My blog

Category: Opinion

  • Opinion: Why Rishi Sunak needs to think beyond STEM

    Finito World

     

    We know that Rishi Sunak thinks about mathematics a lot because he has told us this is the case. This is a prime minister who, as the almost clicheic saying goes, ‘inherited a mess’, and is now beginning to think about what his priorities going forward might be.

    He has sorted out that mess to some extent. Certainly, he has shown he can handle the work – a low bar perhaps, but one which his predecessor Liz Truss never managed to clear. He also has some victories to his name: the Windsor Accords should in time spark a return to power-sharing in Northern Ireland; the AUKUS submarine deal shows he is capable of operating on the world stage; and most importantly, he has begun to get control of the public finances, though inflation remains stubbornly high and his decision to promise to cut it in half was an own goal: in politics, never promise something which isn’t in your control to deliver.

    None of his achievement are showy, and all of his progress is incremental. All is not lost: due to a low energy opponent in the shape of Sir Keir Starmer it may enough to put the Conservatives in touching distance of a 1992-style election victory in next year’s General Election, though that remains a long shot. What’s needed to pull off victory is leadership, and direction. So far, we have the ‘maths to 18’ policy, stipulating that all students should have some maths education right up until the end of secondary school.

    It is well-intentioned, and the prime minister has a point. Many young people do indeed, as the prime minister said in his speech at the start of the year, leave university without a basic understanding of finances, and experience difficulty when it comes to negotiating their mortgage deals.

    But in framing the question of mathematics in such limited terms he has made the matter seem dull, thereby making it hard to bring people along, and earning derision in some quarters for a ‘cookie cutter’ approach. A tax return is a good thing to have sent in on time, but it doesn’t speak to the human heart. It was Albert Einstein who said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

    In politics it is best never to express an intention aloud without having fleshed out the consequences of choosing to pursue it. In rushing into the debate without a full appreciation of how more maths teachers will be delivered – and doing so during such a febrile atmosphere of teachers’ strikes – Sunak has raised more questions than he has answered, leading to a series of jokes about not having done his sums.

    This isn’t to say the policy is dead. It simply needs to be recalibrated and, of great importance to this magazine, tethered properly to the realities of the jobs market. Sunak would do well to read the Institute of Engineering and Technology’s report Engineering Kids Futures. This highlights a shortfall of 173,000 workers in the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) sectors. The cost to the UK economy of this shortfall is projected at £1.5 billion.

    It might be that the economic cost is the least of it. Children need wonderment and inspiration; they need to feel early in life the joy of creating things – and also to learn from the experience of wrestling with the difficulty of making things work.

    Of course, mathematics isn’t separate from the importance of engineering; an engineer who can’t count won’t get very far. But maths isn’t a siloed subject – quite the opposite. Sunak now has an opportunity to reimagine ‘Maths to 18’, by tethering it to employability. How might it transform our children’s careers outlook?

    While he’s about that he might go further. A glance at the sector output of the UK economy, ought to persuade the prime minister to think not just in terms of STEM but also STEAM.

    The ‘A’ stands for art, of course, a word which can still seem wishy-washy to the conservative mentality – so perhaps we might be thinking in terms of STEMCI – where the CI stands for Creative Industries.

    That ought to get recalcitrant Conservative minds to pay attention: the creative sector is big business. Year on year, the sector continues to boom – and that’s in spite of the restrictions placed on many businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic. For instance, according to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the creative industries grew by 6.9 per cent in September 2022 compared with the same month in 2021. Growth across the UK economy as a whole was 1.2% over the same period.

    Perhaps we need to think not just of Einstein’s contributions to maths and science, but to remember his violin-playing. A new generation of renaissance men and women is possible if Sunak gets this right.

    It also happens to tally with what he needs to do politically. He has made a good start and is probably the best-suited to the role of any of the occupants of 10 Downing Street since David Cameron. But he is yet to make anything approaching a powerful speech. And if he can’t make one about maths, he needs to think again.

     

  • Letter from Venice: ‘a relocation might be for you’

    Christopher Jackson

     

    Many a city which we call beautiful is by any objective measure not beautiful at all. Very often, as with London or New York, they’re simply gigantic and dynamic enough to admit opposites. Others are dystopias which we’ve trained ourselves to manage in by assigning them labels – enchanting, lovely, beautiful – which don’t apply.

