My blog

Category: Opinion

  • Networking for Saudi Students in the UK: Dr. Najah Alotaimi

    Dr. Najah Alotaimi

     

    When I speak at conferences, I often receive follow-up emails from Saudi students asking me how they can participate in similar events and establish a presence in institutions across the United Kingdom. My response is simple: cultivate a passion for networking.

    International students, especially Saudi students, often overlook the importance of forming connections while they are studying abroad. This may be due to navigating an unfamiliar environment, but it is an essential component of making the most of their educational journey and maximising the impact they can have within their communities when they return home.

    Currently, there are approximately 14,070 Saudi students enrolled in the UK higher education. Among them, 11,850 are studying in UK Universities, 2,000 are pursuing distance or online learning. The majority, about 12,025, are pursuing undergraduate degrees. Universities such as Imperial College London, King’s College London and the University of Manchester boast some of the highest numbers of Saudi students.

    These students are part of a longstanding cultural diplomacy that’s linked to century-long relations between the two countries. They benefit from a prestigious educational programme which provides financial support for their education and living expenses. This enables them to pursue bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in the UK. This initiative aims to create a pool of highly skilled individuals who can contribute to their country’s development upon their return home.

    Saudi Arabia is undergoing a period of transformative economic and social change. This has been partially fuelled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030, which was launched almost a decade ago. This strategic plan aims to diversify the economy and reduce the country’s dependence on oil. Achieving these goals requires international expertise, innovative ideas and knowledge transfer.  This is a major reason why Saudi students in the UK should see their time abroad as being about more than simply earning a degree. Saudi students should instead embrace the opportunity to expand their horizons by engaging with influential figures and thought leaders whilst they are studying in the UK, ultimately bringing these insights back to their homeland.

    The UK can be a powerful ally when it comes to bringing this Saudi vision to life. As a global hub for accomplished professionals, influential individuals and creatives, the UK gives students the chance to connect with various experts in their fields. This exposure can open doors to internships, job prospects and academic advancement. When students have the chance to gain insights from industry leaders, this can expand their perspectives substantially.

    The UK is also a vibrant environment with endless events and initiatives that students can engage in to enrich both their creativity and learning. When students participate in these activities, they can gather valuable insights and ideas outside of academia, which can later translate into entrepreneurial ventures and projects back home. This knowledge transfer can have an incredibly positive impact on communities, create employment opportunities and support the growth of the private sector.

    Investing in networking can lead to fruitful collaborations that benefit Saudi society and business. Building connections with UK start-ups, entrepreneurs and local businesses can pave the way for long-term global engagement and intercultural understanding.

    Networking begins with a good story that makes one stand out. Saudi students have unique stories to share, especially around how their country transformed from resource scarcity to a leading economic player. My own experience studying in the UK as a Saudi woman has profoundly impacted my life, and I often share this story with others.

    While earning a recognised degree from the UK is invaluable, the true potential of studying abroad lies in establishing a network of peers, experts and professionals who can offer guidance, mentorship and collaboration opportunities. These connections not only close geographical gaps but also encourage a diverse exchange of ideas and perspectives.

    For Saudi students, gathering the will and effort to engage in networking is crucial. Joining clubs, associations and groups related to their field can accelerate both professional and personal growth. Actively participating in events, workshops and seminars sustains and nurtures these connections. In today’s digital world, an online presence is essential when it comes to expressing one’s personality, interests and aspirations to their network. Making the most of social media platforms can facilitate networking and global connections.

    By immersing themselves in the rich opportunities available to them, Saudi students in the UK can build the right foundations to become invaluable assets to their communities and make a significant contribution to the ongoing transformation of their country.

  • Dinesh Dhamija: Labour’s Brave New Energy World

    Labour’s Brave New Energy World: Sir Kier Starmer’s Ambitous Policy Proposals, by Dinesh Dhamija

     

    With the UK election barely a month away, voters are scanning the parties’ manifestos for clues to the future – particularly that of the likely winner – Sir Kier Starmer’s Labour Party.

    As a solar energy entrepreneur, I’m alert to the parties’ renewable promises and ambitions. The most recent Conservative government talked a brave game, but gradually ditched its green commitments, because a vocal minority of its supporters hated the plans. This resulted in a fragmented approach to renewable energy, with many initiatives either scaled back or abandoned altogether.

