In Search of a Global Britain

January, 2017. The Tory Prime Minister stands in Lancaster House behind a podium bearing the words ‘A Global Britain’, and announced plans for the UK to leave the European Single market. She spoke of an outward looking nation that will not tolerate free movement of people. Watching the speech, it is hard not to be reminded of Orwell…the Ministry of Peace that starts wars…the ‘Global Britain’ that closes it’s doors to its 28 closest neighbours. This has all been pretty dismaying for the younger generations,who are more global than their predecessors by nature (there’s a great YouGov poll which backs this up- click here). It’s easy to feel pessimistic about Britain’s, and our own, future.

But don’t despair too much. Yes, the older generations (and a minority of young voters) have shafted 48% of us into rolling in the drawbridge, but the castle is still ours to inherit.The old king may be sitting smugly in his throne and waxing lyrical about regaining control, but he will pop his nostalgic clogs soon. And the heirs of this kingdom are indeed outward thinking, hungry for global business, and tech savvy enough to make it happen. Let’s have a look at some of the Generation Y businesses that are surpassing borders and achieving things that the lumbering giants of old industry cannot.

Why? Because Millenials are working differently to the generations before them, and therefore have different priorities. As Andrea Durkin writes “Millennials are ambitious, but they define success differently from older generations, who tend to value security and vertical growth in an organization. They are socially connected but don’t want to be tethered to large companies.” Studies support this, the generation that watched their parents lose jobs in the recession are more likely to start their own business.

Business owners, by nature, benefit from free trade agreements with other nations. The revolution of the internet gives startups a global reach. They also benefit from skilled immigrant workers. Therefore these entrepreneurial youths are  indeed outward looking, and not hindered by the fear of European power that draws in nationalists in droves. Public attitudes often appear to swing on a pendulum. One decade is austere, the next liberal. President Obama gets elected, President Trump follows. It is to be expected. Therefore, I predict that post Brexit disaster Britain will see the rise of internationalism as Generation Y take power and those pesky Daily Mail reading middle ages descend into geriatric irrelevance. Just give it a decade.

‘A Global Britain’, May said today when outlining her Hard Brexit approach. No doubt, the next few years will see frustratingly unnecessary loss of British access to the single market, cuts of EU funding, a drain of skilled workers away from the UK, economic turbulence and inevitable emigration of businesses and jobs away from Britain. The younger, ‘start up’ generation will certainly feel the effects. It is the final act of violence from the miserly old king clinging on to power. And it will give our generation exactly the fuel we need to take the crown, and create a new definition of what Britain is, and it’s place in the world.

The European Marriage

I am embarrassed to be British, for the first time in my life. Right wing whingers make our country seem not strong, but like a toddler throwing it’s toys out the pram. I’m talking, of course, about the EU debate, which has divided British politics. But it could have much more severe long term effects. Let’s take a look at this marriage, and see if divorce is really the wisest option.

We are gathered here today…

…Because, while the minutiae of life may be sufficiently distracting to keep the general public’s gaze off politics most of the time, occasionally a concept dawns on the masses (usually after having been heavily featured in the Daily Mail). Such notions quickly develop into a zeitgeist if not quashed, and when championed by telly friendly politicos such as Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, the formula is complete. We have a scandalously sensationalised campaign against the European Union, with just the right amount of ‘Britain First’style xenophobia to capture the imagination of those usually uninterested in politics. This campaign may well have floundered and died once the election was over Farage’s air time dried up, if not for Cameron. Our PM seemed to get rather flustered by UKIP in the run up to the last election, as their loud mouthed campaign stole Tory votes, and Cameron’s own back-benchers seethed that he wasn’t leaning far enough right. So, in a move that he is sure to be regretting, Cameron promised a referendum if re-elected. This play certainly took some wind out of UKIP’s sails. Whether it was worth it remains to be seen.

Ever Closer Union

The European project is essentially a peace keeping mission. Started by France and Germany after WW2, member states pay fees, and in return they help each other out and reap rewards. It is by far the world’s largest and wealthiest trading bloc, it now accounts for over a 20% of world imports/exports. The UK joined in 1973.

To Love and to Cherish?

