My blog

Category: Opinion

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

    Joe Biden and the Pitiless Society, Finito World

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

    Michael Moszynski

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

     

     

  • Renewable Energy Tipping Point – A Powerful Shift in Investment

    Renewable Energy Investment, Dinesh Dhamija

    The world is witnessing a dramatic surge in solar energy generation, driven by falling costs and a newfound enthusiasm for renewables in China. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), clean energy investment is expected to double that of fossil fuels in 2024. “For every dollar going to fossil fuels today, almost two dollars are invested in clean energy,” says IEA executive director Fatih Birol. The figures are staggering: $1 trillion for fossil fuels compared to $2 trillion in clean energy, which includes renewables, nuclear power, electric vehicles, power grids, energy storage, low-emission fuels, and energy efficiency improvements.

    Solar Energy Growth and the Renewable Energy Tipping Point
    The cost of solar technology has plummeted by 30 percent over the past two years, leading to a rapid expansion of solar farms across China and the United States. In the first four months of 2024 alone, the US saw nearly 8GW of new solar capacity and an additional 1.8GW from wind energy. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reports that more than 99 percent of new US generating capacity during this period came from renewable sources. This impressive growth underscores the Renewable Energy Tipping Point, as the global energy market pivots towards cleaner and more sustainable options.

    As renewable energy costs continue to decline, this trend is expected to accelerate. Despite efforts by the oil, gas, and coal industries to influence policymakers and argue for the continued use of hydrocarbons, the economics of power generation increasingly favor renewables. The question arises: why pay more for an energy source that harms both health and the environment?

    Global Investment and the Future of Renewable Energy
    Global investment in low-carbon electricity is forecasted to reach $900 billion in 2024, ten times higher than the investment in gas and coal power generation. In the United States, renewable energy capacity is projected to surpass natural gas by 2027. This shift will highlight whether countries are committed to outdated fossil fuel generation or are embracing more progressive energy policies that benefit their citizens.

    This transition presents a curious challenge for politicians like Donald Trump, who have historically been anti-renewables. If Trump were to be re-elected in November, he would face a burgeoning boom in clean energy generation, potentially challenging his previous stances. The broader question remains: how will political leaders worldwide respond to this unstoppable trend?

    The Irrepressible Shift Towards Renewable Energy
    The IEA notes that investment in fossil fuels remains higher than desired, with oil and gas companies allocating just 4 percent of their investment budgets to clean energy, despite their claims of being part of the solution. The agency urges governments to adhere to its target of tripling renewable energy generation by 2030. This goal, while ambitious, is crucial for mitigating climate change and ensuring a sustainable future.

    While more can always be done, the undeniable and accelerating flow of funds into renewable energy has indeed reached a tipping point. Soon, it will seem absurd to invest in anything else. This shift not only marks a significant economic change but also signals a broader societal transformation towards sustainability.

    Dinesh Dhamija, who founded and sold the online travel agency ebookers.com before serving as a Member of the European Parliament, has since established the largest solar PV and hydrogen businesses in Romania. Dhamija’s career transition from travel to renewable energy underscores the potential for innovative leaders to drive significant change in emerging industries. His latest book, The Indian Century, is now available to buy on Amazon at The Indian Century.

     

  • Book review: A Chilling Account in “A Very Private School” by Charles Spencer

    Finito World

     

    Many people who have been to boarding school will recognise the following question and answer. “When you think of the school, what’s the one word that comes to mind?” “Fear”. This establishes the theme of Charles Spencer’s book which raises many questions around privilege and trauma in our society. Spencer’s time at Maidwell Hall, where he boarded for five years in the 1970s, was truly awful, and the writer makes multiple allegations of sexual abuse about the staff there, sometimes naming them. It is extremely brave of him to speak out about his experiences. Spencer also manages to do more than simply to convey them – sometimes he is able to understand them, suggesting that this book has been the product of a considerable amount of painful reflection. “’Her control over mesmerised boys was total, for we were starved of feminine warmth, and desperate for attention and affection,” he writes of one unnamed assistant matron who seems to have treated him especially badly.  Are things any better today? One hopes so, as much of this book is alarming to read. But I don’t think boarding school, since it involves wresting children from their parents at a young age, can ever really take fear out of the equation.

