Category: Opinion

Sir David Amess showed why politics can be a meaningful career

By Finito World

Everyone at Finito has been saddened by the senseless murder of Sir David Amess MP.

All accounts agree that he was a kind and gentle soul, who used his position in Parliament to promote animal welfare, his campaign for his beloved Southend to be recognised as a city, and to argue for a permanent public memorial to Dame Vera Lynn. In the dog-eat-dog world of Westminster, there was something innocent about him – he seemed perhaps of another time, and to hark back to older traditions.

Amess represented the antithesis of the here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of British politics. He eschewed the drama of resignation and appointment, and all the talk of who’s-up-and-who’s down which so delights the mainstream media. He quietly got on with it.

A typical Cabinet reshuffle, like the one Boris Johnson conducted in the autumn, showed us what Amess was not. It would have been unseemly to Amess to be caught up in the speculation, and even the indignity, of the careerist side of politics.

Sir David Amess preferred staying power to power itself, and carried himself throughout his remarkable life with a quiet diligence. He aimed to make a difference by dedication and hard work, preferring that unsung progress to the pomp and circumstance of power. It’s true he had his high-profile moments, especially winning his seat in the close 1992 General Election, when he became an emblem of the Conservative Party’s surprise win.

But more generally, he worked tirelessly – not for a Cabinet position – but for the privilege of serving his constituents. It was this noble task which he died doing.

Young people are therefore shown two versions of what being in politics entails. It can be carried out at the highest level, amid the Shakespearean drama of the acquisition and loss of power. Writing for the BBC of the reshuffle, political editor Laura Kuenssberg remarked: “With no one strong ideology other than a desire to win, it begs the question of what it’s all really for.”

In Amess’ death we had the answer. Politics is about helping others, on the back of having been elected to do so; it is about minding whether your community is improving or not; and then, if you have time leftover, it is about advancing the issues which you believe in. At its core, politics should be about making people happier – or at least, trying to do so.

At Finito, we have many students who ask for help in their political careers. We would always hope that this route is embarked on with a commitment to principle. “Those are my principles and if you don’t like them – I have others,” as Groucho Marx once joked. In fact, a firm commitment to bettering the lives of others is the only thing which makes the uncertainty – and now the danger – of top level politics bearable.

It is this which we mourn when it comes to the loss of Sir David Amess. After his death, it might be said that only the most dedicated public servants will now put themselves forward for the job. Its dangers are all too plain.

There is a world of difference between success which is meaningfully tethered to some good, and success which opens up only onto itself. If you pursue the former you can’t fail; if you pursue the latter, failure is inevitable, because it will all have been for nothing in the end anyway.

Sir David Amess’ life, though it ended brutally, could never have its meaning taken from it. In fact, its value was increased, held in sharp relief by the appalling circumstances of his murder. Rest in peace, David.

October 18, 2021
Gina Miller: ‘We need a fourth school term devoted to non-academic aspects of education’

Before Covid-19, education was being neglected but I think the pandemic has really shone a light on our underfunded education system. It’s a hard truth, but we haven’t really thought enough about how we’re going to educate our kids in the future.

The biggest conversation now is about catch up – but it’s about catching up to back to where we before. What we’re not doing is thinking of this as an opportunity to really rethink. We need not just to modernise education, but to rethink the curriculum, rethink our schools architecture, and look again at teacher training. What’s needed is a commission to look at the entire system. If I look at where we are now as a country, we’re a long way away from where we were when I was growing up in Guyana. In those days, British education was the gold standard everywhere in the Commonwealth. I was brought up by English nuns in a convent in British Guyana and we all understood that education is the most precious thing you could give your children. That was because whatever happened in life, they would have the skills, resilience, heart and brain to deal with what came next.

My fear is we’ve lost that thinking about education as being about building mental and physical agility and resilience. Instead we’ve become obsessed with assessment.

And of course this series of missteps has had ramifications. If you look at us now on the global index, we’re nowhere near the top – we’re actually in the bottom, and our reading skills have dropped dramatically. This is especially astonishing when you consider that economically we’re a country that’s doing well. Added to that, we’ve got problems with our approach to teaching which seems to be based on the notion that the future will be much like the past. But the world isn’t where it was, and we’ve got to look at the warning signs.

One thing we have to focus on is the Fourth Revolution, and what’s happening with digital technology. We know that this has its mental health aspects. Sadly, it’s especially prevalent among teenage children that too much exposure to technology creates this sense of depression and sadness. There are emotional consequences to learning remotely which have been accelerated through Covid. There’s an analogy with work here – where we’ve learned that we’re social animals, and that some tasks are far better conducted face to face. Likewise, we need to realise that there’s a sensory aspect to learning – you’ve got to engage the five senses.