    You realise this when you come to Venice: the City of Water is a separate case altogether. Any survey or poll taken regarding the question of The World’s Most Beautiful City, which didn’t show Venice the winner by a comfortable margin would be immediately suspect and void. No other city does terracotta reflected in the water and Gothic windows like this. But it’s also the place of the chance discovery: the Madonna above the doorway; the disappearing spire; the gondola yard; the washing on the balcony.

    It hits you rightaway. As you cross from Marco Polo airport towards the lagoon, a new standard presents itself. We can call it beauty, but it’s also to do with an unusual degree of respect for the past. The past, you continually reflect, as you tour Venice’s bridged intricacies and tucked-away glories, may simply have been better aesthetically. The difference between Venice and elsewhere is that Venice has kept its commitment to the past as close to absolute as a city can, while everywhere else has made significant accommodations.

    I recall coming here in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008. It occurred to me then that the very last city on earth to know that there was a recession on would be Venice – and the last person on earth, a Venetian hotelier. It comes as no surprise to learn that tourism is by far the biggest sector in Venice, though the region still has a lively shipbuilding sector, in addition to being the largest exporter of Italian luxury goods.

    Unemployment here remains high, meaning securing jobs is competitive. I recall another visit here in 2006, and on nights in the piazzas found the common thread among the young was their tendency to be living with their parents with no serious prospect of employment any time soon. Occasionally one wonders what happened to that generation: perhaps they had to go abroad; maybe they become part of the radicalisation of Italian politics either nationally or as part of the Venetian nationalist movement; or perhaps they inherited their parents homes, and still hear their footsteps echoing as they leave the bars of the Piazzale Michelangelo, now thirtysomethings their static lives having been spent taking all this for granted.

    For non-Italians who happen to be mobile, and perhaps looking to run their businesses from abroad, the property market is rather inflated in Venice itself compared to properties nearby in Padova and Vicenza. Everything’s Giotto in the first city, and Palladio in the second – and both are in easy reach of Venice.

    But relocating to Venice is not impossible, and there’s more life than you might imagine. Readers of Donna Leon’s excellent Commodore Brunetti series will know that the idea of Venice as mere museum and cultural fossil has tended to be exaggerated. In those books, we find a vivid, almost Dickensian cast of characters: the detached aristocrat, somehow managing to afford the upkeep of the palazzo; the shadowy criminals moving their money around; the owners of the gondola companies; the close-knit community which keeps La Fenice running.

    But Brunetti’s mysteries often take him beyond Venice itself onto the mainland, as if only there might the real network of relationships which lead to an intriguing crime be found. You sense that if Leon didn’t do this, too many of her stories would be centred on hotels, restaurants, or gelaterias.

    For those looking to relocate, I can recommend the Lido. Every night, the vaporetto from the mainland disgorges true Venetians from their day jobs in hospitality onto a sleepy promenade whose veneer is touristy, but which the longer your stay feels lived-in and viable as a home. Accordingly, the place has a sense of community which you only occasionally glimpse on the lagoon. Housing here is affordable – for the Londoner, almost laughably so – and so the international entrepreneur is in theory only a Visa application away from an affordable lifestyle with Venice on their doorstep.

    And what does it mean to have Venice on your doorstep? It’s to be among the very wonders of the world. Almost every church has at least something by Titian, Carpaccio, or Veronese and most have at least two of them. Then there are the big-hitters such as the Scuola Grande which is known as the Sistine of Venice, with its grand dramatic ceilings painted by that scrappy hustler Tintoretto. We don’t always like to hear it, but it was the product of a worldly ruse. When the possibility of the commission came up, there were four other artists in contention, including Tintoretto. When Tintoretto displayed his submission, he took the opportunity to announce that it was a donation, knowing full well that the regulations stipulated that all gifts had to be accepted: he went on to do 60 paintings, a large proportion of them deathless masterpieces.

    You could spend your life only looking at those – and scores of lifetimes inspecting all the glories elsewhere in the city. If you stand very still on the Ca d’Oro and pay proper attention, you can feel it moving slightly. Look down at the floor at the Basilica di San Marco, and you’ll notice that the stones are uneven and therefore hand-cut – nothing is ever completely even in the Venetian aesthetic, it always admits room for growth. In this beautiful untidiness, it mimics the laws of the universe itself.

