to sort out a situation. I think that’s there or he wouldn’t have gone on the phone with me. But his plan is to go back home, and there’s no real work plan. He needs structure.”

    Enter Finito mentor Talan Skeels-Piggins, who is ideally-placed to help students in this kind of situation. Skeels-Piggins’ story is unique and makes him an ideal fit for Joseph. Having been a PE teacher Skeels-Piggins suffered a terrible setback when he lost the use of his legs in a car accident. This, however, was the prelude to an astonishing display of fortitude, and he has gone on to be a Paralympian Olympic gold medalist in both motorcycling and skiing. He recently published a book The Little Person Inside which describes his extraordinary life.

    Skeels-Piggins has been able to find meaning in a situation which would have defeated many others, and he seemed an ideal mentor for someone like Joseph struggling with mental health issues.

    This means that Joseph has now embarked on a second mentor-mentee relationship, following on from his continuing association with Coco. Talan has begun to deepen his understanding of what Joseph actually wants, and been able to uncover too that some of the origins of his difficulties came during the pandemic when he spent less time in school than he would have liked.

    In terms of the future Skeels-Piggins’ sense of Joseph’s future has crystallised during their sessions: “He needs to realise that he is enough by being Joseph, and not having to prove himself to be loved. This leads him onto the issue of not knowing what he needs to do for his future as he is only doing the current course because he felt pressure to go to Uni in order to please parents.”

    After a later session, this began to deepen: “Joseph is not interested in the corporate world but wants to do something; tangible, real, that you can see, be proud of, helps others and makes a difference in the world. He admits he is not interested in computers and would not want to get a job related to computers once out of Uni.  When we were talking about litter-picking, pond cleaning projects and other ecology-based activities he had done in the past he began to show interest and smiled whilst reflecting about the events.”

    Joseph therefore has a momentous decision ahead of him: whether to return to university or whether to choose another path altogether and look for a future related to the environment or sustainability.

    When such things are at stake, it’s our experience at Finito that people are will struggle to make a choice when they don’t have enough information at their fingertips. At such crucial moments, it can never be a bad thing – and will almost always be a good thing – to look for more information about what might work best.

    Joseph’s stated interest in the environment and climate change caused us to think about people in our network who might be of use to Joseph and we approached the former Green Party leader Natalie Bennett to ask if she would be prepared to take a call with Joseph to take him through the options. She very generously assented and though the call will take place after this magazine has gone to press it is a measure of how far Joseph has come that the boy who was worried about Fresher’s week is soon to talk to the former leader of a major political party. Joseph should be proud of that.

    Joseph’s story is evolving all the time, but the support so far provided him would have been impossible without the commitment of two Bursary donors in particular, whose generosity has been matched to Joseph’s needs.

    In the first place, we would like to thank, Simon Blagden, CBE, Chair of Building Digital UK and former Chair of Fujitsu UK. Blagden says: “I served the Government’s advisory panel reviewing the future of technical education. During the two year process we met with hundreds of young people all over the country. I am delighted to support the work of Finito. The valuable work which you do strongly resonates with both students and their parents.”

    Secondly we would like thank Dinesh Dhamija, who says: “I have been helping entrepreneurs through coaching and mentoring over the past 17 years. Finito’s focus on young people is admirable and I am proud to join their group in support. My own expertise is in the fast growing online Business to Consumer sector, and the green energy solar and Hydrogen fields.” We hope to use this expertise in future when it comes to Joseph’s story.

    Joseph has already come a long way. The way ahead isn’t clear, but is becoming clearer all the time. What’s certain is that we stand shoulder to shoulder with him as a business, and as a bursary, and are committed to his success.

  • Vet to Scientist: Dr. Vanessa Herder’s Extraordinary Journey in Academia

     

    The vet who became a scientist explains why academia is a great place to work

     

    “Kid, do what you like. Choose what you want.” This was the career advice my parents gave me during my last year at school. Ok, then. I want to become a vet. They were delighted and my mum painted pictures in her mind of me being the local vet in a small village somewhere. All neighbours would come and bring their pets to me and she could be involved in the romantic life of the female version of James Harriot. But it turned out to be very different.

    Now as a scientist, my latest research project is studying the differences in the immune response of patients with a Covid-19-induced pneumonia. We investigated in SARS CoV-2-patients which immune response determines the disease severity. This study is a large collaborative project with scientists form the UK, Malawi, Brazil, USA, France and Switzerland and published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. How can a vet be involved in this project?

    During my vet degree I realised quite quickly that my original idea of working with horses would not be happening. During my first lecture of pathology while learning about disease mechanisms in tissues my passion for studying diseases was ignited. On that day, I knew horses will always be a hobby for me. My fascination about understanding how diseases evolve in the body grew from day to day. Studying diseases does mean to understand what health is.