And if we’re to keep all our senses healthy what does that mean? It means art, music and literature – it can’t all be about the academic curriculum so I think we have an opportunity here if we can find the courage and imagination to think radically. For instance, we have three terms in the UK at the moment – and that’s based on the rather outdated notion that kids used to need to go and bring in the harvest in summer. That’s what the long summer holiday is based on – and it hasn’t happened for hundreds of years!

I would propose that part of the review is to look at the possibility of a fourth term. I would dedicate that term to things that are not necessarily academically led, but which have an academic element: the environment, gardening, cooking, community service, sports. It would be a term where children aren’t in the classroom, but they’re in the community and they’re learning a different skill set, which would keep them in good stead for the future.

That would be good not just for mental health and mental agility but for coping against adversity in a world which we know will be radically different to what we know now. Look at some of the up and coming countries and how they’re coping with education, and there’s a huge amount for us to chew on there. It’s really quite remarkable the subjects they’re teaching. In Singapore, or in Rwanda or in Ghana, they’re focused on handing down entrepreneurial skills to the coming generations. They’re learning about their environment and the challenges facing their countries.

So we’ve not yet made that leap into understanding that we need to invest in our education – that it’s the best investment we can make. I’d argue it’s one we need to make now.

October 13, 2021
Nicolas Croix on how tech can improve our social care system
By Nicolas Croix

The biggest challenge for UK care homes has been a shortage of skilled care workers in senior roles in the past ten years. There are several reasons for this, the most significant being the perceived unattractiveness and low status of care work, relating to low pay levels and job security. In addition, a lack of specialist HR managers can result in long-term vacancies, with the industry already battling a shortage of registered nurses and care home managers.

However, since the outbreak of COVID-19, safeguarding employees’ mental health has overtaken the skills shortage as the biggest challenge for HR leaders in health and social care. Recently, my team surveyed 158 senior professionals from the industry; 54 per cent of the respondents reported employee mental health support as the biggest challenge, followed by staff development (41 per cent), shortage of labour (39 per cent), lack of skilled workers (37 per cent), and increasing paperwork (33 per cent).

The only way to operate any care organisation with minimal HR issues is to employ and reward the best staff: skilled professionals who are passionate about their work, know they’re in the right job, and care both about residents and the business’s goals. To achieve this, organisations need careful recruitment practices, with a watertight hiring and onboarding process to deliver only the best candidates. This requires investment in three core areas: HR, social outreach, and technology.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) estimates that around 11.5 per cent of care homes do not have a registered manager in place. HR roles are just as important as skilled care work, with the best HR people most qualified to negate challenges around recruitment and people management – and care organisations should never stop recruiting. Taking on the right people goes back to some basics of good personnel practice:
- creating standardised interview procedures
- using sensible and consistent scoring of candidates
- testing for behaviour rather than competence
- scrupulously monitoring recruitment performance
It also involves building and maintaining relationships with local job centres and sector-based work academies, offering visits to the home, and even ‘taster shifts’ to potential applicants.

Investment in social outreach helps take your brand to a bigger audience, widening your talent pool and access to potential applicants. Recruiting via the internet is no longer a nice-to-have but critical in opening up worldwide possibilities. Paradoxically, most recruitment to care assistant roles are typically from a care home’s immediate neighbourhood, so cultivating positive coverage in local media is valuable in attracting staff and residents.

Investment in technology ensures that care organisations can maintain a better connection with remote care workers who can feel isolated, reducing job satisfaction. Automation of routine tasks also significantly reduces the monotony of repetitive and time-consuming paperwork for all care workers whilst helping implement new strategies to improve work-life balance and sustain motivation, such as flexible working and other workplace initiatives.

Gateshead-based care home company Helen McArdle Care is family-run and says ‘caring for staff with a personal touch’ enables it to retain staff and rehire workers who had left for alternative employment. The business hosts an annual family fun day, where staff are invited to bring their relatives to work. Helen McArdle Care also empowers its managers hearing of a staff member suffering hardship or other personal problems to offer the appropriate support – though this is a policy all care homes should adopt.

To attract the best staff, care organisations must be able to find them in the first place. Another challenge the industry faces is a lack of sector-based academies providing good enough qualifications, allowing staff to earn better pay, whilst only half of those surveyed (53%) said the Government’s national recruitment campaign helps them attract social care workers.