    Of course, there is another side to Venice, which you can glimpse in the Doge Palace itself. Here you meet the truth that there’s such a thing as a painting which is too large – Tintoretto’s gigantic Last Judgement seems as though it must forever draw attention to its size, and therefore to the ambition of the painter. To paint on that scale you need a better reason than that you’d like to be considered great (and be paid in the process).

    Here too are some of the more forbidding prisons imaginable, reminding you that to fall foul of the Doge was never a particularly good idea. The famous Bridge of Sighs is named not, as many think, after the delighted exhalations of lovers seeing the possibilities of La Serenissima. Instead it refers to the regret of prisoners who saw this view on their way to their executions, to when all those possibilities had been closed.

    But perhaps there’s a lesson there. If Venice is infinite and we are not, then it’s always to some extent a mystery to anyone mortal. A relocation might be for you if you’ve come to the conclusion that the occasional scratching of the surface isn’t enough.

     

     

     

  • Dinesh Dhamija: Spirit of Gandhi Signals India’s Soft Power

    Dinesh Dhamija

     

    On his recent visit to Hiroshima in Japan, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a

    statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the city where 140,000 people died in 1945 to the first atomic

    bomb dropped in anger.

     

    “This bust in Hiroshima gives a very important message,” said Modi. “The Gandhian ideals of

    peace and harmony reverberate globally and give strength to millions.”

     

    The event was a potent symbol of India’s new soft power diplomacy, as the country takes its

    place among the world’s leading nations: fifth in GDP, first in population, top in expected

    economic growth. It follows an incremental pattern of cultural influences spreading from a

    newly confident and purposeful India, backed up by its astonishingly successful diaspora.

    (YouTube just appointed Indian-born Neal Mohan CEO, to add to the dozens of other

    multinationals and countries now led by Indians.)

     

    Modi’s promotion of soft power began as soon as he was elected in May 2014. Just four

    months later, he addressed the UN General Assembly and proposed an International Day of

    Yoga on 21 June, to coincide with the longest day in the Northern hemisphere.

     

    “Yoga embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfilment;

    harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and wellbeing,” Modi told

    the assembled leaders. His resolution gathered unprecedented support, and was passed in

    record time. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that it had brought attention to the

    benefits of the ancient practice: “Yoga can contribute to development and peace and can

    even help people…find relief from stress.”

     

    The UN’s decision was a highly visible example of India’s use of soft power. Besides yoga, it

    includes mindfulness, non-violence, cricket, Indian food, Bollywood, ayurvedic medicine, IT

    services and the diaspora, all combining to “alter the behaviour of others to get what you

    want, preferably through attraction rather than coercion or payment,” as American political

    scientist Joseph Nye defined it in the 1990s.

     

    Soft power’s relevance has grown in the 21st century as a counterpoint to the external

    policies of global superpowers. China lends heavily to developing nations and then seeks to

    control them through their indebtedness, while the United States’ and Russia’s military

    interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine, have proved divisive, costly and

    ineffective. India’s soft power stands in contrast to China’s “predatory and coercive”

    approach, while the US has alienated Islamic populations and Russia is isolated and

    ostracised.

     

    Instead of coercion or invasion, India is enjoying organic demand for its goods, services and

    culture: in yoga alone, the market for classes, tourism and clothing adds up to $106 billion

    annually and is expected to grow at 9 per cent a year in the coming five years.

    Today, a new set of India’s soft power consumables are influencing global tastes and

    preferences in ways that even Gandhi could never have imagined.

     

    Dinesh Dhamija founded, built and sold online travel agency ebookers, before serving

    as a Member of the European Parliament. His latest book, The Indian Century, will be

    published later this year.

     

  • Angelina Giovani-Agha on her career in art provenance

    Angelina Giovani-Agha

     

    Growing up I always wanted to be a doctor. No one in my family is a doctor, and even though I was terrified of doctors I still wanted to be one. My parents both have artistic inclinations. My mother is a musician, she study the piano and the flute and my father trained as a choreographer. My mother taught music to school children all her life, but my father eventually moved on to business and now his impressive dance skills only come out during weddings or family events. My mother did try to teach me the piano, but I wasn’t particularly interested. Instead, I’d ask her to play me Vivaldi’s “Winter” for the Four Seasons while I finished my dinner, which to this day remains my go to piece of classical music when I am trying to focus.