    The Labour Party has promised a new energy deal in its pitch to the nation, including a state-owned business – Great British Energy – to invest in renewables: onshore and offshore wind, solar power, gigafactories, energy storage, and green hydrogen. This comprehensive approach aims to cover a wide array of renewable energy sources and technologies, ensuring a diversified energy portfolio for the UK.

    Listening to Sir Kier address a meeting in Leith in Scotland, you might think that he was the world’s green energy Messiah. Launching his party’s ‘national mission on clean energy’, he promised: “It will power us forward towards net-zero, generate growth right across the country, end the suffocating cost of living crisis and get Putin’s boot off our throat with real energy security.” These ambitious goals reflect a deep understanding of the interconnected challenges of energy security, economic growth, and environmental sustainability.

    It is, he proclaimed, “a plan to use clean power to build a new Britain, a plan to get our future back.” Stirring words, and a welcome commitment. But as recently as February this year, Labour ditched a promise to invest £28 billion a year in green spending, shrinking it to just £4.8 billion a year. What kind of a new deal is that? This significant reduction raises questions about the feasibility and impact of Labour’s green energy initiatives.

    Sir Kier bemoans the lost opportunities of the Tory government and the squabbles of the Scottish National Party, for whom a British success would contradict their drive for independence. He plans to headquarter GB Energy in Scotland and harvest the blowy conditions through a massive new wind energy programme, extending right down the eastern coast of the country to Grimsby in Lincolnshire. This strategic location aims to maximize the potential of wind energy, leveraging the geographical advantages of the UK’s coastline.

    He plans tidal energy in the Firth of Forth and in South Wales, with clean hydrogen programmes in Yorkshire, Merseyside, and Grangemouth. These projects highlight Labour’s commitment to exploring diverse renewable energy sources, recognizing the unique potential of different regions across the UK.

    Quite how far £4.8 billion will go, spread across these many fields, is an open question. The substantial reduction in proposed spending necessitates a careful reassessment of priorities and expected outcomes. Achieving significant progress with limited funds will require innovative approaches and efficient allocation of resources.

    Sir Kier points to the transformations of US President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. But that included $783 billion for renewable energy and climate measures. He also wants to model GB Energy on Denmark’s Ørested or Sweden’s Vattenfall, but both of those countries have long traditions of renewable energy champions, paid for through high taxation. The comparison underscores the scale of investment and cultural commitment required for such a transition. Labour’s brave new energy world is an incredibly positive but also very expensive undertaking.

    Is Britain ready for the Scandinavian model? This question remains at the heart of the debate, as the UK’s political and economic landscape differs significantly from that of Scandinavian countries. Adopting a similar approach would necessitate substantial shifts in policy and public perception.

    Labour’s energy policy is targeted at the Red Wall seats lost during the Brexit saga. It aims to claw back support in the industrial Midlands and north (including Scotland) by promising a brave new world of clean, secure energy, with hundreds of thousands of jobs. This focus on job creation and regional development seeks to address economic disparities and garner broader support for Labour’s vision.

    All very inspiring, but without cash to back up its promises, I fear it is little more than hot air. The ambitious plans for Labour’s brave new energy world need substantial financial backing to move from rhetoric to reality, ensuring tangible benefits for the UK’s economy and environment.

    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.

  • Valete to Michael Gove: Reflecting on an extraordinary Political Legacy in 2024

    Valete to Michael Gove, Tim Clark

     

    I was fortunate to be able to attend a hastily arranged breakfast in support of Helen Grant OBE, MP for Maidstone and Malling with Michael Gove, who agreed to be guest of honour, despite announcing a few days earlier and making news headlines that he would not be standing at the next General Election.

    Although many of our readers will want to say a more formal farewell and thank-you to him at a later date, this was an historic last Ministerial breakfast on the day Parliament dissolved.

    The event was held in the Beaumont Hotel in Mayfair and attended by some 25 supporters and well-wishers. Also seated around the table were four student foot soldiers in Helen’s campaign team who have already been hard at work pounding the streets of her constituency; welcomed and treated as equals, together with other business leaders, such is the example of Finito’s commitment to supporting and inspiring young people.

    Michael, of course, needs no introduction here. At 56, the MP for Surrey Heath since 2005 he has held several key offices of state: Secretary of State for Education; Chief Whip; Secretary of State for Justice; Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and latterly, since 2022, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

    There can be few who have been so continually in such high-profile roles and so continually in the limelight. But Michael brings so much more to the table than just being an experienced, consummate politician: he co-founded the conservative think tank Policy Exchange and has had a successful career in journalism and as a writer – his controversial Celsius 7/7 analysed the roots of radical Islamism and the West’s response to it.