    How a virus infects the host, causes damage and how the body is able to fight this infection successfully is not only interesting, it is dependent on the orchestration of so many factors. It fascinates me. I finished my first PhD studying virus infections in the brain and a second PhD followed to characterise a newly emerging virus infection in animals which caused stillbirth and brain damage in ruminants.

    As a vet, I knew how close we are to our pets or farm animals, and my research always focussed on aspects of the One-Health approach:  Diseases which are transmitted from animals to humans. To strengthen my research I decided to stop doing diagnostic and teaching vet students and started a full time post as a scientist. For years, I was studying which immune reactions determine that some hosts show a severe or lethal outcome in virus infections and why some show a mild course of disease. I developed all the tools to address this question, and worked in the high containment lab with a virus, which can only be handled under these conditions.

    Then the pandemic hit, the government stopped all our virus work. Only SARS CoV-2 from now on. The joint and focussed research activities were used to study the pathogenesis of Covid-19. I applied all the skills I developed before the pandemic, including being trained for the high containment, on the Covid-19 response to contribute as much as I could. Visualising the virus in the lung, which had never been done before, was one of my tasks, and it was a tough one. It took several months. At this time, I realised how valuable it was that the PhDs I made not only taught me science.

    Most importantly, the PhD teaches grit and endurance as well as creativity. The perseverance of starting and finishing a PhD, which lasts 4 years, requires scientific depth and dealing with all the challenges along the way. In short, you need to have a very long breath. This helped me to keep going with the initially unsuccessful virus detection attempts in the tissues. I finally made it and will never forget the sunny afternoon on a Saturday during the hard lockdown, when the virus finally was visible in the lung.

    Like all projects and publications in excellent research, the people involved are key to success. Interdependence of independent people working together is the heart of the work. Only efficient priorisation with well-developed communication and the perfect alignment of different expertise’s make it happen. As in this study: Every Co-author of this manuscript did what she or he could do best and contributed it. The efforts were organised and managed from Brazil to Malawi, Switzerland, USA and France to the UK and required a smart project management system. Science connects people, cultures and experiences and this makes academia a beautiful place.

    During my time in academia I had the pleasure to work with so many driven and smart students, which is a joyful experience and which taught me so many valuable life lessons. I am fortunate to have great mentors pushing me to do the best work, opened doors for others and myself and allowed me to see further with their experience. Thanks to the diversity of my work, I know people in so many countries of the world, who became friends and part of my life.

    Science connects the dots of knowledge and unites people. And it’s the people who drive the research to the next level. The most rewarding aspect of working in academia is to be part of the career path of the younger generation, seeing them succeed and choosing the work they want. Eventually, progressing from a job to a profession leading to a passion. Each student is a special person in my life as they trusted me with being part of their academic career and there is nothing better than meeting these people after years again and reflecting together on our journeys.

    I am not living the romantic life of the female version of James Harriot. I am living the romantic life of a scientist who can travel the world for presentations and conferences, and works with researchers in places like India, Africa, Europe, USA, China and the Middle East.  Basic research is the joy of answering questions in unknown territory combined with an unparalleled work ethic. Understanding diseases is understanding life – in animals and humans alike.

     

  • Class Dismissed: Richard Desmond

    Richard Desmond, the successful publisher and founder of the Health Lottery on the next generation, the success of OK! magazine – and not switching off

     

    Tell us a little about your upbringing. What do you think parents would say if they could see your success today?

    Look, I think they’d be incredibly proud. My father was the managing director of a cinema advertising chain Pearl & Dean and he used to take me to meetings. I have been in a lot of interesting meetings since; I can tell you that.

     

    You left school at 15 and have fought your way to the top. Do you think the university system has become less successful at preparing young people for the workplace?

     

    Universities are good for some students – but I reckon they’re not always right if you want to start a business. Parents are better off carefully thinking about what kind of offspring they have: don’t just send them to university if they have entrepreneurial flair.

     

    Did you have a mentor in your early days of business?

     

    Yes, but I always made my own decisions. I have tried to inspire the next generation and tell them when they are wrong. The main reason people fail in business is just that – lack of clarity of purpose.

     

    What advice would you give to young people today looking to start their own businesses? 

     

    It is tough out there and the sooner you realise that the better. You need resilience, the ability to sell and to champion your purpose – I can tell you that business is also a hell of a lot of fun when you win.

     

    Why do you think OK! ended up surpassing Hello! in the market?

     

    We were in tune with the markets: people wanted out product and we knew it. That meant that we were able to live and breathe it, knowing that with the right we would be successful. I also think we invested in the right features: never underestimate the value of good editorial – and when you see a good story, put your money behind it.