    My father talked me out of studying medicine, which is quite an uncommon thing for a parent to do. Instead, he was thrilled when I told him I had enrolled into an art history degree. I told him over the phone, and I remember him saying “I think you will love it!” When I signed up for my first art history courses, I didn’t expect to stick with it for longer than a semester. I used to think that, no matter how late, I’d eventually end up in medicine. Before my first art history semester was over, I had already picked my curriculum for the rest of the year, joined the Art History Society and was President of the Photography Club.

    I was in my third year when I went to my first provenance training workshop, without knowing what it was or whether it would be useful to me. In the name of being honest, it was a terribly dull semester and I needed to get away, so a workshop seemed like an excellent excuse. Without exaggerating, I returned a different person from my weeklong workshop. Provenance research was all I could think about. I was about to complete my BA in Art History. The curriculum was as traditional as it was predictable and the term provenance research did not come up once. It also never came up in my meeting with the career advisor. When I look back at, it was without a doubt what scored my career path. As much as I enjoyed traditional art history I could not imagine myself committing full time to academia, or working in a gallery, and most certainly I couldn’t see myself becoming a critic, even though being a provenance researcher makes one as critical as humanly possible.

    I have now been a provenance researcher for a decade. In this time there are two questions that regularly come up: “What is provenance research?” and “How does one become a provenance researcher?”.

    Of course, art crime makes for an attractive subject, be it in newspaper articles or movies. The first James Bond movie Dr No (1962) and was directed by Terence Young features a portrait of the Duke of Wellington, known as The Portrait of the Iron Duke, painted by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. Just the year before, the painting was stolen by Kempton Bunton, a disabled bus driver who was protesting the TV license fee. After stealing the painting from the National Gallery of London, he demanded that the government pay £140,000 to a charity in order to cover the TV license fee for poorer people in exchange for the safe return of the painting. The government, of course, declined.

    Fast forward to 2022, and the story was dramatised on screen in the movie The Duke, starring Dame Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent. This is not the first time Mirren takes to the screen to tell a story of stolen art. She previously starred in the critically acclaimed Woman in Gold (2015), which recounts the real story of Maria Altman, a Jewish Holocaust survivor and her efforts to recover the paintings of her aunt Adele Bloch-Bauer painted by Gustave Klimt and seized by the Nazis during WWII. People find stories about stolen art, fakes and forgeries fascinating, but considering a career in the field can seem rather outlandish.

    In my years working in the art market, on behalf of international museums and World War II claimants, I have come across many colleagues and young professionals who share the challenges they faced navigating the field, getting the right training and mentors, access to sources and lack of internship opportunities. Provenance research is probably one of the few essential jobs in the art market which is so hard to pin down in that respect. Every gallery, dealer, auction house or museum should have a dedicated provenance research person on their team. Earlier this year, when I launched the Art Market Academy I wanted to do just that. I wanted to create a platform that would offer anyone who took an interest in provenance research, instant resources, content and mentorships. In the past three months we have welcomed students from every continent, of all ages from 16 to 68 years old and helped students with career advice, opportunities and introductions.

    This experience reinforced my belief that if training and education on the topic were more accessible there would be more skilled professionals equipped with better tools and boasting the necessary qualifications to carry out risk assessment for art transactions, completing due diligence checks and creating research outlines. To take it a step further, we have now undertaken to translate our existing courses into French, Spanish and Italian, while working on various new courses covering topics from Collections Management, to Conducting Research in the Antiquities Market and Provenance Research taught by WWII claimants, to name only a few.

    This is not for the faint-hearted. And while TV does glamorise and almost fetishise the role of the art researcher (or art detective), the actual process requires creative thinking, a superhuman amount of patience, meticulous record-keeping and the ability to sniff out the likely and the unlikely scenarios.

    Is this you? Is this your calling? Are you going to let it pass you by for a ‘safer’ career option? Didn’t think so.

     

    http://www.artmarketacademy.com

  • Career Success: Why this One Habit is Crucial in the Workplace

    Stuart Thomson

     

    Starting a new job can be daunting, especially when you are surrounded by more experienced colleagues who seem to know exactly what they are doing. But do not worry, there is one habit can help build your career and boost your confidence: asking for feedback.