More needs to be done to attract higher volumes of people into health and social care. Only by improving the quality of training and pay rates and adopting innovative approaches to care home management will the sector become more attractive and start to plug the skills gap against a backdrop of continued disruption due to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The writer is the founder and CEO of Moonworkers
October 7, 2021
Jane Evans’ Letter from South Africa

By Jane Evans

When the new, democratic South Africa was born in 1994 the euphoria and excitement which came with the promise of a better life for all was soon diluted with the realities of the crippling socio-economic legacy of apartheid.

Amongst the many challenges facing the new government was the mammoth, but unequivocal need to turn a deeply unequal education system into something good, one that would reach all South African children, particularly black children who were systematically denied the same advantages and access to education as white children.

Although there have been improvements in the South African education system over the past 27 years, notably government’s acknowledgement and efforts at prioritising early childhood learning, the state of education in South Africa, specifically for children in the poorer areas of the country – effectively the majority of school aged children – was still in a precarious position pre- the onset of Covid-19. There were insufficient numbers of well-educated teachers, insufficient school buildings, a lack of text books, schools with no water, electricity or toilets and the most dire despite a government feeding scheme: thousands of hungry and vulnerable children.

The global pandemic which deepened an already high rate of unemployment and increased poverty has all but sent South African education over the edge, but not quite.

Whilst the systems for primary and secondary education in 1994 were severely flawed, the very foundations of learning – early childhood development (ECD), particularly for children in disadvantaged communities – had fallen almost exclusively to the domain of non-government organisations (NGO), and the communities they worked with.

Although the reach was limited, in the areas where the NGOs worked there was structure: there were recognised training programmes for uneducated women; there was onsite support for teachers in the burgeoning early learning sector; there was often food for the children and there was hope. It was the NGO sector that all but handed a well-functioning early learning system to the new government.

Today the importance of early learning is a recognised level of education in South Africa. An extra year of schooling called Grade R or the Reception year for 5 to 6 year-old children was added to the education system in 2001 (formal schooling starts at 6 to 7 years-old). There is also talk of adding a pre-Grade R year for four year-olds.

There are solid policies for early learning in place. The responsibility for all education in the early years is currently being moved from the Department of Social Development to the Department of Education. The field of early learning is being professionalised with degree courses for Early Learning coming on stream.

This is promising but it is happening against a background of despair in the broader South African field of ECD. The vast majority of ECD centres and playgroups are privately owned and run. Scant salaries come from diminishing fees paid by parents and in some instances subsidies provided by the Department of Social Development. Covid-19 has severely knocked the sector.

Along with the rest of schools in South Africa all early learning centres closed during the most virulent early waves of the pandemic. Thousands of parents lost their jobs and income, parents could not afford the ECD centre fees when they re-opened and as a result many of the centres and non-centre-based playgroups have not re-opened.

South Africans are a hardy people and when all else fails civil society steps in. During the worst of the pandemic NGOs worked hand in hand with private individuals, churches, the corporate sector, private trusts, foundations and government to distribute food through their networks to but a fraction of the thousands of families literally starving because of the economic turmoil and increased unemployment under Covid-enforced lockdowns. Many of the ECD NGOs which are still responsible for much of the vocational training offered to early learning teachers have themselves been hard hit by the redirection of private and corporate sector funds on which they rely for their income. But the NGOs have risen to the challenge.

Training programmes have been digitised. Data for online learning has been made available to trainees in disadvantaged communities. ECD centres have received hands-on help in re-opening and meeting Covid protection requirements.

There are always questions about the long term role of NGOs in the field of early childhood development. But NGOs were there during apartheid and in my opinion, they will continue to serve an essential service to early learning in disadvantaged communities of South Arica for many years to come.

About the author

Jane Evans’s memoir, A Path Unexpected,** tells the real-life story of how she, together with a group of women from a rural South African farming town, helped to make early learning a reality for some of that country’s most isolated and disadvantaged black children.

Jane is the founder of a non-government organisation called Ntataise, a Sotho word meaning “to lead a young child by the hand”. Since inception in 1980, Ntataise pioneered the introduction of early learning for children of farm workers, amongst the poorest members of South African society. It works today – over 40 years later – in seven of South Africa’s nine provinces and has reached hundreds of thousands of women and children across the country.

**A Path Unexpected was published by Jonathan Ball publishers in June 2021.

October 6, 2021
Repton headmaster Mark Semmence on the importance of a balanced education

by Mark Semmence

It’s broadly agreed that the future will be one in which creativity and teamwork will be more important than ever: it will not require one kind of individual, but a team of varied individuals. Furthermore, we’re all now conscious of the growing incidence of mental issues among young people, with anxiety and peer pressure adding to their mental load. To arrive at a better society, we require balance, both in the team and in the individual: all must know who they are and play their part.