     

  • Labour Majority in 2024: Lady May Discusses the Uncertainties, “Politics has become much more volatile”

    Labour majority isn’t a foregone conclusion, Lady Theresa May

     

    I am stepping down at this election and so I now don’t have the letters MP after my name. I do still think there’s a path to victory for the Conservatives for a number of reasons.

    First of all, I was elected in 1997, and so I can say with certainty that Sir Keir Starmer is not Tony Blair: the impact on the doorsteps is simply not the same. That’s the impression I get in my Maidenhead constituency, and that’s what we’re seeing in what will probably be a marginal new constituency near me.

    It’s worth remembering that Labour still has a huge mountain to climb to take the seats they need to take to get a working majority. They have to secure the largest consistent swing across the country in order to get there. In addition to that, I think politics has become more volatile. You do not get consistent swings across the country any longer; you get much more variation between seats. You might get a seat which you think is in the bag, and another which isn’t – and you might lost the first and gain the second.

    The third reason why a Labour victory isn’t certain is that if you look at General Elections in recent years, they’ve tended to be unexpected results. 2010 was unexpected, so was 2015 – 2017 was definitely unexpected, to my own cost. Even in 2019, the size of the majority was unexpected. If you look closely at 2017, the Conservative Party was over 20 points ahead in the polls and look what happened: we didn’t secure our majority.

    It seems a long time ago now, but I would also point out that the local election results earlier in the year weren’t as good for the Labour Party or the Liberal Democrats as they would have wanted them to be: examine closely the gains of the Labour Party in the local elections, and add up gains by the Greens and the independents, they almost equalled the progress made by the Labour Party.

    The social care policy was a factor in that 2017 election. This is a huge issue which the country has to address. I’ve been Conservative all my life. One of the things I’ve been brought up to believe is that when you’re able you should put something aside for a rainy day. The welfare state, when it was created, was there to support people who weren’t able to do that, and to help people at certain challenging points in their life.

    Somewhere along the line, we’ve got to the point of saying nobody should have to sell their house to pay for their care and that, whatever happens, the government will provide. But if someone is sitting on a significant asset why should the young couple down the road struggling on average earnings to keep their head above water pay for that person’s care? Politicians need to have an open and honest conversation with the public about this.

    We live in much more uncertain and unpredictable times. It’s certainly the case that security has gone up the agenda because of our continuing support for Ukraine, but the number one issue in any election is the economy. I think there’s the need in today’s world to think a little more creatively about defence. People think in terms of big bits of kit for the army; but in Ukraine we have seen that drones have been incredibly effective.

    It’s concerning that Labour has not matched the government’s defence spending plans. What happened in Afghanistan has not made life easier as it’s made that country return to its former state as a place where terrorists can be trained. What’s happening in Gaza is potentially another flash point for those who would do us harm.

    I will miss many of my colleagues – and I will remember the strange things. I remember the occasion when I was PM, when I was in Iraq. I was flying back to have dinner in Saudi Arabia and had to change before the dinner. I was being transported in an RAF Hercules, which is a troop carrier. There are no facilities on such aircraft, let alone for a woman. I said I had to change. The RAF put their heads together and took me up into the cockpit and they sat me down between the pilot and the co-pilot. They got a sheet and some gaffer tape and said: “Here you are, PM, you can change there.”

     

    The former prime minister was talking on 23rd May 2024, the day after the election was called, at a Finito event at the East India Club

  • Robert Colvile Interview: Insights on Journalism Careers and the Positive Future of Media

    Finito candidate Cameron Kerr sat down with the renowned writer to ask him about his career, why he never expected to run a think tank, and the need for a career backstop for would-be journalists. 

     

    Cameron Kerr: Was your journalism career a goal you had planned to achieve or a role that you fell into?

     

    Robert Colvile: It was never something I’d thought about until university, but I volunteered to work on one of the student papers there and absolutely loved it – not just the writing, but every part of putting together a newspaper. I did consider some other options – I applied to the Civil Service, for example – but ultimately it was always the thing I wanted to make a living doing if I could.

     

    CK: Take us through the early days of your career, from where you first encountered opportunities in journalism, to a point in your journey where you could tell yourself or peers that you worked as a journalist for a living.