    There is no one typical workplace. They all have their own individual styles and approaches. This is down to the people employed as much as it is the systems and processes in place. But these is no denying that anyone coming into a new workplace can feel elements of doubt.

    This is the same for more senior appointments but especially those earlier in their careers, especially if a move represents a promotion or, for example, entering a new industry.

    Why feedback is critical

     

    However, some leadership teams now complain that newer entrants are too protected. That a non-critical culture has evolved which means that some team members are not as sharp as they should be. I don’t believe that this is the case for all organisations but for some that non-critical approach means that feedback is dulled and individuals can be isolated from challenge. This does no-one any good. The individual cannot develop the skills they need to succeed and the organisation could be left with team members who are not fully equipped to succeed.

    We all need feedback on our work, our approach and the future shape of our careers. The habit we all to get into is to ask for feedback.

    Constructive feedback will not only better equip us for the future but also helps us to stand out from others as well. Asking for feedback demonstrates a positive attitude, and a willingness to learn and develop.

    But if you do ask for feedback, be clear in what it is you want. Some organisations will help line managers to provide feedback but many still go on instinct or take the approach that they encountered earlier in their careers. Spoiler: that may not be a very constructive approach.

    How to ask for feedback

    So, be clear in the type of feedback that you want:

    1)    Ask for specifics – general feedback on approach can be fine but can be difficult to act upon so request more detailed feedback.

    2)    Be prompt – you want to receive the feedback soon after completing the task otherwise everyone is in danger of forgetting exactly what was done and why.

    3)    Ensure objectivity – the feedback needs to focus on the work and not veer into the personal criticisms.

    4)    Feedback as mentoring – be prepared to ask for details about how they would have approached the work and, importantly, focus on the ‘why’ as well. This will help to learn from their experience. The motivations for certain types of feedback can be just as important as the actual comments themselves.

    5)    Positive and negative – you want to hear about the good parts, not just those where improvement can be made.

    6)    Dialogue – whilst you need to listen to feedback, the person providing it also needs to listen to you. Good feedback is really about an open dialogue.

    7)    Actions, not just words – you need the feedback to give specific suggestions rather than being too general

    For those receiving feedback, it will only be forthcoming in future if it is taken on board and changes made. Otherwise, those providing feedback will simply loose interest. Rather than helping you develop, it will have the opposite effect.

    When it is acted upon then it helps to establish a positive loop where more feedback will be forthcoming. It is important to remember that this could from a range of people in an organisation as well, not just about a single line manager. That can really help to broaden horizons.

    Feedback is about learning and improvement, not blame or criticism. It is needed by all of us, every day. We should all adopt the habit.

     

     

     

     

  • Dinesh Dhamija: Why Modi is Big in Japan

    Dinesh Dhamija

    It was just a casual encounter, but it told a bigger story.

    When Joe Biden and Anthony Albanese stopped for a chat with Narendra Modi at the G7 Summit in Japan, the US and Australian leaders remarked that they were getting thousands of requests to attend meetings with him. Albanese then recalled how, on a visit to Gujarat, a crowd of more than 90,000 people cheered wildly for the Indian Prime Minister.

    “I should take your autograph,” said Biden.

    He could certainly do with some of Modi’s magic. As he approaches next year’s elections, Biden’s approval rating languishes at 42 per cent and has only a small polling lead over his prospective Republican opponent Donald Trump. Anthony Albanese is up for re-election in 2025 and currently enjoys a 53 per cent approval rating.

    Not bad, but not Modi, who can count on the support of 79 per cent of the Indian population, an approval rating unseen in American politics since George W Bush invaded Iraq. How he has built and maintained this level of popular acclaim, in a diverse democracy of 1.4 billion people, is an enduring mystery to other politicians.

    The heads of the seven democracies assembled in Tokyo – Japan, UK, US, Italy, France, Canada and Germany – were all keen to shake Modi’s hand and engage him for a basket full of reasons.

    Some are looking for business, keen to hitch their wagons to India’s ascendant economy. Others urged him to condemn Russia and support Ukraine (President Zelensky was also present). A side meeting of the Quad, made up of India, Japan, Australia and the US, debated security issues in the Asia-Pacific region, including China’s threats to Taiwanese independence.

    So apart from his ratings, what is making Modi so popular among his fellow leaders?