    To list Michael’s achievements, however, completely fails to really paint the true picture: he is a man of razor-sharp intellect but with the ability to explain and simplify complex issues; his knowledge and deep understanding of contemporary politics is phenomenally extensive; his wit is ready and genuine and his manner always engaging and polite.

    Over breakfast he was pressed on everything from national service to education; from the economy to defence; from taxation to foreign affairs, but not once did he faulter or miss a beat: every question received an immediate, logical, coherent and convincing response. Where appropriate his responses were light-hearted, such as when he said he had carried out market research into national service – he had asked his son and daughter!

    But despite the ability to be disarmingly charming and funny, his political steeliness and assertiveness are never far from the surface, for example when exposing Starmer’s former support for Corbyn (“Corbyn without a beard”) and Starmer’s comment when a barrister that, “Karl Marx was, of course, right”. Equally, however, his warmth and compassion were also evident in his support for Diane Abbott, someone with whom he profoundly disagrees on practically every issue, because for the way she has been treated by the Labour Party.

     

    Michael Gove
    Finito breakfast networking event at The Beaumont Hotel, London with Michael Gove. 30.5.2024 Photographer Sam Pearce/www.square-image.co.uk

     

    Michael’s departure from front line politics will be a massive loss to Parliament, to the Party and to the country as a whole. Whether or not you support his passionately held views on education, Brexit or whatever, no one can deny his remarkable ability to think radically and to argue his case in an engaging and convincing manner. Helen Grant, in her vote of thanks, admitted to not usually shedding a tear over breakfast, but saying farewell to Michael was just one such occasion.

    As was to be expected, he kept his cards close to his chest as to what happens next – more books, a return to journalism or, as many at the breakfast publicly hoped, a high profile role in the Lords – but there’s one thing of which we can be sure: in our host’s closing remarks he likened Michael Gove to the end titles in a Bond film and, like James Bond, Michael Gove will return.

     

    Tim Clark MA, PGCE, FRSA

    Author of bi-annual Better Schools: The Future of the Country

  • Dinesh Dhamija: India’s 10 year reckoning

    Dinesh Dhamija

     

    Since his election as Indian Prime Minister in 2013, Narendra Modi set out a vision for his country to become a fully developed economy by 2047, the centenary of its foundation.

    Could India finally cast off its colonial burdens and achieve its undoubted potential?

    We are now a third of the way through the journey from Modi’s arrival until 2047 and the Indian population is about to cast its votes in a General Election.

    Here’s how the main economic indicators have shifted during the first decade of his tenure:

    From 2014 to 2022, India’s GDP grew by an average of 5.6 per cent in compound annual growth (CAGR) terms, compared with a CAGR of 3.8 per cent on average for 14 other large developing economies such as Brazil and Mexico.

    The percentage of Indians living in extreme poverty (earning less than $2.15 per day) has fallen from 18.7 per cent in 2015 to 12 per cent in 2021, across both urban and rural populations. Economic analysts attribute this to welfare schemes and the Aadhaar digital ID system, which has helped to target payments to the needy and cut out middlemen.

    Indians now make digital transactions worth Rs3,355 trillion per year, a 70 per cent increase on the Rs1,962 trillion in 2017-2018, much of it conducted via locally made smartphones, which 60 per cent of the population own. India’s digital transformation has helped it become the ‘back office to the world’, particularly centred on the cities of Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

    India’s middle class – defined as households with an annual income between $6,700 and $40,000 – has risen from 300 million in 2014 to 520 million today, while those classed as wealthy, earning above $40,000 pa, now number 90 million, up from 30 million in 2014. These changes have opened up markets for a huge diversity of consumer goods, for national and international travel, for investment and business development. They are an extremely positive sign for the future of the country.

    Infrastructure development is another big success story: more than 10,000km of roads have been constructed each year since 2018 and 1.7 per cent of GDP is devoted to transport investment, compared with 0.4 per cent of GDP in 2014. Of course, not everything is perfect. India’s unemployment figures are concerning: they exceeded 10 per cent in October 2023 and are worryingly high among young people and women. Despite government encouragement, the female labour force participation rate fell between 2014 and 2022 from 25 per cent to 24 per cent, lower than Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or Pakistan.