     

    RC: I got started at university, then tried to make as much of that opportunity as possible – for example getting accreditation to the various festivals at Edinburgh over the summer, then covering them for the paper (which also enabled me to build up a stock of interviews with some of the people performing or promoting their films and books). After university I got on to a training scheme at the Observer, so I did work experience there and at the New Statesman, while supporting myself by doing admin work as a temp.

    Then I got some extra work helping produce the paper on Saturday evenings, and uploading the print edition on to the Guardian website, and doing paid supplements on broadband take-up, and just anything I could do to get a foot in the door. But I wasn’t properly, formally a professional journalist until I parlayed all that into a job on the Telegraph’s training scheme, which was looking for sub-editors – the people who sit back in the office editing the articles, checking the facts, putting on the headlines and so on.

     

    CK: Is the route you took into journalism a pathway which others could follow today, and if not, how does that entry pathway look different in 2024?

     

    RC: The thing about journalism is that there really aren’t many formal pathways. I was lucky enough to get on to one of the Fleet Street training schemes, but the number of people they take are vanishingly small compared to the size of the sector. One of the big differences today, though, is that there are so many more opportunities to get yourself noticed by writing, tweeting, blogging, starting your own thing and getting noticed. One of the great things about journalism is that ultimately, quality really does shine through – if your writing is good, or you’re a good editor, people absolutely take notice.

     

    CK: What opportunities in your career do you feel you discovered, pushed for and achieved yourself?

     

    RC: All of them! Though in retrospect I could have done more to push myself forward while at the Telegraph – I was there for 10 years and ended up in a pretty senior position, but there were quite a few years where I was sitting there quietly chafing, for example at not being able to move full time on to the comment desk. I probably could have been bolder in agitating for a move, or trying to find opportunities elsewhere. But I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

     

    CK: What opportunities in your career, if any, do you feel were fortunate enough to be given to you – by bosses, word of mouth, unexpected events of the day to cover etc.

     

    RC: I’ll always owe a big debt to Liz Hunt, who’s now at the Daily Mail. As Telegraph features editor she plucked me from my sub-editing job and put me in charge of the news review section of the paper – the big, chunky, attention-grabbing Saturday reads – as well as the science page.

    And then I’m pretty grateful to Maurice Saatchi, who was then the chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies, for asking me to be the Director when I was running its CapX website. But the truth about journalism is that few people have a career path plotted out – I certainly didn’t think I was going to end up running a think tank, for example. It’s very organic, about the connections you make and the reputation you build.

     

    CK: Are there one or two defining moments/opportunities that took your career to a whole new level – they could be expected or a total surprise.

     

    RC: The move from being a sub-editor to an editor was definitely a step change – after that my career started moving forward much more quickly. Getting to run CapX was similar – I was freelancing as a writer, and had had quite a few discussions with people, but wasn’t really actively looking for a full-time role. And oddly, moving into think tanks really improved my opportunities as a writer – I suddenly had not only a load more relationships in Westminster, but a massive pipeline of policy ideas that I could write about and publicise.

     

    CK: With all your industry experience and knowledge of the state of journalism today, is it a career you would pursue now if you were starting from scratch?

     

    RC: Yes, but with the caveat that you really do have to have a backstop these days in a way that you didn’t in the old days. There’s so much competition to get into journalism, and so little profit, that the salaries really aren’t very good, at least not until you get right to the top of it. I’m proud that I never got a penny of support from my parents, and got every single job on merit rather than due to connections.

    But at the same time, I knew that if it didn’t work out, I could always retrain as a lawyer or management consultant or what have you. A lot of people don’t have that safety net. And there are also always people who are prepared to work unpaid until they get hired, which is pretty tough to compete with.

     

    CK: What does your journalism career look like today? And do you think a regular op-ed in a major newspaper is still the desirable goal to achieve for a journalist looking toward the future of their career… or does it look different now with the presence of social media, podcasts, vlogs and straight-to-web documentaries?

     

    RC: My main job in journalism is as a political columnist on the Sunday Times – I also oversee the Centre for Policy Studies’ CapX site as editor-in-chief, but that’s a much more limited commitment, as we’ve got a good team who keep it running day-to-day. Having the column is still an incredible platform, and I’m very privileged to have it – but if I didn’t have the day job at the CPS then I would probably doing a lot more on top of that, whether a podcast or a Substack newsletter or what have you. Ultimately, there are all kinds of ways of reaching an audience – you just have to find the one that works for you.