    For one thing, India currently chairs the G20 group and will host a summit in New Delhi in September. Bringing together Russia, China and the US for the first time this year, it will be a stern test of global diplomacy and participants’ negotiating skills. It always pays to be nice to someone who has invited you into their home.

    Second, Modi has somehow forged a relationship with international partners where they are the ones looking for favours. As former US ambassador to India Robert Blackwill put it: “It is the diplomat’s dream to always be asked and never to ask, and India has managed that. One could call it a triumph of Indian diplomacy.”

    Far from ostracising India over its neutrality over the Ukraine war, or for buying Russian oil, the G7 regards Modi as an honest broker in global affairs, the leader of a fast-modernising democracy and their best hope for a consensus of like-minded nations in the face of Chinese and Russian aggression.

    And with any luck, a little bit of his personal popularity might rub off too.


    Dinesh Dhamija founded, built and sold online travel agency ebookers, before serving as a Member of the European Parliament. His latest book, The Indian Century, will be published later this year.

     

  • Diary: Sir Anthony Seldon on on Liz Truss, AI and why the unions are in the wrong

    Diary: Sir Anthony Seldon on on Liz Truss, AI and why the unions are in the wrong

    Sir Anthony Seldon

    The short tenures of recent prime ministers is becoming as unmissable as it is noteworthy. If you look back we’ve had Gordon Brown (three years), David Cameron (six), Theresa May and Boris Johnson (again with three years apiece) and then Liz Truss, who lasted barely a month. But I would say all this has nothing to do with social media; it’s because they have no inkling how to be Prime Minister. The office itself isn’t impossible, it’s just the way they operate makes it seem so.

    I was asked recently if I’d write a book about the Truss administration or whether it would be too short; the person in question told me they thought it might be novella-length. I explained that the opposite is the case; in fact there’s so much to say I doubt it could be contained in a short book at all!

    When I think back on how I became a teacher, I remember how growing up I was struck by the thought that education had lost its enchantment. It had been stripped of joy, stripped of discovery and self-reflection. And obviously, that’s what lead to problems. When I was younger, I was often in trouble. I didn’t want to cause hurt; but I couldn’t be myself in school since it seemed to be trying to make me what I wasn’t. When advising pupils and students and parents about the big moments which come about: choices at GCSE, A-Levels, and work, I say to them that you must let the child decide and let them be driven by what they love not what you think they need.

    There’s been a lot of talk about Chat GPT recently. I began writing The Fourth Education Revolution in 2017 before it was a topic, and I still think AI has the potential to make the plight of the teacher far better if it’s harnessed early and in the right way. In many respects we still have a 19th century system where the teacher’s at the front of the class, students sit passively and everyone moves at the same pace at the same time of day. That means teacher workload gets worse with the effects we all see today. AI can change that and free up teachers for their role: to teach children how to live and be happy.

    I am sympathetic to teachers, but it’s wrong for the unions to be striking, because it harms young people. It’s not just that they miss out on their exams but it’s also showing young people that if you don’t like what you’ve got you’ve got to make innocent people suffer; that’s what young people are internalising. That said, the government is utterly at fault. If you have 10 education secretaries in 13 years, many of whom don’t understand schools and listen to the wrong people, it’s not very surprising that we have this situation. Usually it shows the contempt of prime ministers for education. The role is used as a berth to help solve a political problem of patronage by the PM of the day, and rarely given to anyone who might do something good with it.

     

    Amanda Spielman is highly intelligent, but Ofsted can’t continue in its current form as a judgmental external body. At the moment, it’s more than 20th century – it’s 19th century. But frankly it’s not a question of whether it will change, but of when. This isn’t a question of whether we have inspections or not, it’s about the nature of the those inspections. The process needs to be supportive and lead to improvement – it’s as simple as that.

     

    I’ve just finished my latest book on Boris Johnson and it makes me think back to founding the Institute of Contemporary British History with Peter Hennessy in 1986. It’s important you don’t abandon the recent past to partisan actors and partisan actors. You need to bring the skills of the academic historian to bear in analysing the past – and that’s more important than ever during a time of culture wars. What we need now is what we always need: understanding.

     

    Sir Anthony Seldon’s latest book Johnson at 10 is available from Biteback Publishing

  • Film roundup: Why it’s a good year for female film directors at Cannes

    Meredith Taylor

     

    Talk to any young person seeking a career in the arts, television or film and the creative industries, the one place that they want to attend is the Cannes Film Festival that takes place each year on France’s Cote d’Azur.