To withstand the challenges of the future, our young people will need to have experienced a balanced education in their formative years. As well as supporting individuals we must also arm young people with the resilience to confront challenges effectively. We should aim to instil a sense of proportion – of grounded reality and balance. Balance and health will always go together and incorporates not only physical and mental health but also academic, cultural, and societal health. If this can be done, the result is stability.

So how do we achieve this? The answer is we must change our binary approach to education. To begin with, we need to recognise that examinations are only one representation of a person’s capabilities.   

The Children’s Society Annual Good Childhood Report recently found that more than a third of UK 15-year-olds scored low on life satisfaction with ‘fear of failure’ cited as a key factor. Perhaps this is why we score so poorly compared to our European counterparts when asking our children to assess their own happiness. Only 64 per cent of UK children experienced high life satisfaction – the lowest figure of 24 countries surveyed by the OECD.  

The UK’s approach to exams makes us an international outlier. Former Education Secretary Lord Kenneth Baker notes that the UK is the only major economy in the world that imposes difficult exams on young people at the age of 16. Baker argues that we should replace them with a system that focuses on coursework and teacher assessments.  A school ‘leaving certificate’ at 16 is,  after all,  a relic.       

Life skills like communication, problem-solving, and adaptability are essential tools in managing mental health. These skills are in demand by employers, yet we still refer to them as ‘soft skills’, demeaning their value to the category of merely ‘optional’.  Boarding schools have more hours in the day and more opportunities to hone such skills. For instance, in-house dining three times a day is a defining part of the Repton experience, enabling pupils to fine-tune their emotional intelligence.

Meanwhile, the EdTech revolution invites all young people to the party.  Technology can be leveraged to offer a more potent delivery of the curriculum and create collaborative opportunities which more efficiently prepare pupils for their contribution to 21st century society. Subjects like sport, music, art, and drama need to be profoundly integrated into studies. I am not talking about writing a song or rap about the periodic table (though that was done very effectively by Tom Lehrer!) but inventive connections drawn between those creative subjects and the ‘traditionally academic’. Engineers are, after all, some of our finest creative thinkers; some might even call them daydreamers.   

Let’s take another example. Design and Technology pupils should be putting mathematics to good use solving real-world design problems and take what they’ve learnt into a maths and a DT exam. Or another. Literature pupils should be able to see the artistic production of an era in the broader context of its music and art: they should be able to take the styles and techniques of those ages and bring them into the modern world. If Stormzy and Ed Sheeran can use traditional styles as the basis for  21st Century hits, then why should our young people not be taught the connection between history and heritage – topics which they might otherwise feel to be too ‘dry’.   

This is not ‘cool teacher’ speak. In fact, it’s a necessary shift when you consider the scale and complexity of modern challenges. A sense of confidence within oneself is fundamental to good mental health, and to feeling oneself part of society. If the only focus of a school is on exams then we create imbalanced people who are not as productive as they might be and will struggle to find a place in the world. Not only that but we render the skills developed for the exams more or less useless since they have never been seen in the context of anything other than exams. There is a better – a more balanced – way. 

October 1, 2021
Opinion: Want to solve the shortage crisis? Pay drivers more

by Garrett Withington

Brexit still infuses everything. For instance, in the papers, a person’s conclusion about the HGV driver shortage is seemingly an extension of how they voted in the 2016 referendum. Remainers blame the lack of European drivers coming from the continent, whereas Brexiters chalk it up to Covid-19’s interruption of the international supply chain. Unusually, however, this time they are both right.

Many headlines seemingly place the blame at the feet of Brexit, or emphasise it as the leading cause, but a quick look at driver vacancy numbers suggest the decision to leave the European Union isn’t wholly to blame. Reports show that there are around 100,000 vacancies for HGV drivers, yet only 14,000 European drivers have left the country and relocated to the UK permanently. That still means a deficit of 86,000 drivers. Few have sought to further question whether drivers are refusing to return due to the pandemic and the UK’s association with the Delta variant, instead conflating assumptions as answers.

Seldom mentioned is that shortages have not been localised to the U.K; in fact, it’s a global phenomenon. America has reported huge shortages and the EU may face its own HGV crisis with the potential shortfall of 400,000 drivers across the block. It’s not just Nando’s that’s running out of chicken.