     

    CK: Looking back at your career, from early steps to the big decisions, is there anything you would have done differently with the gift of hindsight – perhaps even advice you would give to those starting out now?

     

    RC: There are all kinds of things I should have done differently – mostly having a bit more confidence in myself, and in my value to my employer. But the big things would be things that I hope I got right – always try to do the best possible work, and always try to be someone other people actually want to work with.

     

    CK: In a world of a multitude of news outlets, podcasts, opinion columns and broadcast shows, how do journalists and the media have to evolve in order to continue their mission to inform the public and hold the powerful accountable?

     

    RC: In all kinds of ways! It’s pretty obvious that mass market news is breaking down into a host of niches. The audience for the BBC evening news, for example, has fallen off a cliff in the last few years. But the difference between when I was starting out and now is that the shadow of doom has been lifted – we were all convinced that the internet was going to kill newspapers stone dead, whereas today the kind of subscription models that the Times uses, or the revenue people are getting from Substack, shows that there is a future for high-quality journalism. But you always have to keep innovating.

     

  • Dinesh Dhamija: SunTrain, Innovative Renewable Energy Transport by Rail

    SunTrain: Innovative Renewable Energy, Dinesh Dhamija

    In 2023 Bill Gates mulled the future of renewable energy. One of the problems, he concluded, was transmitting energy from the windswept plains of Iowa, or the sunny deserts of Arizona. “You can’t exactly ship sunlight in a railcar,” he wrote.

    Electrical engineer Christopher Smith had other ideas. Inspired by train wagons full of coal traversing the Alaskan wilderness, he devised a novel business. SunTrain will transport large batteries full of solar-generated electricity on flatbed wagons, moving them from energy rich locations (windy, sunny, or with hydroelectric generation) to energy poor neighbourhoods.

    Smith is now raising finance and signing deals with utility companies, to bring his vision to life. He aims to run trains with 120 wagons, delivering electricity to power hundreds of thousands of homes. A gap in the market has emerged thanks to the glacial pace of planning consent for high voltage transmission lines. One major line in New Mexico took 17 years before it could begin construction last year. Many such lines are in development, but meanwhile, SunTrain could make use of the existing rail infrastructure, to deliver results far sooner. It would also save many hundreds of rail industry jobs.

    Just as pharmaceutical companies, tackling a major health challenge such as HIV, must experiment with multiple strategies before they find a hybrid solution, coming to grips with the climate crisis will take concerted effort along hundreds of different avenues.

    Repurposing railways is just one of the innovations that are now underway, as the world drives down its carbon emissions. A new fleet of ships, chartered by Airbus to transport aircraft parts across the Atlantic from France to Mobile, Alabama, will have a set of sails to complement its engines.

    Deploying an electric-powered suction system which boosts the power of the sails, Airbus will save up to 1,800 tons of CO2 per year compared with the existing sail-less ship. Similarly, agricultural trader Cargill chartered a Mitsubishi-owned ship in 2023 retrofitted with 37.5-metre-high sails to reduce its reliance upon fuel.

    Some will point out that using sails for getting around has been tried before. But when you see the space-age designs for the America’s Cup yachts, with their wings, hydrofoils and aerofoils, you realise that we have come a long way from the Mayflower and the Cutty Sark. For some, a massive breakthrough in nuclear fusion will be the solution to our energy and climate crisis. But this remains many years, if not decades away, according to the latest estimates.

    Shuttling batteries around by train may seem old fashioned, but it’s achievable and cheap.

     

    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/

     

  • CEO of Graduate Coach Chris Davies on How to Secure Graduate Jobs in 2024

    How to Get A Graduate Job, Chris Davies (CEO Graduate Coach)

     

    If you are looking to secure a graduate job in 2024, you must first be aware of the unique set of challenges the current graduate job market presents and secondly learn how to strategically position yourself to impress graduate recruiters.

    This post shares the latest facts and figures you must understand before you embark on your graduate job search and outlines a step-by-step plan to help you get a graduate job in 2024 despite the odds.

    The oversaturated graduate job market

    It is important to note that there are far more new graduates each year than there are graduate jobs available. This problem is made worse when you add the graduates from the year before who have not yet found a graduate job.