Although in a democratic society the cries of the people should be listened to, following the fickle waves of public hysteria into irreversible actions in a bid for quick votes is a bad idea. The British Social Attitudes survey has been measuring EU support and states that in 2006, before the financial crash, just 15% of Brits wanted to leave the EU. In 2014 that figure had risen to 24%. This ties in, most studies agree, with the recession and the rise of Extremist parties. So some Brits are becoming increasingly concerned with immigration and the cost of the EU. But will Brexit actually help these people?

For richer for poorer

The resounding answer, from financial, military, and political fronts, is no. If judging on a financial basis, the obvious (and much overblown) Leave argument is the membership fee, which is net 8.5bn per year. That’s just 1.14% of the total government yearly spend. The financial benefits, however, are harder to measure. 50% of British exports go to EU countries, one of the reasons that many British firms including BT and M&S have recently spoken out against a Brexit, saying it would “risk British jobs”. The EU is a single market which it is irrefutably beneficial to be part of. Leave campaigners state that we could negotiate access as an outsider, like Canada. However this is a carefully worded fallacy. Not a single country has full access to the single market without being a member, and those that do are bound by EU rulings- all without having a say in them like we do now. And an EU divorce woud create years of financial unrest- Canada’s trade deal took 7 years to negotiate. Firms such as BMW have already warned that without tax free exports the Europe, manufacturing may move elsewhere.

Barack Obama, in his recent visit to Britain, has been said to have “crushed the Brexit fantasy”, dispelling the idea that Britain might form a brighter trade future amid the Anglosphere of America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Obama, with the tone of one reprimanding a bumptious teenager, said that a non EU Britain would be “at the back of the queue” for trade talks.

What’s mine is yours

The other key argument I will address here is immigration, which seems to be the main sticking point for most leave campaigners (stats have shown direct correlation between concern over immigration and anti EU sentiments). 66% of European migrants stated jobs as their reason for moving to the UK last year. These workers for the most part will be paying income tax and VAT, without the benefits that British citizens can claim. This effect means that despite propaganda stating the opposite,”EU  immigrants have made a positive fiscal contribution, even during periods when the UK was running budget deficits.” -UCL. Yes, immigration has increased recently, but as a negotiating non member it is likely that we would have to maintain some element of free movement too.

Til referendum do us part

It is Obama again that brings me to my final point- that remaining or leaving the EU is the biggest political decision in a generation and cannot be taken lightly.  Obama urged our generation of Brits to “reject cynicism” and “take a longer, more optimistic view of history.” This, for me, is the real heart of the debate. Europe has been through a difficult decade financially, as has the rest of the world. ISIS is stronger than ever, pushing immigrants around the continent. Russia is flexing it’s muscles to the East. So what do we, Great Britain, do? Follow the fusty old likes of Johnson and Farage into a rose tinted future that sounds more like an impossible dream of an Imperial past? Push away our allies in the conviction that we will flourish alone? That’s not the future I want to belong to. I want to belong to a strong Europe, in which Britain stands up and plays a crucial role. The single market is a thing to be celebrated, as are the billions that the EU invest in Britain each year for projects ranging from Culture Capital grants to small business loans. Free movement of workers is a thing to be encouraged, the emphasis should be on creating a strong Europe in which the members grow alongside each other. For it is this unity, that is more than just statistics. It defines us. And in the face of enemies such as ISIS and a pushy Russia, Europe needs to stand united more than ever before.

 

 

 

In Defense of Tax Havens- The Panama Papers

What do the leaders of the UK, Iceland, China, and footballing body FIFA have in common? They all had a moment this week in which their palms became clammy, heart beating, and they asked their advisor “What did you say about Mossack Fonseca?”

Because what a week it has been. With the leak of the Panama Papers rich pants have been pulled down in all corners of the globe, revealing sets of embarrassing boxers from Reykjavik to Beijing. The papers, leaked by an unknown source to a German newspaper, list over 200,000 offshore companies, incriminating a staggering 143 politicians worldwide. Headlines are quick to proclaim the latest name to be dragged through the mud, and opposition politicians eager to cry corruption and call those involved “absolutely disgusting” (to quote Labour MP Jess Phillips).