    Nevertheless, if the next 20 years see as much progress and economic growth as the past 10, there is every chance that Modi’s vision for the country will be realised.

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

     

  • Sir Terry Waite on careers in faith

    Sir Terry Waite

    Faith has been a vital part of my work, and that has been a gradual growth over the years.   My understanding of these matters has not been dramatic in the sense of having had a sudden conversion: instead, I think that one’s understanding changes as life goes on and experience teaches you to reflect – if you can make time to reflect, of course.

    When I was younger I thought I knew myself and thought I understood myself. But as I get older I recognise that one has a capacity to deceive oneself – and perhaps that is true of all human beings.  We can go on thinking that we are in the right way, and we might do that for a whole variety of reasons.  Part of the process of life is to try and gain a greater in-depth understanding of yourself and your motives.

    All of this is aided or supported by our Christian belief and by our belief in our spiritual life – but it’s a long process and it doesn’t come quickly. Hopefully when one gets into one’s latter years then perhaps one has gained a little more understanding. We ought to grow in our lives, and to some extent become different from our young selves. And yet I also find that none of this is in contradiction to the essential principles I was taught when I was young.

    I sometimes asked if I have refreshed my faith over time; I think it’s a gradual process. It will involve a constant self-examination. For instance, I am still an Anglican which I was brought up as. But I am also a Quaker, and a member of the Religious Society of Friends: I call myself a quanglican – a mixture of both.  As I grow older in life and experience, I recognise the necessity of silence and how silence is important and how communal silence is of the utmost importance.  That time alone, spent in meditation, is where we can sometimes make great spiritual leaps forward, and that is an important part of the Quakers approach.

    Perhaps this will not always appeal to young people who may sometimes prefer much more exuberance – much more clapping and jumping around.  As one progresses, one finds that perhaps there is nothing wrong in expressing yourself in those ways but that it is important too to balance that kind of worship out with reflection. It turns out to be a sound scriptural principle: Christ himself went out into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, and also spent time alone on the final night of his life. That means that there is precedent throughout history, but it is something we must grow into.

    All of which means that we need good teachers and educators in our faith groups – those who not push people prematurely in any particular direction, but who will be gentle with people in their development rather than letting people stay at one particular point. That said, it is worth thinking very carefully before you enter a career in faith: it can be a very hard life. I had to think very hard myself about myself.

    It was often said that I ought to be ordained as a clergyman and I never felt that as a vocation and I chose to remain as a layperson within the church and have worked from the church base most of my life as a layperson. That wasn’t an easy choice in many ways because there was no chance of promotion and becoming an Archdeacon or Bishop or a Dean: you remain a simple layman. Looking back, it was a big risk because with a young family a mortgage that wasn’t an easy way and I remember acute anxiety all the time. Even so, I am glad I did it. I don’t have regrets: it was absolutely the right decision not to be ordained but to remain as a layperson. I never had a vocation to be ordained – it’s just not me.

    So somehow this is where self-knowledge comes in. We need to know ourselves, and to what we believe to be right. Of course, we also need good counsel, and it would be a mistake too solitary in our decisions. But if you follow your vocation, it will work out for you. Of course, perhaps it won’t work out in precisely the way you expected – but it will work out.

  • Book review: Say More: Lessons from Work, the White House and the World by Jen Psaki

    Finito World

     

    Jen Psaki has become a Democratic sage by virtue of having served in both the Obama and the Biden administrations, the latter for 16 months. In today’s polarised America, it was never expected to be a pro-Trump memoir, and it isn’t – but it also has a certain nuance which can be missing from the typical score-settling memoir. We get some vignettes of life at the top of politics. Barack Obama proves relaxed about her taking on the role of Director of Communications and then needing to go on maternity leave. Joe Biden is surprised to hear that he doesn’t help the grieving family members as much as he hopes to when he tries to relate their loss back to the loss of his own son Beau. ‘I thought I was helping them’. At one point, John Kerry makes a gaffe and Psaki learns the importance of quick feedback: it’s often better to speak your mind on the spot, than to pause and let a matter linger. At another point she observes, “Advising someone is not the same as appeasing them.” I suppose this is true, though, like a lot of the wisdom in this book, bordering on the obvious. Nevertheless, it’s worth a look.