In reality, the pandemic has caused chaos to the global supply chain with port closures across the world reducing shipping. Within the chaos and lockdown there has been an inability to train new drivers, with 40,000 tests having reportedly been missed. This has then been exacerbated by the exodus of European drivers who went home, either because of Brexit or because of the pandemic.

But of course there is a third aspect to this. The driver shortage is an issue a decade old, with the discussion over what is to blame simply covering up the repeated failures of the government to find a solution. Previous concerns led to a government inquiry in 2015. That same year, there was an estimated shortage of 60,000 drivers with a possible 150,000 shortfall by 2020 if immediate action wasn’t implemented. Government action did slow the pace but ultimately a shortfall has always remained. What is less discussed has been the issues that led to the shortage which has been compounded by recent events. That issue: wages.

To some degree, those who insisted that EU immigration depressed incomes have been vindicated. Wages have been a longstanding issue in driver retention, and many drivers point to EU immigration and their willingness to work for less as key in driving down pay. With a median gross hourly pay of £11.03 in 2016, it is easy to see why drivers do not associate the extremely unsociable working hours with fair pay, especially those who need to support a family. Enticement through better wages has been the short-term solution of some major retailers, with Tesco offering a £1,000 signing bonus and Dixons offering £1,500. Hopefully this attitude could be applied to other low paying sectors such as hospitality, who in paying a respectable wage may obtain more dedicated staff.

The effects are beginning to be felt. Supermarkets are reducing their variety of strawberries from three to one. Meanwhile McDonalds has removed the milkshake from their stores in many locations. Instead of companies themselves looking to solve the issue, they are lobbying the government to relax immigration rules once again so they can hire cheap labour. If drivers are to be hired from outside then it should only be seen as a temporary, but the danger is that this lobbying will be successful and a short-term measure will come to be seen as a permanent solution – especially as foreign drivers are put on a shortage occupation list waving visa restrictions.

It is this solution that Unite, the U.K’s largest union, has rallied against instead demanding higher pay for fair work. Currently HGV licence holders have power in their negotiations due to demand for drivers, but opening up the job market to foreign competition may once again reduce their bargaining power. The question going forward should be: what value do we place on jobs that are critical to our domestic life, that run in the background, and are often looked down upon as unskilled and working class? Is it not time that these jobs demand higher wages? The issue should not just be about what has impacted consumer convenience, but instead a debate about what a fair wage should be in a post-Brexit and post-Covid Britain.

Encouraging words from the Secretary of State for Business, Kwasi Kwarteng, have encouraged firms to ‘hire British’ but future actions may make these words empty gestures. Streamlining the test to get an HGV licence will hopefully solve the structural issues that have plagued the industry for years, but as Christmas looms, shortages on shelves may look politically untenable. Whether the government will buckle, only time will tell.

September 28, 2021
A Personal Story: How my 16-year-old son’s anger issues changed my career

Diana Matthews

Watching your barely 16-year-old son being handcuffed, arrested and driven off in a police car while the cul-de-sac curtains twitch is not how I imagined parenting would be.

I’ve been close to calling police before. This was much more than a single punch and he’d deliberately smashed my only laptop which I need for work as I work freelance from home. It was a line I thought he’d never cross. I had no idea if there was worse to come.

Society frowns on middle class professionals like us who are not expected to have problems dealing with a child with anger issues. Surely we can throw money at the problem and it will go away. It feels shameful to have a child, (adopted) who smashes through the boundaries of normal behaviour. The media is full of adults hitting children. Children beating their parents is a taboo. When there is an awkward moment in public the yummy mummies look away. Unless you live with a child with severe anger issues or a particular condition, in our case Development Trauma, craving attention and not coping if he doesn’t get it, it’s impossible to know what life is like for us.

Weekends are spent filling holes, or getting him to, or painting walls, buying second hand play station controllers, phones, laptops. Facebook Marketplace using his Birthday or Christmas money because he doesn’t deserve a brand new one to replace the expensive one which has fallen victim to his anger.

Your social life dwindles. You stop inviting people to your house because you don’t know whether he’ll put his hand through a window pane while people are there. You’re ashamed of the kick marks. You pull up the drawbridge.

The impact on your career of having an angry child cannot be underestimated. I was on the career ladder to a top job. But if your child is thrown out of after-school club, sacked by childminders and every nanny you employ gives up in desperation having a career job seems out of reach. I had to give up my London work and find work locally so I could be at the school gates at 3.30. The number of, mainly women, with a similar story to tell is depressing. After school care isn’t the only problem. When he went through a bad patch I felt I had no choice but to go part-time even though it didn’t help his behaviour. All the meetings with school and social services were eating into work time.

