October 2008
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31 October 2008
Leading on from Brand and Ross, the blind worship of individual talent ...
The Guardian’s Jenni Russell is always worth reading. Today she shines a light on an important dimension of the Brand Ross debacle. She describes her own experience as a young BBC producer trying to deal with a cantankerous and sloppy radio presenter. After trying to get the star in question to perform better it was quickly made clear by the powers that be it was he the ‘talent’ - not she the producer - who would call the shots. Within days the presenter had her removed from the programme.
Russell cites her own experience to underline the thesis that the problem at the BBC was about the power imbalance between Brand and Ross and their fixers on the one hand, and the young producers and corporate executives on the other. There are parallels here with the widespread feeling among football fans that individual players and their agents (who, unlike the fans who pay their wages, generally lack any loyalty to a club) have too much power. Echoes too of the City in which mathematical whiz kids and super charged deal makers ran rings round both internal and external supervision.
Which takes us to a much bigger debate about the nature and value of individual talent. Coming from another angle Malcolm Gladwell has made two important contributions to this debate. First, he has demonstrated that the point at which geniuses produce what is deemed by their peers to be their master work is distributed across the life cycle. The Mozart phenomenon of genius being exhibited almost from the cradle is the exception. Of course, people who prove to be great artists, intellectuals or inventors are likely to show talent in their youth but the point at which this talent creates a truly exceptional product is unpredictable. This randomness is often subsequently disguised. This is because once someone achieves genius status all their work before and after their breakthrough will tend to be favourably reassessed.
This is a point made by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in ‘The Black Swan’ where he suggests the process by which certain authors or composers emerge as geniuses while the rest fall back into obscurity is much more serendipitous than we like to imagine. I love Dickens and think Great Expectations is a work of genius but I suspect that in the canon of Dickens there are many novels which are seen as classics even though they are inferior to other forgotten works by Victorians who never got their big breakthrough. Thus the idea that Dickens was a genius throughout his life and that he stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries is a self fulfilling prophesy.
Gladwell has also thrown his weight behind the argument that scientific breakthroughs, which end up being attributed to one person, are nearly always the outcomes of the work of many people, one of whom happens to put in place the final piece of the jigsaw. Had the so called genius not existed then the piece would have inevitably been put in place by someone else.
The combination of post-hoc rationalisation, the allure of simple stories of human heroism and the ideology of individualism has cemented the myth of individual talent. Globalisation, the growth of PR and celebrity culture have accelerated this process. Those deemed talented are then in a powerful position to reinforce the myth at every turn.
The blind worship of individual talent is intellectually suspect and socially destructive. Maybe this too will be a welcome victim of these new times.
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30 October 2008
Continuing the debate on the Brand and Ross ructions
Perhaps this blog thing really works. Last week I did some filming for the Politics Show on the basis of a ‘blogversation’ with Tim Montgomerie from Conservative Home and this morning I am woken by a call from Radio Wales asking me to do a piece about Brand and Ross (the subject of yesterday’s posting). This gave me a chance to set the row over obscene ‘phone messages in the wider context of the debate over public service broadcasting.
Over the years, especially when Government has been looking at the BBC Charter and the license fee arrangements, I have been ‘consulted’ by members of the BBC’s expansive public affairs team. I have also attended several splendid lunches ostensibly held so the DG of the BBC can hear the insights of assembled opinion formers. It took me some time to realise these events aren’t about listening at all – they are an opportunity for BBC executives to do their well rehearsed big sell of the Corporation.
I got to understand this when, a few years ago, I approached a couple of these events with a strong opinion of my own. As I expounded my ideas about the future of public service broadcasting I sensed from the shuffling feet and glazed eyes that my insights were about as welcome and respected as those of the man in the huge overcoat who once sat next to me on a bus and claimed to be able to control the weather with his feet.
But on Radio Wales this morning I had a captive audience. Having mentioned in passing my thesis that the economic downturn will see greater intolerance towards bad behaviour by the rich and privileged, and recognising also the specific stupidity and bad taste of the Andrew Sachs episode (as too in fairness have Brand and Ross) I went on to say that the case of public service broadcasting needed to rest on two pillars: quality and public value.