  • Film Editor Meredith Taylor reviews new Donald Trump film The Apprentice: “A compulsive portrait of toxic narcissism”

    Meredith Taylor

     

    Dir: Ali Abassi | Script: Gabriel Sherman | Cast: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick, Ben Sullivan, Mark Rendall, Joe Pingue, Jim Monaco, Bruce | Biopic Drama, 120′

     

    “You’re either a killer or a loser” is the advice a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) gets from his acerbic mentor Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) in this polarising political biopic written by journalist Gabriel Sherman and directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abassi (Border) and Holy Spider (who is now perhaps best known for his involvement in The Last Of Us).

    Cohn, the lawyer responsible for putting the Rosenbergs on the electric chair and a key figure in the McCarthy witch hunts, offers up three key bits of business advice during The Apprentice – an entertaining romp that zips briskly through its two hours running time sketching out Trump’s early career as an eager apprentice trained under the high-flying lawyer, and eventually trumping him in a tale of machiavellian morals, ethics and business acumen.

    There are elements of poetic licence at play here: in other words Sherman plays slightly fast and loose with the facts in fleshing out Trump’s backstory. The result is a fairly even-handed feature that on the one hand sees the US former president as cold-eyed and devious, but on the other opines that these are the very tools of the trade for those wanting to get on in big business – or politics, for that matter. Crucially it also highlights the recent concept of the truth being a construct open to individual perception.

    The focus narrows in on Trump from a broad brush opening outlining the corruption of the Nixon years and the inherent dishonesty that is now rife in all circles of power, not least in America. It contrasts the ‘losers’ (those on welfare) with the killers, the ‘unscrupulous’ hard-working income generators during the Reagan presidency that led to the phenomenon of ‘corporate greed’.

    The Apprentice sees Trump starting out during the 1970s working for his property magnate father, Fred Trump (Martin Donovan). Dressed in a suit Donald is tasked with doing the rounds to collect rents. One disgruntled tenant throws a pan of boiling water in his face, another swears at him. The family business comes then under fire from a civil rights action alleging discrimination against Black tenants. Cohn wins the case, as his lawyer, with Trump senior claiming: “How can I be racist when I have a Black driver?”

    But Donald is determined to make it alone and sets his sights on transforming the downtrodden area around Grand Central Station where he vows to make a success in a project of urban regeneration involving the dilapidated Commodore Hotel, bringing jobs, European tourists and a facelift for Manhattan.

    Family wise we also meet Donald’s kindly mother Mary Anne (Catherine McNally), and his brother Freddy (Charlie Carrick) a failed pilot with emotional problems: Fred admits to having been tough on his boys. But Donald is hellbent on success and soon bonds with Cohn after a chance meeting at a fancy Manhattan nightclub frequented by the top flight business community. Working together they soon go from strength to strength in a business alliance with Trump styling himself in the same vein as Cohn with his fast-talking intransigence. His transformation into fully fledged killer who lives by his own standards happens almost overnight and feels a little too fast even given the film’s ample running time. But Stan grasps Trump’s essence charting his character’s transformation from reasonable business man to self-seeking  hardliner.

    Trump soon becomes a man who takes his own advice often rubbing Cohn up the wrong way, while at the same time chosing to turn a blind eye to his ‘strange way of life’ and hedonistic habits. Trump’s puritan background sees him gradually distancing himself from the lawyer who berates him for his lack of financial probity. Their relationship eventually sours during the AIDS crisis, although Trump offers an olive branch in the finale.

    The marriage to Ivana Zelnickova, against Cohn’s advice, is handled deftly and with some humour. Trump follows Ivana to Aspen to clinch their romance then falls flat on the ice after claiming to be a good skier. The Czech model is a little too sweet and sympathetic despite her purported savvy business sense, but Trump soon tires of her, claiming to find their home life ‘more like coming home to a business partner than a wife’. A shocking episode sees him beating Ivana, but whether this has a factual basis, despite his widely reported misogyny, is uncertain. Stan’s Trump may polarise public opinion in coming across as too likeable but this is surely the essence of a maverick who can charm as well as chastise and here he gives a compelling performance.

    With a killer score of hits that just reeks of the ’70s and ’80 and a scuzzy retro texture this is an compulsive portrait of toxic narcissism even more relevant now than it was back in the day.