After he kicked in the windscreen as we were driving which resulted in us only narrowly avoiding a head-on collision we were both traumatised. He wasn’t in any fit state to go to school. I spent the morning crying and sorting out a new windscreen and had to cancel all meetings. You live with the unpredictability of never knowing if an angry outburst will scupper an important work event. I’ve had to miss a London book launch and celebrity office visit because he’d been so angry that by the time I’d calmed him down and got him to school I had no energy left. I just had to sit for an hour or so before I could turn my attention to anything at all, let alone work.

After turning up to work with cuts (I hadn’t realised I was still bleeding) on one occasion my boss told me to “go home and don’t come back until you’re ready.” I was extremely fortunate but know from talking to others who have less understanding colleagues working in a high-powered job if you have an angry child is virtually impossible.

That leaves your relationship. Unlike some other couples we know who are in a similar situation, we’re still together. But the rows we have are largely about him – you shouldn’t have said that, you shouldn’t have done that. The stress of living with an angry child who you spend every moment trying to keep calm takes its toll on marriage.

Phoning the police was instinctive, unplanned, borne of fear. It might have helped. He was cautioned but police made it very clear he will be charged if there is another assault. He arrived home sheepish. In spite of all he throws at us, quite literally, we love him and we want to help him overcome his anger and be happy. Calling the police wasn’t a betrayal. It was a last ditch attempt to save him.

For many like us coronavirus will have made an already difficult family situation impossible for the child and for their family. He can’t handle being round the house all the time but his school finished for the summer break a week early and went back later than most. Just as he was about to begin term he got coronavirus and although asymptomatic couldn’t cope with self-isolation straight after a particularly long and unusually boring summer break. The final straw was arriving back for the new term straight into mock exams. He may just have snapped. He’s having anger sessions. We are living on eggshells in order to try to keep him on an even keel.

We have sought help from social services and he’s getting one to one sessions. But it is a double- edged sword. Many have had a similar experience to us and found there is an emphasis on assuming parents are doing things wrong. There’s no handbook for our sons’ idiosyncratic behaviour. We sometimes get it wrong. But when social services are dealing with parents and children who already have low self-esteem the last thing the family needs is an approach aimed at laying the fault at the parents’ door. A better way would be commending them in the face of adversity but gently making practical suggestions. That approach would encourage far more in need to take that courageous first step and call social services rather than being too frightened to because they fear they will be blamed rather than being helped.

After more than a decade of angry outbursts – we adopted him as a pre-schooler – and failed counselling sessions we have become less hopeful than we would like to be about the future. I will be hit again. He will kick another hole in the wall. He will throw more objects at my husband. But we are middle class. We can afford therapists, counsellors, polyfiller, paint, phones. We are the lucky ones.

Photo credit: By Eric Ward – originally posted to Flickr as Family PortraitOriginal uploader for wikimedia was AQ at de.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10101463

September 23, 2021
New Secretary of State for Education Nadhim Zahawi on coming to the UK, the vaccine programme, and why Theresa May is misunderstood

My parents came to these shores in 1978. I was 11 years old and I couldn’t speak a word of English – or very few words. I was a very proud young man in the sense that I didn’t want to make mistakes in class in school with my English, so I sat in the back of a class trying to string words together to make a sentence to join in the class. Of course by the time I made the sentence in my head, the subject matter had moved on!

So the teacher called my parents and said, “Look, we think that he has a learning disability because he is really not contributing at all.” And within six months of course I’d picked up the language, and very quickly worked out that this is an amazing country where there are many people are prepared to help a young man like myself.

There were lots of mentors who have helped me in my career. I went to University College London, where I read chemical engineering. Very fortuitously in many ways, I founded YouGov which has now become one of the United Kingdom’s unicorns, and is now worth over a billion dollars. I left that 10 years ago after taking it public. I am particularly proud now to be the Member of Parliament for Stratford-upon-Avon in the heart of England, which is the birthplace and the resting place of William Shakespeare.

All this means that every morning, I wake up and pinch myself to think that the boy from Baghdad, born to Kurdish parents, has achieved this. I attribute it to the extraordinary nature of this country which offers two gifts. One is freedom, and the other is opportunity. These two things embody everything which is great about the family of nations that makes up the United Kingdom.

I am sometimes asked how I relax in my high-pressure roles. One thing I love doing – and which everyone should do – is to walk, as it’s very good for the mind. During 2021, walking has kept me sane. I actually listened to a programme on Radio 4, and there was an advert for mental illness describing how the best way to combat that condition is to walk. If you ask me the best way to unwind is put on trainers and walk to work. We’ve been in a pressure cooker this past 18 months and I think it’s good for the soul.