    The 76th Festival, 16th – 27th May, is set for a legendary year with Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, and an out-of-competition world premiere of Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny from James Mangold.

    Some of the best names in cinema will be crowding the Croisette in May – in fact, it’s hard to think which stars won’t be on the famous Red Carpet for this year’s epic celebration announced by General Delegate Thierry Fremaux.

    The 2023 competition line-up includes new films from Wes Anderson, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Todd Haynes, Nanni Moretti and Aki Kaurismäki. The programme also includes the latest from cinema greats Wim Wenders, Takeshi Kitano, Victor Erice and Catherine Breillat. Seven female directors – one making her feature debut – will compete for the coveted main prize: the Palme d’Or.

    Palme d’Or hopefuls include Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, who won in 2018 with Shoplifters and is now back in Cannes competition with Monster, and Nanni Moretti with Il Sol Dell’Avvenire after winning the main prize with The Son’s Room in 2001. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, won the Palme in 2014 with Winter Sleep, and comes back with About Dry Grasses, a family story set between Istanbul and small town Anatolia, billed as his most ambitious to date and running at over three hours.

    Wes Anderson’s latest Asteroid City promises to be as quirky as ever and stars Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Steve Carell and Tilda Swindon. Todd Haynes’ May December features Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore in another emotional rollercoaster. But humour will undoubtedly come from Finland’s Aki Kaurismäki and Dead Leaves, his first film in six years.

    Veteran Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas) makes a reappearance in Cannes with his Japan-set drama Perfect Days, together with a documentary Anselm, a portrait of German painter Anselm Kiefer, one of two films about artists, the second being Martin Provost’s Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe exploring the love story between the renowned French painters Pierre Bonnard and his wife Marthe. With love in the air, one time partners Benoit Magimel and Juliette Binoche team up again for La Passion de Dodin Bouffant, a 19th century romance between a gourmet and his cook, from Vietnam-born French director Tran Anh Hung.

    Jessica Hausner is one of seven female directors in the main competition this year, with Club Zero. She joins Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher, who directs her sister Alba, Josh O’Connor and Isabella Rossellini in La Chimera. French filmmaker Justine Triet will present her thriller Anatomy of a Fall. Catherine Breillat, another seasoned French director, will be there with Last Summer starring Léa Drucker and Olivier Rabourdin; Catherine Corsini with her latest Le Retour ; Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (The Man Who Sold His Skin) is coming with Four Daughters. A feature debut for Senegalese-French director Ramata-Toulaye Sy with Banel & Adamawill premiere in competition this year.

    It takes a Brazilian/Algerian director (Karim Ainouz) to make a film about Henry the VIII, but forget Hilary Mantel, Firebrand, billed as a ‘history horror story’, has a British writing team behind it: Henrietta and Jessica Ashworth, best known for the BAFTA-winning series Killing Eve. The stars are Alicia Vikander, Eddie Marsan, Jude Law and Simon Russell Beale.

    One of this year’s most anticipated films vying for the Palme d’Or is from English auteur Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Under the Skin): The Zone of Interest is an Auschwitz-set love story inspired by a novel of the same name by Martin Amis. British Oscar winner Steve McQueen brings Occupied City, a documentary that looks back at Amsterdam under Nazi-occupation. Also from England comes Molly Manning Walker, a graduate of the NFTS, with her debut feature that goes by the buzzworthy title of How to Have Sex. Let’s just hope that this and all the others live up to expectations.

     

    Meredith Taylor is the film editor at Finito World

     

    Photo caption: Catherine Deneuve, on the set of La Chamade, Cote d’Azur, June 1, 1968. Copyright Jack Garofalo/Paris Match/Scoop

     

  • Opinion: American education is beginning to steal a march on British universities

    Finito World

     

    America has seen its reputation seesaw in recent years. This was largely due to the Trump administration, and there is very little to say, at time of going to press, that there might not soon be another Trump administration to add to the noise of the last.

    But, if you look beneath all the bombastic headlines, the data shows that America continues to show considerable strength. It remains, for instance, streets ahead in all global power indices, measuring its cultural, economic and military strength. The dollar has never been stronger against the pound, and the Biden administration has also to a large extent rebounded from its unconvincing evacuation of Afghanistan by helping to orchestrate a strong NATO response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

    As a result of all this, it’s not surprising that many UK students are thinking of studying in the US now – a development which has, in the opinion of some commentators, been exacerbated by the poor outcomes many experience in their UK counterparts.