     

    PHOTO CREDIT: Cannes Film Festival 2024 Première

     

  • Diary: former Webb Space Telescope head Carl Starr on the space sector and journeying to other planets

    Carl Starr

     

    I worked on a programme with NASA for 27 years doing the James Webb Space Telescope. It was around the early 2000s, and I was based in California. I’d just finished launching one of the-earth observing satellites which NASA was doing, when my buddy came into the office and said: “We’re going to build a telescope. Want to join?”” How long will it be?” “It’ll only be a few years.” Twenty years later, I was still working on it.

     

    When I started at JWST, there were three of us. I ended up being in the highest role, the Mission Operations Manager, but I began as an operations engineer. We grew to 700 people – it changed over the years. If you keep your eyes open, people come and people go, and there are always opportunities on a large project like that.

     

    The telescope is rewriting astronomers’ and cosmologists’ understanding of how the universe works and how it was created. There are disruptions into the Big Bang Theory. Some of its measurements and observations are baffling scientists: we’re looking at galaxies which shouldn’t be where they are, and making us think the universe may be older than we thought. It really is an engineering marvel. Whatever it takes a picture of it’s incredibly accurate. Our basic understanding is that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, and that galaxies didn’t start forming until about 500,000 years into that process. But the telescope is taking pictures of galaxies which are older still – and that means we got something wrong somewhere. Scientists are baffled by that, and it can be funny to see them try to explain it: they can’t.

     

     

    I don’t think people really appreciate what it took to get it there. You see on TV programmes about how we invented ten different technologies to make the telescope work: that engineering side is awesome. But to truly operate it was something else: it doesn’t operate itself. That’s been lost: we’re talking about regular people who worked it day to day, and planned its operations. When it first went into orbit it was 24/7. Who are these people who make this happen every day? It’s not the astronomers.

     

    Up until now, nobody has had something this powerful with which to look at anything. They’re just surprised by everything they see. Think of the early phones – they took quite good pictures. Then they came up with the digital camera and the pictures were amazing. Television is the same: now everybody has such good resolution on their TV that people on the screen looks almost 3D. The telescope is like that: the resolution of the image and the crispness of its data is just really cool. We won’t know for a good while the data is telling us but the astronomical community is already very excited by the data we’re getting.

     

    The more the telescope gets used and looks for other signs of world, it makes me feel more special that there’s life on this planet to this degree. There may be life out there, but I always re-centre myself and think: ‘We’re pretty special – look at what we’ve done as a species.’ Maybe there is life in this area of the universe: but we constantly look at thousands of planets, and there’s isn’t life there so far. In the end, every observation solidifies that we are special – that doesn’t have to make us big-headed. In fact, it’s humbling.

     

    If we did discover life on another planet, that would be a game-changer. But then we’d have to think about how to get there, and we don’t have very advanced jet propulsion systems. It’ll be interesting to see when we find something what the next thought process is. We have four billion years before our sun starts making life here a problem, so our species will have to evolve. We haven’t been on the planet a million years – in a star timeframe, that’s nothing. Give it another hundred thousand years, and another and another. What will we look like? Can we go across the galaxy quickly?

     

    We need to go to the moon before we go to Mars. It’s easier and closer – if something bad happens, you can get home rightaway. Mars is a six month trip. In order to go to the next set of levels, you’ll need to colonise the moon, take what you learn then go to Mars, or one of the moons of Jupiter. People who colonise will need to not come back to earth ever. Their bone structure, and their chemical composition will change – our future self is going to look very different indeed.

     

     

     

  • Harry Hyman: a Labour government will be a helpful ‘resetting of the clock’

    Christopher Jackson

     

    I meet the entrepreneur and publisher Harry Hyman in his offices on Haymarket. He is ensconced in a corner office surrounded by John Piper prints and art which speaks to his love of theatre.

    Hyman has had an interesting life, succeeding in both the healthcare and publishing sectors. I am keen to know how it all began and ask him about his upbringing: “My parents both came from an immigrant background,” he tells me. “My father’s family came from Eastern Europe between 1890 and 1900. One lot came from what was then Belarus and the other lot came from what is now Poland but both I think then were under the Soviet influence. They probably wanted to get to New York, but they ended up in London by mistake, or because they didn’t have enough money to get there.”

    And on his mother’s side? “She was Anglo-Indian – and that meant nobody liking you, neither the Indians nor the British. People didn’t have very much money and so I think they were both very keen for people to do well and education was a very important part of that. It was drilled into you that education was vital.” He laughs: “I still believe that one of the few things that Tony Blair actually said that was probably right is: ‘Education, education, education’.”