But hey wait a minute- doesn’t this all sound a bit familiar? Except last time it was a Panamanian leak but a Luxembourgish one. In 2014, those pesky folk at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists leaked the twisted tax secrets of 300 multinationals based in Luxembourg. Among those outed in the LuxLeaks scandal were Apple, Amazon, Starbucks, Walt Disney, Facebook, Microsoft, HSBC, Citigroup, Pepsi…the list goes on…and on.

So what’s different this time around? Well, the focus is more on the world leaders associated with offshore banking than any well known brands. This time it’s people, not just companies, being dragged through the mud. You can almost sense the tabloid journalists salivating. And yes, it does seem highly hypocritical (not to mention ironic) that David Cameron has ‘benefited’ from his father’s involvement in offshore wealth- all whilst battling to reduce a deficit exacerbated by missing corporate taxes. But I don’t blame him, nor any of the others. Why not? The left cry- this is greed, pure, dirty greed.

Well, I disagree. I would like to quote Eric Schmidt here, ex Google CEO, who said he was “very proud of the structure that we set up… it’s called capitalism”.  And what is Capitalism? It’s a system that doesn’t discriminate between moral and immoral, race or gender. It only cares about money. A company’s only aim is to make money and grow. So what happens if the competition are using Tax Havens?

Take Apple for example. Between 2009 and 2012, a staggering $74 Billion was shuffled through an Irish tax scheme, allowing the company to pay just 2% tax on that sum. Now imagine you are a competitor of iTunes that doesn’t have an Offshore tax scheme. Suddenly your company is leaking money at the borders of every country you operate in while Apple is happily using a smokescreen to only pay tax in the Haven on all of it’s non-domestic trade. So do you adapt, or do you honorably cough up big chunks of your income while your competitor grows unhindered by such things?

It is testament to to this logic that so many high profile companies have been involved in these scandals. In a Capitalist world, it is adapt and grow, or be crushed. There is no time for ‘doing the right thing’ and customers (as 2014’s weak ‘Boycott Starbucks’ campaign shows) really do not care enough to be a factor. Last time I checked, Starbucks revenue was still over quadruple that of it’s nearest competitor (Tim Horton’s) worldwide.Don’t get me wrong- if I were a Politician, or in any role where I needed people to like me I would go nowhere near, and Cameron, Gunnlaugson, Infantino, Poroshenko and the rest of them were fools to do so. But money doesn’t care if you like it- it only cares about making more money.

So should Tax Havens be stopped? Definitely- but good luck. To do so would require laws to be passed in an international effort- one which banking lobbies in the US and UK will fight to avoid. The reason? A lot of that money that would’ve been paid in taxes the world over lands neatly in the pockets of the First World elite, including our own Prime Minister. It seems that fiddling taxes is the music piracy of the rich and powerful. Everyone does it, and nobody is quite sure whether it’s illegal or not. Whether it is moral, sensible or logical is a question our Prime Minister and other world leaders that caught called out this week will have to deeply consider. But money is like a river, it will flow through the easiest path. And neither moralists nor taxmen will stop it.

 

 

 

Merry Christmas From Dream.Think.Speak

What a time of year. By now, at 11pm on Christmas Day, you have survived at least 6 weeks of present propaganda, a minimum of 3 cheesy department store adverts (usually starring either a. Soldiers, b. anthropomorphised cartoon animals or c. children), and the horribly adult feeling of knowing you should be ‘LOOKING FORWARD TO CHRISTMAS’ but feeling like, you know, normal.

So well done, I suppose, and I hope you didn’t spend too much money. This year the true fake, grotesque nature of the season has become much more apparent to me. It seems so difficult to be excited by billboards and TV adverts saying ‘BUY THIS!’, ‘POINTLESS NOVELTY GIFT FOR DAD’ or ‘IF YOU DON’T BUY OUR ORGANIC, HOME REARED, ARTISAN, QUAIL STUFFED TURKEY, THEN YOU ARE A TERRIBLE HUMAN AND YOUR FAMILY WILL HATE YOU.’….Okay, maybe I’m paraphrasing a little.

Either way, this is a season more than ever when retailers are desperate for their slice of the Christmas Pie (I know this- having worked extensively in retail, this is the period that compensates for all those disappointing weeks throughout the year.)  I for one find this hugely irritating, and find myself frowning at ads on the tube throughout the winter months.