    Approximately 2 million graduates are seeking jobs, whilst Bloomberg quoting from Adzuna stated that new graduate jobs fell by 50% in 2023 to only around 12,500 new graduate roles each month (in 2019 there were 25,000 jobs). This means that there is an oversaturation of the graduate job market, with far too many graduates applying for the same job opening. As a consequence of this, the bar is now much higher to stand out from other applicants.

    A degree from a good university is no longer enough to secure a job after graduation. Employers now want candidates who have both some kind of work experience, as well as several key skills that will let them thrive in a working environment.

    This is something that universities are not communicating to their students as well as they should, meaning that many people are leaving university woefully unprepared for the challenges they must overcome to get employed. Having little to no work experience, no idea of what skills they must demonstrate, and are unable to put together a CV or cover letter that will help them stand out from other candidates.

    The impact of AI

    Graduates must also start to consider the impact of AI on the job market, and if their chosen career path may soon be automated. White collar roles are particularly at risk of this, especially junior ones, as many companies will decide to use AI rather than take a risk on someone who has just graduated and will need time to get used to their working environment.

    There is also a higher demand for grads in digital and tech industries as the world becomes more technologically advanced. Although graduates who studied other areas can still learn these skills, they are at a disadvantage compared to their peers who did.

    Understanding yourself and your skills

    As previously mentioned, graduates need to have several key employability skills, identified by the CBI, to prove to potential employers that they can excel in a workplace environment. These skills are:

    Business Awareness

    This is the ability to know what a business aims to do, how it achieves those aims, and who its competitors are. This is often something interviewers will ask about during interviews, so you should research a company’s competitors and their position in the market beforehand.

    Communication

    Communication is being able to clearly and concisely make your thoughts known to others, either by speaking or writing. This includes both work colleagues and potential clients.

    Entrepreneurship

    This is being able to notice and take advantage of business opportunities. Entrepreneurship is especially useful in senior roles where you must make important decisions instead of simply following instructions from others.

    IT

    IT is using technology in a workplace environment. This includes simple things such as and email and more complex tasks like programming and is required for nearly every job.

    Numeracy

    Numeracy is the ability to do maths to solve problems. This is one skill that is important at a basic level for most jobs you can apply for and one that you will already be familiar with from school.

    Problem-Solving

    The ability to solve problems is using logic to resolve both long and short-term issues. It is something that you will need to use daily in any working environment you apply for.

    Resilience

    Resilience is being able to work under pressure and not having your work’s quality be negatively affected, making it especially useful in jobs with lots of deadlines to meet.

    Self-Management

    Self-management is being able to display the correct attitude in a workplace environment. This includes body language, tone of voice and how smartly you are dressed.

    Teamwork

    This is the ability to work alongside others to achieve the same objective. In a workplace environment, this can include dividing responsibility as well as brainstorming ideas.

    Alongside these skills, you will also need to show that you have skills more specific to the role you are applying for, such as being a skilled coder for a job as a programmer. To figure out which jobs you already have the skills for, you can do a skills audit, comparing a list of your own abilities to the requirements listed in the job descriptions for roles you think would be a good fit for you.

    How to master the Job application process in 2024

    CVs and cover letters

    As well as having the having the key employability skills, you must be able to demonstrate how you have used them, through your CV and cover letter. Tailor your CV and cover letter for the role you are applying for, looking through the job description and ensuring you highlight how you already have the skills they are looking for. This will make you stand out from other applicants who send the same CV and cover letter for every job they apply for.

    You also need to ensure that both your CV and cover letter are tailor-written to get past the ATS (applicant tracking system), which automatically sorts through job applications and only shows the best ones to employers.

    How to look for jobs

    You should be looking for job openings on a regular basis to ensure you don’t miss out on any great opportunities. Expand your search by using as many job boards as possible, such as LinkedIn, Indeed and Google. You should also check websites for companies you want to apply for, as they sometimes post job openings on their own site without posting them on an external job board, meaning only the most dedicated candidates will be likely to apply.

    By doing this, you should be able to send job applications on a regular basis. However, you should avoid a scattergun approach. Focus on the right job titles for you and your skillset, only sending high-quality job applications to maximise your chances of being invited for an interview.