    And how was Hyman’s education? “I knuckled down and did very well. I went to Cambridge, and graduated there with a first class degree in geography. I stayed for one year to think about doing a PhD but felt that wasn’t for me: it was too specialist and not very exciting. It’s a weird thing that when you study geography the more you go into a particular area it becomes like another subject: so for a physical geographer you almost become a geologist; a bio geographer becomes almost a biologist; an economic geographer becomes almost an economist; and a historical geographer becomes almost a historian.”

    But the year was 1979 and Thatcher was on the rise. Hyman intuited the enormity of the shift, and decided to enter the business world at perhaps one of the most opportune times in history: “I went off to Price Waterhouse and followed this quite conventional route of becoming a chartered accountant which I did very well at and I enjoyed my three and a half years there,” he recalls.

    However things were about to change for Hyman – and as so often happen, due to his meeting the right person at the right time. “I met this really entrepreneurial dynamic financier called Michael Goddard who worked at a business called Baltic plc and I had 11 very enjoyable hard-working years where I learned a lot about finance and about business and about negotiation but it instilled in me a desire to do my own thing.” Around that time Hyman had also begun to take an interest in healthcare. “I got very interested in health, and was interested to take the techniques of asset finance and structured finance, which was what Baltic specialised in, and apply that to different parts of the public sector which had been starved of capital because the Treasury controlled the purse strings.” Hyman saw that Thatcher’s administration was serious about shaking things up: “Norman Lamont introduced the Private Finance Initiative and I thought that was quite an interesting turning point; it was an opportunity for the government to form partnerships with the private sector to invest in infrastructure.”

     

    It was to be a huge success. Hyman left Baltic in 1994 to start his own company Nexus. This business set up Primary Health Properties; Hyman would manage it for 27 years, and only stopped being CEO in April 2023.

    When Hyman set up the healthcare business was he partnering with government from day one? “I got very interested in the fact that GPs, although they are independent contractors, have a contract with the NHS: as part of that they get their rent reimbursed to them by the NHS and of course the NHS is part of the British government. Therefore from an investor’s standpoint although your tenant is actually a group of GPs, the payor of the rent is actually the NHS which is the government: so you have a gilt-edged income stream even though your tenant is just a group of professionals.”

    For Hyman, this was a clear opportunity: “I saw that there was what I would call a yield and covenant arbitrage there and so set up the business to take advantage of that and to act as a funnel of capital back in, in order to modernise the NHS. Even today, 40 per cent of all primary care premises in the country are sub-standard and you are seeing a paradigm shift effectively away from an old-fashioned converted house where you had your polio jab on a sugar cube with a single handed GP giving it to you into a much more modern medical centre.” The beauty is that these centres are much more modern and contain ‘a raft of ancillary services’. This is, of course, also in the interests of the doctors. “They don’t want to take on the capital burden of providing a £9 or 10 million building: they are quite happy for a third party landlord like Primary Health Properties to be that partner and now our portfolio is around £2.8 billion: we have 514 centres, of which 21 are in Ireland and it’s a very interesting and safe and secure business model.”

    It sounds it, and the success of the venture has enabled Hyman to diversify into publishing. “Here at Nexus we publish B2B magazines and we run events around them. Our titles are Health Investor, Education Investor, Caring Times, Nursery Management, and today we have got a small publication called Nutrition Investor and we have Independent Schools Management. The theme of those is very much health and education. Property, health and education has been my raison d’etre for the past 30 years.”

    I say that publishing is a difficult sector compared with healthcare property. Why put himself through the stress? “The original reason is because I couldn’t find anything I wanted to read and so Health Investor is a B2B magazine focused on investors that are providing contracted out services to the NHS.   It’s basically an events business.  You obviously have to have content. I don’t think you can run the events without titles but as you know we’ve moved from a non-digital basis to a digital basis and people will pay for high quality content but it is quite hard on a lot of businesses who have really struggled with that.”

     

    And what does Hyman think of the prospect of a Labour government? “I think there’ll be a resetting of the clock, and that will allow someone to have a slightly longer timescale. I think Covid and the political contortions of late have given governments quite a short term time horizon which is not very good in terms of ensuring that infrastructure goes in to the built environment.”

    But that doesn’t mean that Hyman agrees with Labour, especially when it comes to its commitment to impose VAT on private school fees. “Will that apply to early years? Will it apply to all sorts of education? Will it apply to university tuition? Is it going to be five, eight, ten, or 20 per cent? How is that going to work? It sounds like a great manifesto commitment but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it never got legislated for because it will push much more demand back into the state sector which is hard pressed anyway. In France everyone goes to a state school as I understand it. You are then talking about a wholesale system change.”