    We must be careful not to do down British education, which still has much to recommend it. However, a mixture of poor financial management, absent careers services, and wokeness is making some parents and students question the value of a typical degree.

    In some instances, this is leading students to consider apprenticeships as a possible route, with public figures as diverse as Robert Halfon MP and Multiverse head Euan Blair, espousing this route.

    The merits of this are clear: work comes first and the enormous expenditure – and in many cases, debt – which comes with a typical degree are avoided and a paycheck sought and attained with maximum alacrity.

    But it might be that something is lost without university experience. There is the notion that learning is sometimes worth pursuing for its own sake, and that not everything in life comes down to money.

    So if you want to retain the sanctity of that university experience, what are the benefits and drawbacks of heading to America to do so? That’s what Finito World recently set out to do in its exclusive report of the top Ivy League universities. We looked at location, campus culture, graduation rates, careers advice, and other factors in order to compile our exclusive list.

    Either way, the data shows that many students are looking at their options and deciding that the US isn’t so bad after all – and, in fact, this held true even during the tumultuous Trump years – with 1,095,299 students enrolling in the US in 2018-19. That number dipped below 1,000,000 in 2020-21 due to the pandemic, but it will no doubt rise again in the coming years. UK universities beware.

  • Dinesh Dhamija: Sunak’s win with CPTPP is a reminder of the importance of a UK-India trade deal

    Dinesh Dhamija

     

    When Rishi Sunak’s government hailed the new Asia Pacific trade deal as ‘the most important since Brexit’, it was putting an optimistic spin on a pretty marginal agreement.

    Official figures show a prospective 0.08 per cent uplift to GDP from the deal over the next decade – so small as to be almost statistically irrelevant.

    What’s fascinating is to compare it with forecasted benefits from a trade deal with India. This, says the Treasury, would result in a 0.22 per cent uplift over the same period. Almost three times as much.

    That’s why people like me, who have championed a UK-India trade deal for years, are renewing our calls for more energy and commitment from government.

    We reckon that a deal would help create upwards of 400,000 jobs in the UK and a million-plus in India. It would add tens of billions of pounds in export revenue each year, opening new avenues for entrepreneurs, students, businesses and investors.

    Still, credit where it is due.

    As a piece of geopolitical theatre, joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is an impressive achievement. As Rishi Sunak says, it “puts the UK at the centre of a dynamic and growing group of Pacific economies,” which includes Japan, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand and Vietnam.

    Quite how the British Isles, which sits firmly in the North Atlantic, qualifies as ‘Trans-Pacific’ is a question for the group’s geographic assessment panel. But it’s always nice to join new clubs and some of these members have terrific beach resorts, with all the facilities needed for agreeable conferences and summits.

    Politically speaking, the UK now has the right to veto new members. China tried unsuccessfully to join in 2021, whereas the group would dearly love the US to reconsider its decision – taken during the Trump presidency – to withdraw from CPTPP’s predecessor organisation, the TPP, and come back on board. The prospect of Rishi Sunak sipping pina coladas with Joe Biden on a Mexican beach, while agreeing to keep China well away from the Partnership, might appeal to both men.

    What Britain joining the CPTPP does show is that Rishi Sunak’s brand of diplomacy and leadership is winning new friends. You can easily imagine that one or more of the 11 members would have been mortally offended by something Boris Johnson said or did during his premiership, causing them to blacklist the UK.

    There remain hurdles to a UK-India deal. In March this year, the Met police stood by while a pro-Khalistani protestor took down the Indian flag at the High Commission in London, leaving Indians feeling insulted.

    But if Rishi can stop colleagues like Suella Braverman from disrespecting the Indian community (she accused Indians of overstaying their visas more than any other group) when trade deal negotiations are underway, and the BBC doesn’t repeat its ill-timed intervention in Indian political life with another hatchet job on Narendra Modi, then the long-promised rewards of a deal with India could soon be realised.

    That really would be something to shout about.

    Dinesh Dhamija chaired the EU-India Delegation during his tenure as a Member of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2020, with responsibility for negotiating trade agreements. His latest book, The Indian Century, will be published later this year.