     

    How do you feel about Sir Keir Starmer’s administration? 

     

    He claims to be the party of wealth creation. It is probably better for me not to say anything just yet, although I am known for my expletives. Sometimes the wisest course of action is for me to try and remain silent.

     

    What did the writing of The Real Deal teach you about yourself and your past career?

     

    No doubt about it – most absorbing experience of my life. I remember being very busy writing it. It’s a fascinating experience to draw it all together – the threads of your life. Some of my best friends and worst adversaries told me that they couldn’t put it down.

     

    The Health Lottery is a passion of yours. What community projects are you most proud of having supported because of this initiative?

     

    I’ve a very simple philosophy on this. Don’t do anything you’re not proud of. I don’t believe in going into any project without believing absolutely in its importance.

     

    How do you switch off from work? 

     

    I never switch off – the lights never go out here!

     

    What is your legacy and how would you like to be remembered? 

     

    It is far too soon to be thinking about that. However, allow me look back with great pride for my own part in ensuring the Battle of Britain Monument which I helped get built against all the odds!

     

     

     

  • Baroness Anne Jenkin: ‘In 2024, Women Must Have a More Powerful Role in Every Meeting’

    Baroness Anne Jenkin

    I founded Women2Win with Theresa May in November 2015. At that stage the Conservative party had nine per cent women MPs – I spin it around the other way and say ‘91 per cent male’. The first thing was to rattle the cage and explain to the Party why it mattered.

    It was just before David Cameron became leader and he embraced it. In his first speech he said: “I want the Party to better reflect the country I seek to serve.” Now we’ve plodded onto 25 per cent. The Labour Party is at 51 per cent but they use all-women short lists.

    Besides, Labour has an easier pond to fish in. They have the trade unions and the public sector, and these structures mean that young female candidates are better supported on their journey. Labour also has a far less rigorous system of quality control in order to get on the candidates list.

    Women2Win matters because women’s life experiences are different to men’s. You have to have that different experience better reflected around the Cabinet table, as well as in Whitehall and in Westminster more broadly. I’m absolutely sure that we wouldn’t have made such a hash of education during Covid if we’d have had more women around the Cabinet table. That’s why I urge senior colleagues never to have a meeting without a woman round the table, and preferably two.

    After a recent reshuffle, a senior minister said to me: “I hope you’re pleased that there’s been an increase.” I said: “Yes, an increase of one, and the Cabinet Office has no women in it. It has nine male ministers.” They also don’t often consider the impact of appointments. I think the Foreign Office has more female ministers than men, meaning they travel a lot. But then there are no women in the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy departments (BEIS), or in Scotland, Wales or Ireland. They need to be aware that our voices need to be heard.

    My campaign was to get more women to come forward. The sort of women who would make good Conservative MPs may be on a trajectory to become partner at a firm like PwC. They know if they work hard and do a good job that although it may be challenging, they’ve a very good chance of making partner, and being well rewarded. We’re asking them to move to a risky profession where they may not get selected or then elected – and if they get elected they may well lose their seat.

    Furthermore, no matter how hard they work, promotion isn’t dependent on ability. Not surprisingly they see sharp-elbowed men who know how to play the game differently being promoted and it gets very frustrating – and they leave. That’s not always the case, of course: the government is currently busy promoting women ahead of men, which can create frustration in the other direction. Even so, it’s not an easy path.

    My concern has always been around attracting the right people. In the main from my experience it’s about character which you can’t define easily. I regret that the party doesn’t use our best asset – our people – to show the fascinating narratives of those who do get into Parliament.

    I’m focussed on getting more to step forward, and on helping them navigate the maze that gets them into Parliament. That means assisting them with selection, and explaining how to appeal to those are going to pick you as a candidate. Then I aim to help them once they’re in the job.

    Finding MPs, however, should really be the Party’s job. Famously, Gillian Keegan, who’s now minister of state in the Department of Health with responsibility for social care, I met at the theatre. The Party needs to step up and do a focused outreach job. 

    We really work with women once they have passed the Parliamentary Assessment Centre and are on the official candidates list. We do speech practice, Q&A practice, and we have weekends away where candidates work on their CVs and other relevant skills. We have even included improv comedy sessions, as women can find humour difficult. That aspect is hard for women, who tend to take ourselves more seriously, especially if we’re entering public life. We aim to give our female candidates confidence to do the self-deprecating humour.

    Theresa May remains our patron, and she comes to things regularly. We had our 15th anniversary last year and she was our guest of honour. She’s unlikely to be mentoring people individually as she used to do. She helped that generation of Amber Rudd and Andrea Leadsom a lot. We now have quite an effective group of female Conservative MPs and Peers called the 2022 Committee – she comes to all those meetings, and has made a real difference for young women in the Party.