    Hyman’s success has allowed him time for his passions, chiefly opera. He founded the International Opera Awards in 2012, with a view to helping the sector. What was it that drew him to classical music? “They are quite profound stories. The topics in Shakespeare are enduring and unfortunately people think it’s all DJ toffs walking round Glyndebourne. Most opera houses go out of their way to try and encourage a younger generation of opera goers otherwise the whole audience will be dead in 10 or 15 years’ time.”

    The problem is that television has encroached on the economics of live performance, so it’s not an easy sector in which to pay the bills. “My shtick is to try and encourage younger people to make the grade from music college through to a proper career in opera whether they be singers, directors, musicians, or conductors – but it’s tough. Last year we gave out £100,000 worth of bursaries to 20 people: it’s not that enormous a sum of money but can make the difference between someone stopping their career and carrying on.”

    The plight of even the most talented musicians is an extremely difficult one. “You go to music school and then you get your music qualification – but then you have to make it as an artist and that will require you to sing in a chorus or hope to get spotted and get a supporting role. That in itself is difficult – and if you are not from a less well-off background or if you are an overseas person, it’s even harder. We have supported some Ukrainian people who have the right to be here as a student but they don’t have the right to work.”

    This interest brings him full circle back to his parents. “They were very interested in opera.  I first went in 1984, and it has been a journey since. I like Wagner: his music is absolutely sensational and the stories he writes about are primeval almost. The Ring is very profound isn’t it?  It’s about man’s quest for money and power and ends in disaster.  They all end up regretting having it but it’s this lust that drives them.”  And with that, I head back out onto Haymarket, reflecting that it’s not often you talk about Wagner and the private finance initiative in the same conversation – but Hyman is an interesting man with a broad frame of reference.

     

    To learn more about the International Opera Awards go to http://operaawards.org

     

  • Dinesh Dhamija: Massive Renewable Deal and Battery Boost

    Dinesh Dhamija

     

    There were two standout news stories this week to cheer the clean energy sector.

    First, Microsoft’s commitment to power its data centres with renewable electricity in a $10 billion deal. This will add 10.5 gigawatts of generating capacity, the equivalent of powering 1.8 million homes, and is eight times bigger than the next-largest corporate renewable electricity deal, between mining company Rio Tinto and an Australian solar company.

    Microsoft needs the extra power because it’s forging ahead with new data centres to service AI and cloud computing customers, part of an upsurge in energy demand in the United States, soon to be repeated in Europe.

    “The nationwide [United States] forecast of electricity demand shot up from 2.6 per cent to 4.7 per cent over the next five years,” reported Grid Strategies in a recent report. It predicts that more than $150 billion will be invested in data centres up until 2028, alongside more than 200 major manufacturing facilities.

    In 2023, corporate deals for a record 46 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity were announced, as companies like Amazon and Microsoft sought to reduce their carbon footprints.

    All this activity and development is positive news, but the context is important. There’s such a huge growth in demand for energy that some believe more coal, oil and gas sources may also be needed, negating any positive impact on climate change. “Gas is the only cost-efficient energy generation capable of providing the type of 24/7 reliable power required by the big technology companies to power the AI boom,” said one energy investor. The intermittent nature of wind and solar power is highlighted by fossil fuel lobbyists as a central problem.

    Renewable energy champions argue that, by contrast, AI can help solve the reliability issue for wind and solar power, through its predictive abilities. In a second clean energy breakthrough, the G7 this week announced a renewable energy storage target: a six-fold increase in capacity by 2030 using batteries, hydrogen and water.

    The International Energy Agency foresees batteries making up 90 per cent of new storage capacity, with hydroelectric power accounting for a smaller share. Batteries have enjoyed a dramatic uptake in demand over recent years, as their costs have fallen by 90 per cent since 2009. Batteries added 42 gigawatts to global electricity supplies in 2023. We will doubtless hear more self-serving predictions from the hydrocarbon industry about how renewable energy cannot power the economies of the future, so it’s important to pay attention to developments like these: massive renewable energy projects and game-changing storage solutions.

    We’re in the middle of an energy transition, with incremental progress taking place all around us, whatever the fossil fuel lobby might say.

    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/