They may not be to my taste, but arguably quality is not the problem with Brand and Ross. What they do, they do well, commanding impressive listening and viewing figures and a loyal following, particularly among the young, a group that has many other options for its entertainment than the BBC But it is much harder to make the public value case for their broadcasting.
The unwelcome question I asked across the salmon mousse at all those audiences with BBC executives was ‘can everyone who works for the Corporation explain the public service purpose of what they do?’ This is easy enough for the likes of David Attenborough and Andrew Marr. Which is why they are the ones at the lunches and who get wheeled out at Charter renewal time. As someone once said the BBC can be relied upon to get ‘old time religion’ when its future is up for grabs (the someone in person being Mark Thompson, then head of C4) but what does the public service obligation mean for Bruce Forsyth, Gary Lineker, or the producers of Spooks?
The answer might be subtle. It may rely a great deal on the credible argument that quality programming is itself in the public interest (especially now we live in a world when the economics of content production are becoming tougher and tougher) but in the end BBC producers and presenters have to show that they have ambitions and sensibilities beyond those who provide the content for commercial broadcasters.
That the BBC can cause a row like this is, in itself, an important sign of its importance as a public institution. Had Brand’s show been on Bravo or Virgin, and had it not been that we, as licence fee payers, felt that we had been compelled to pay for it, there would have been much less of a row. But this was exactly the problem with the climate in which Ross and Brand’s stuff was allowed to go out. The values of Brand’s programme seemed indistinguishable from those which might animate a cheap and nasty satellite channel.
A few years ago this idea that everyone be able to explain why working for the BBC (and being paid for by the citizen) made them different fell on deaf ears. Perhaps now it should be taken more seriously. Especially at a time when the BBC is fighting an aggressive campaign against the idea that its riches should be spread around the other ailing sectors of public service broadcasting.
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29 October 2008
Avoiding the temptations of boom and bust morality
Twenty years ago when Europe and America were gripped by the AIDS panic – and before we realised that its impact in the West would seem minor in comparison to the devastation it would wreak in Africa - public anxiety was reflected in popular culture. In particular there was a fashion for movies that told morality tales about the consequences for ‘respectable’ people of behaving immorally.
One example was Martin Scorsese’s under-rated ‘After Hours’ in which a hapless white collar worker gets trapped on the wrong side of New York (those who like this film associated it forever with the phrase ‘surrender Dorothy’ but you’ll need to google to find out why). But more famous was Oscar nominated Fatal Attraction. Glenn Close’s demented pursuit of Michael Douglas even created a new noun - ‘bunny boiler’ – to describe someone (usually female) who takes a vengeful view of being spurned.
I was reminded of all this by the furore over Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. It’s difficult to know what to think of the row. On the one hand, Ross and Brand were only continuing the kind of hyper puerile entertainment upon which they have built so much of their careers. This may have been an extreme example but it was hardly out of keeping with their general style. On the other hand, there is no question that had anyone else left obscene messages on a pensioner’s answer phone in working hours they would have been sacked on the spot.
The story has now become a media frenzy with even Gordon Brown taking time out of managing the crisis of global capitalism to add to the criticism. The fact that the papers are now condemning two celebrities they were until last week assiduously courting and publicising is merely par for the course.
Maybe the story has such legs because we are desperate for something to take our mind off the economy. But I wonder whether there may be another link. I suspect that as mre and more people suffer the impact of the global downturn we will see a growing intolerance towards the failings and peccadilloes of the rich, famous and privilege - thus the link to the change in mood during the AIDS panic.
As I have said in previous postings, it would be a good thing if the economic downturn causes us all to pause for thought. As millions of people suffer, some who are the authors of their own fate, others who are innocent victims, there will be a debate about the relationship between merit and reward. Generally, we didn’t care that much about the riches of the City and celebrity culture when we were all doing well. We won’t feel the same over the near future.