The other thing I do is watch box sets late at night. By far the best we’ve watched so far has been Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, which simply can’t be outdone.

I’m asked sometimes which politician is the most misunderstood – I’d say definitely Theresa May. She can be amazingly passionate about a cause, especially on behalf of her constituents. I saw this in action recently. She came up to me in the House of Commons and said, “Nadhim, I really need to talk to you”. And I thought, ‘Wow, where is all this energy coming from?’.”

When I think back on what we did in the vaccines programme it was extraordinary. It was a truly impressive coming together of institutions, with the NHS at the centre of the core delivery mechanism, but people don’t know how absolutely embedded our Armed Forces were in that whole process. I particularly salute Brigadier Phil Prosser, who is the commander of the 101 Logistics brigade and is brilliant at delivering things to remote terrains and geographies around the world, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I should add that the private sector has played an equally important role, with Boots and Superdrug at the back end of the chain. At the front end DHL has done a great job delivering the vaccines to the primary care networks. It was a real coming together of the private and public sectors. That’s before you count the 80,000 vaccinators that have gone through the training programme – or the 200,000 volunteers that have come forward to be marshals and receptionists.

Brigadier Prosser described it best. He said: “Minister, we’re building a supermarket chain in about a month, and we’re going to grow it about 20 per cent every week.” And I said: “That’s right, Brigadier, that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

I’ve never been a great policy man, or a think tanker. I love operational challenges, and I was grateful to the prime minister for picking up the phone in mid November, and saying, “Nadhim, I want you to do this job for your country.” It was a great privilege to do.

Of course, the press can sometimes make top-flight politics stressful. But the media have a job to do. This is a democracy. I will take an aggressive free press any day over a dictator. You only have to look at what’s happening to Russia, or the Uyghur people in China. A free press is what makes this country truly great. Is it challenging? No doubt. Can it be frustrating? Absolutely. But I value that freedom far more than I lament the challenges that come with it.

Nadhim Zahawi was talking to Emily Prescott and Robert Golding

September 17, 2021
The Importance of Principle: lessons from a brutal reshuffle

by Finito World

There is nothing, you might think, particularly edifying about a reshuffle like the one Prime Minister Boris Johnson conducted yesterday. We experience all the hoohah and fandango of politics, knowing that this episode too shall soon be in the past. Who in a few months time will be able to recall how Dominic Raab made way for Liz Truss as foreign secretary (though not before securing the dubious bauble of Deputy Prime Minister)? Who but a few scarred parents will remember how Gavin Williamson was moved for Nadhim Zahawi?

It was an image of the here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of British politics. Writing for the BBC, political editor Laura Kuenssberg remarked: “With no one strong ideology other than a desire to win, it begs the question of what it’s all really for.” Of course, success always has a certain sense of being for its own sake. It must be admitted that there is a kind of confusion at the edge of life, as to what any of it means.

And yet Kuenssberg has a point. There is something befuddling about the British system. Zahawi had spent 2021 delivering a successful vaccine rollout programme and acquiring knowledge in that area; overnight he is asked to master the complexities of the British education system – but more than that, to run it. Likewise, Steve Barclay, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and on the eve of the autumn Spending Review, was moved to be Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Will he maintain a hand in the process he has presumably spent some time planning? His new duties are likely too onerous for that.

The necessity of the political moment can be exciting; it has the flavour of Shakespearean drama. Many pundits, swept along by the excitement of watching it unfold at close quarters, add to the giddiness by reaching for the most theatrical language imaginable. We hear of a Night of the Long Knives, and a ‘purge of the wets’, when what we are witnessing is more mundane than our news media would allow us to admit.

But as much as there is thrill here, it also opens up onto a problem which reaches into the heart of policy-making. Limited staying power is also in evidence at the civil service. Ewart Keep, a Professor at Oxford University, explains a problem at the Department for Education: “Every time you turn up there for a meeting it’s a room full of people who can’t remember the last meeting,” he tells us. It’s this lack of long-term thinking which is worrying. Compare this to the single-minded focus required to succeed in business and it’s clear why we sometimes find ourselves lamenting our inability to plan for the future.

And if you ever attend a fund-raising dinner you’ll see these different mindsets dramatised. Donors who have seen many prime ministers come and go sit back, knowing that they’ll attend the next dinner no matter who the prime minister is. Meanwhile ministers and advisors move around the room with an energy which feels temporary. They might own this moment, but will they even experience this room next year? And if that’s the case, are they really so powerful in the present as they seem to think?