But, on leaving the city and returning to the charming sticks from which I come, all that fades away, I am surrounded by family, reminded to be humble, and to give, and to love, and Christmas becomes real again.

So, Dear Readers, From A Slightly Sozzled Dream.Think.Speak, Merry Christmas, and to all a good night. May you enjoy this time with those you care about, and celebrate the fact that it’s going to be at least 10 months before the BBC’s lack-luster collection of ageing stars get to host another Christmas Special.

Collateral Damage

‘Click to read more’ has been a much more frequent sight on the Facebook posts of my friends, mostly students and artists. The past few weeks have seen ideologies rise in sectors long dormant. Pacifism is back, but only, it seems, on social media. I am talking, of course, about the Syria debate, which feels uncomfortably raw. I certainly don’t remember many other occasions in which the question ‘To bomb or not to bomb’ has been so bluntly laid out to the public. It is a question our generation is not comfortable with. A surprising amount of people have swung towards vehement pacifism, at least on my News Feed. Others (most commonly those with limited intellect) think that we should obliterate the entire country, just to be on the safe side. (Sadly that is not an exaggeration, but an actual quote…ignorance is violence, it seems.)

But before we go on, I’d like to clarify that this is a post on the UK’s response to Syria, particularly with regards to the younger, pacifist-ish generation. I am not arguing particularly one way or the other re. the bombings, and it would be to miss the point to read the article in that way.

The Fear Method

A lot of people just feel like we can’t  ignore Daesh anymore, surely it is time for action. The Paris Massacre is largely responsible for this. Before Paris, ISIS (or whatever they are called this week) was a concerning bubble, but easily written off as just another middle eastern turmoil. It’s funny what happens to people’s sense of empathy when the fight is in their back garden. The Government and Media have jumped on this recent attack in ways that they have not done previously, the Scare-Mongering Machine in overdrive. Now don’t get me wrong- ISIS are scary. Mass murders in town centres are scary. But it is concerning to me the way the government has manipulated this fear into a war thirsty state, with David Cameron giving speeches not unlike the ‘2 minutes hate’ in Orwell’s 1984. Basically, population control, performed by reducing logical, civilised humans to blood thirsty animals.The tool to complete this operation? Fear. A good article on this was written by a Robert Higgs for http://www.independent.org, entitled ‘Fear: The Foundation of Government’s Power’. In his article, Higgs makes the point that without fear, no government would last 24 hours, let alone 4 years.Think about it, and really a lot of human motivation is down to fear. Don’t abolish Trident, we will all die. Don’t even vote Left in fact, or our money will do the disappear-y thing again that obviously was everything to do with Labour and nothing to do with American Sub Prime Mortgage bonds entirely out of the control of the British Voter (If the topic happens to interest you, check out this post). No, Freedom is a luxury for those who don’t live in fear, and as Politicians and the Press love to remind us, these are dangerous times.

The Pacifists and The Country At War

So now the Fear weapon has been deployed on the public. Only, for some reason, only half of them are convinced that bombing is the answer. Surely that’s the whole point of the hate frenzy, just like in Orwell’s book. It stops people stopping and asking “But will this actually help?”. But this is exactly what many people are asking. And to me, it feels like the potential beginnings of something. Something like, a new way of solving problems. Whatever it is, somewhere, in our lives of Western comfort, of imagined morals, we have lost our appetite for war. ‘Give £3 for Syrian refugees this Christmas’ reads a sign on the tube. Meanwhile the newspaper reports of bombs heading straight for Syria. People are confused and in the blur something very important is happening. People are asking whether bombing a country solves problems or creates them. And that is a brilliant question to ask (and one to be expected for a generation that grew up under Bush/Blair).

So Who’s The Baddie?

People are very simple. It seems that most people are happy with the idea of killing ISIS militants, the villains and terrorists that they remember killed people at a gig in Paris. From there it gets more complicated. Some people (again, remember what I said about limited intelligence here) are happy to kill foreigners or muslims or whoever looks a bit different and doesn’t support West Ham, and therefore have no problem with the possibility of civilian casualties in Syria. But a lot of people do have a problem with that. A big one. A lot of people are struggling to stand behind a government authorising bombings when there is that uncertainty.And this group is what interests me.