    Networking

    Networking is another important part of increasing your chances of employment. Employers are far more likely to choose someone they have met rather than someone who they only know through a CV or cover letter. Attend networking events and ask friends and family if they have any useful connections.

    You should also optimise your LinkedIn page to be appealing as possible to any employers who check it during the application process. Ensure your profile picture is professional, add all relevant skills and work experience you have, and make sure to add a portfolio if it is relevant to the type of jobs you are applying for.

    How to become interview confident 

    Being prepared for any job interview you do will drastically increase your chances of impressing employers, and therefore improve your chances of progressing to the next stage.

    You can do this by having pre-prepared answers to common questions, such as a self-introduction and questions that ask you to recall a time you displayed a particular skill, also known as competency questions. However, you should avoid memorising an answer word for word, or you will sound inauthentic, decreasing your chances of impressing the interviewer.

    It is also important to use the STAR method while answering competency questions. STAR stands for situation, task, action and result. First, explain the situation you were in, and the challenge you faced. Next, discuss your role in the task needed to resolve the situation. Move on to explain the actions you took to resolve the situation and describe how they had a positive result.

    Another way of preparing for an interview is to re-read your CV and cover letter from your application, and review anything included that you think you will be asked questions about, such as any previous experiences. Recall what you wrote and how it is specific to the specific job and company you are applying for. This is something you should already have done when sending the initial application, but it never hurts to go over it again.

    It is also vital to do research on the company you are applying for. In particular, where they are in the market, their USP and who their competitors are. This is something that commonly comes up during interviews and shows that you have put in the extra effort compared to other applicants, making you stand out and an outstanding candidate.

    Conclusion 

    While it is becoming increasingly difficult to get a graduate job as the market becomes more crowded, there are still steps you can take, to make yourself stand out and greatly increase your chances of getting a graduate job. Showing you have the skills necessary for the role and being well prepared for interviews are all vital, and relatively simple once you get the hang of it.

     

     

  • Dinesh Dhamija: Solar Companies Leading Europe’s Growth

    Solar Companies Leading Europe’s Growth by Dinesh Dhamija

    In each of the past few years, Prague-based Raylyst Solar company annual revenue rose by an average of 824 per cent until it topped €111 million – number one amongst the fastest-growing solar companies in Europe in the latest FT 1000 ranking.

    Not far behind, in fourth spot, Germany’s Solar Drektinvest leapt by 385 per cent annually, while fellow German business Pader Solartechnik registered 335 per cent growth.

    So, what lies behind solar’s dominance of the growth charts?

    Partly it’s down to the EU’s Green Deal, a financing initiative to speed the transition from fossil fuels, along with record-high oil and gas prices and European countries’ efforts to diversify from the hydrocarbon market, disrupted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s also a reflection of the low cost and high availability of Chinese-made solar panels. In 2018, 21-year-old Jan Kameníček, the company’s founder and chief executive, discovered EU anti-dumping duties on Chinese solar panels had ended. Today he imports container-loads of panels from China to Rotterdam and onwards into the German, Italian and Austrian markets, supplying companies keen to meet climate goals and use a sustainable source of energy.

    It is a classic story of spotting a gap in the market, taking a chance – he borrowed money from his parents to rent a warehouse – and meeting demand for a high-quality product at a discounted price. I applaud his entrepreneurial flair. Europe’s solar panel manufacturers are struggling to compete with Chinese rivals, since there is nothing like the same level of subsidy available over here.

    Kameníček would do business with European companies if their products were affordable, but he warns that anti-Chinese protectionism on security grounds – along the same lines as TikTok or Huawei – would be misplaced. “Modules are not intelligent devices. They cannot be controlled. So, I don’t see any real danger,” he says. For Europeans to compete, they would need massive state subsidies, says Kameníček. “There is no other way they can survive against these gigantic companies in China that mine their own material.”

    Brussels is considering giving subsidies to European solar panel manufacturers, which could assist consumers, by providing them with more choice. What’s clear is that the demand for solar energy is rising faster than ever, as the technology improves, the disadvantages – environmental, geopolitical and financial – of fossil fuels grow ever more obvious and the world grows ever warmer.

    Shrewd businesspeople like Jan Kameníček are making hay while the sun shines.

    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/