Who’d be in politics? A successful business achieves lasting change in a way which is getting harder and harder to come by in Westminster. At Finito, we have many students whom we are happy to help in their political careers, but we would always hope that this route is embarked on with a commitment to principle. “Those are my principles and if you don’t like them – I have others,” as Groucho Marx once joked. In fact, a firm commitment to bettering the lives of others is the only thing which makes the uncertainty of top politics bearable.

So yesterday’s reshuffle is a reminder of the hurdy-gurdy nature of politics. This is theatre, and as Sir David Lidington once told us, there’s a possibility you’ll be ‘pelted with tomatoes’ at the end of it, as Robert Jenrick , Robert Buckland, Raab and Williamson all were yesterday.

If you’re thinking of politics, be sure you don’t want to do something else. Certainly, there is world of difference between success which is meaningfully tethered to some good, and success which opens up only onto itself. If you pursue the former you can’t fail; if you pursue the latter, failure is inevitable, because it will all have been for nothing in the end anyway. That was the lesson of Johnson’s reshuffle, and it wasn’t a pretty one.

September 16, 2021
Dentistry focus: Don’t let Covid-19 mask mouth cancer

By Professor Andrew Eder

We are most certainly living in unprecedented times and many will have read in the national press about medical conditions being left undiagnosed or treatments being delayed as a direct result of Covid-19. This is especially true of mouth cancers and it is, therefore, entirely appropriate that we promote mouth cancer awareness alongside the highly regarded Oral Health Foundation (www.dentalhealth.org).

According to the Foundation, 8,722 people in the United Kingdom were diagnosed with mouth cancer last year. Equivalent to someone being diagnosed every hour of every day, this puts mouth cancer as the 15^th most common cancer in the UK with the majority of these cancers being associated with the lips, tongue or soft tissues inside the mouth. Two-thirds of all new cases are seen in men with over three quarters being in those over the age of 55.

Interestingly, lifestyle factors are key to the development of mouth cancers with long-term tobacco use and high levels of alcohol consumption being amongst the most likely causes. Alongside this, there is a strong research focus into the sexually transmitted human-papilloma virus as being another major causative factor. Some also make reference to a poor diet or rough teeth being linked to mouth cancer but the evidence is weaker and genetics or a suppressed immune system may have a stronger role.

In contrast to so many other medical conditions, we tend to approach our doctors with a problem and ask for their opinion or advice. The same may be true for mouth cancers where we are aware of a change in our mouth and we consult our doctor or dentist. However, it can be so very different for most mouth cancers in that we may not be aware of a change and see our dentist for a check-up every six or 12 months and a key feature of this regular check-up is that it should also include a mouth cancer check.

As part of this regular check-up, and having looked at your teeth, any restorations and your gums to check that all is fine, your dentist may then turn their attention to checking your lips, tongue and all the soft tissues inside your mouth for any changes such as an ulcer that has not healed, a new lump or swelling, or a red or white patch. Should such a problem be identified, this might be reviewed for a few days or referral to a specialist colleague may be suggested for possible imaging and, sometimes, even a biopsy to take a more detailed look at the soft tissues.

More often than not, it is absolutely nothing and all heals well. However, on the rare occasion where a problem is identified, the earlier a diagnosis is made the better and subsequent treatment might involve a number of specialists in different fields and one or more of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery may be required. If any teeth are involved and need to be removed, these may need to be replaced to re-establish one’s appearance on smiling and the ability to chew. If you, a family member or someone you know has mouth cancer, specialised counsellors and therapists are available to help and support the whole family.

The take home message from this article is a really strong but reassuring one: visit your dentist regularly, it’s about so much more than just your teeth and gums – and with an early mouth cancer diagnosis, treatment can be very effective with little in the way of long-term health problems. To put things into perspective, over thirty years in clinical practice, I have identified three such mouth cancers early at routine check-up and all three patients are doing absolutely fine many years on. Your dentist and your dental practice are safe – do not let Covid-19 interfere with your general health and well-being!

Professor Andrew Eder is a Finito mentor. He is Emeritus Professor and Consultant in Restorative Dentistry at the UCL Eastman Dental Institute. Professor Eder is also a Specialist in Restorative Dentistry and Prosthodontics and Clinical Director of Specialist Dental Care, a specialist referral practice in central London. For more information, please visit www.restorative-dentistry.co.uk, email andreweder@restorative-dentistry.co.ukor call 020 7486 7180.

Also, please put the following into a box to highlight the advice in the article:

September 14, 2021