The Uncomfortable Question

With the question ‘To bomb or not to bomb?’ came a responsibility, even if it was our government, not us, who voted. As soon as this debate became public, responsibility became public. I am curious to what extent the pacifists will stand by their peace time ideals. Whether they will push back against the war bringers even further.ISIS are brutes, we know that. The public are comfortable with that knowledge. But the new generation, the ones that have been denouncing the Iraq War for years, don’t see themselves as the type to start bombing somewhere. Even if it’s the right thing to do, not that I’m saying it is.

The National Loss

Ultimately, whether the bombing campaign is successful in depleting Daesh, whether there are civilian casualties, whether the bombs radicalise more moderates, it is our generation, the ones who don’t quite agree, that will have to live with that. To sit and watch it. And in that, we have our great collateral damage. The loss of a generation’s belief that it could do no harm.

“Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”
—Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513

Why Music Is More Than Background Noise

A writer I have great respect for once wrote Music “has two uses..to drown out people eating and drinking noisily”, and “a decent numbing effect on the mood…After all, it is not easy to think properly when you have someone chanting and wailing in your ear.”

Most people I would say, disagree with this outlook on the whole. A lot of people have a favourite band or song that ‘means something’ to them. Sentimentality, you could say, is music’s saving grace. Sentiment, or fanaticism, is what sells T-Shirts, Arena Tours, and ill devised come-back albums. It is this same emotional tie that causes people to have lyrics tattooed on their skin, and posters of people they have never met on their wall. So some people feel music significant to them. It gives them identity, a voice for feelings they could not themselves express. However, this isn’t the sole reason why music is a valuable Art form.

When it comes to emotions and music, the connections are well established and well manipulated. Want to feel upbeat? Four to the floor. Want to wind down? Something featuring an acoustic Guitar. Want to ‘forget about tomorrow’? There are a thousand factory made dance tracks to make you feel that way.

So if a cynical song-writing team can make you feel empowered, or heart-broken, like a cheap novel or a throw-away Rom Com, does music really have any lasting Artistic value? Is it really just ‘background noise’?

I recently attended a casting call, the brief being that they were hoping to find the next Mega-Stars of Pop-Rock. And it got me thinking. If a Record Label put together a band of people who have never met, and give them songs written by a team of people guessing what the general public want them to sing about, and they dress how the label think they should dress, then this defeats the whole point. Allow me to explain what I mean; Art, in my opinion, whether that be literature or sculptures or cave paintings, is a two pronged thing. The one side is the message or emotional content. The other key ingredient is the historical authenticity.

Jane Austen didn’t write about 19^th Century Society because a publisher thought it would be a good idea. She did it because that is the world in which she lived. The same can be said for any truly great Artist. Zora Neale Hurston, a hugely influential writer of the Harlem Renaissance, once said- “I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.”

The rattling wagon of wishful illusions is a nice way of describing the music industry. If everything currently being played on the radio is what labels think we want to hear, what they have had written and found people with pretty faces to sing, then we are not getting art of true value. I would argue that music is valuable so long as it is created in the spirit of authenticity. That way, it gives us a historical, contextual gem, a glimpse into what someone, somewhere, truly thought and said. Nirvana were not a great band because they were made up of perfect instrumentalists, or because they wore fashionable clothes. They were a great band because at the time, they encapsulated exactly what it meant to be a teenager, to be an outcast, living in a bleak town in America. We can listen to their music today and know in a little bit more detail what life was like for people at that time. The same is true for most musicians, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, Billie Holiday, all the way up to bands like Radiohead.

Understandably, the ‘Meghan Trainor’ style of music can perceived to have little value other than as a meaningless background noise. However, it is worth remembering that it is the lowest form of it’s art, it is what Fifty Shades is to Literature. But authentic music, music that sums up a way of life, has the power to change the world. Just look at the birth of the teenager with Rock n Roll. The Punk Movement. Protest songs during the Vietnam war. Perhaps, then, I agree with the notion that a lot of music is ‘background noise’, but rather than covering our ears to the whole art form, we should be searching for a sound that has meaning. For those sounds give us a rich cultural history akin to that of the fields of Literature, Fine Art, or Drama, and it would be wrong to under-estimate the importance of that.