But whilst such reflection is a good thing, we must resist the mass media’s hypocritical invitation to indulge in blame mongering and self righteousness. Yes, the bankers were greedy and irresponsible but we didn’t mind as long as we could keep spending, our houses kept rising in value and we could pile on the debt with apparent impunity. Similarly, Ross and Brand didn’t become famous just because some faceless BBC executive decided they should. We watched Big Brother, we enjoyed Ross tripping up his guests with sly innuendo.
It appears that we have not abolished boom and bust economics. We should resist the temptation of boom and bust morality!
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28 October 2008
Old ideas and new jokes ....
In my blog yesterday, I am mentioned that I had just finished reading Michael Thompson’s book, Organising and Disorganising. I wrote to Michael today to say how much we are looking forward to hosting him here in December and asking him to write a piece for the Journal.
Cheekily, I not only suggested a topic but offered my own thesis – I hope he doesn’t take umbrage. As regular readers of my blog will know (we must have lunch soon, Mum) the analysis of Michael’s book is based upon what he calls cultural theory. In essence, he argues there are four fundamental ways of viewing and conducting social relations. They are:
· Hierarchical – in which change is seen to come from the top through authority, expertise and traditional rules.
· Individualistic – change is seen to flow from the pursuit by each person of their own self-interest.
· Egalitarian – in which change is seen to develop bottom-up through group membership, shared values and solidarity.
· Fatalistic – in which change is seen to be illusory or random.
In fact, in the book, Michael creates a fifth category but you will have to buy the book to discover what it is ….
This theory has so many strengths, it is difficult to know where to start. In particular, I like the fact that Michael rejects the notion that human development has an end point in favour of the view that change always results through the ‘clumsy’ interaction of ways of thinking and behaving. Another insight is the understanding, when one or more of these views, is excluded the outcome is at best sub-optimal, at worst catastrophic. And it is this that I asked Michael to reflect upon, asking him to think about what cultural theory has to say about the banking crisis.
My thesis, shallow though it might be, is that the crisis reflects what happens when those who dwell within and preach a monolithic culture are given too much power. All that mattered in the City was individualism; there was no egalitarian belief in a wider social or moral purpose for banking, nor was there any effective hierarchy as the rules didn’t work, those notionally in charge were on a merry-go-round they could not get off (even if they wanted to) and no-one even really understood how the system worked.
Finally – and crucially – there no fatalism, which cultural theorists see as playing an important role in social order and change. Every banker believed he had an unlimited capacity to generate wealth and increase his earnings. To have a major area of activity so dominated by a single framing of human relations is rare. To then give those in that area the power to determine the well-being of billions of citizens is – as we have now come to understand – a disastrous error.
To the accompaniment of the sound of stable doors being loudly bolted, we are now seeing national leaders trying to reassert the importance of hierarchy in the form of strengthened global governance. We have already seen a growth in alternative lifestyles and in people seeing climate change as a powerful rationale for new forms of egalitarianism. Economic recession also provides the right circumstances to induce a long wave of fatalism. So we are poised at a very interesting moment.
I have sent the email to Michael just today and will report back whether he takes up the offer and on what he thinks of my thesis.
Sorry if this blog is a bit repetitive but for me cultural theory is like hearing a good joke – you want to keep sharing it. And to make up for being so boring here is a joke I made up last week (yes, yes, I really did make it up myself)
Where did Emile Zola go to relax?
His j’accuzzi
It is I’m afraid a shocking insight into the RSA that when I told a member of the project team this joke she asked
‘Emile Zola, didn’t he used to play for Chelsea?’
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27 October 2008
Jack Straw's speech and cultural theory
A quick posting today squeezed in between a major event with Jack Straw this morning and Trustee Board this afternoon.
Jack’s speech this morning was clear and comprehensive. The Justice Secretary argued for a penal system based on the principles of ‘punishment and reform’. He took the prison reform and children’s charity sector to task for using opaque language and for forgetting the victim in all their talk of the needs and rights of offenders. Whatever one thinks of this argument it was brave to make it in front of several key figures from the sector present in a packed Great Room.
As the speech did not contain any new announcements but was pitched at the public (successfully judging from the press coverage) rather than the criminal justice policy world it might add to speculation that the Government is once again considering an early election. Surely Gordon Brown’s advisors won’t let this rumour build up again? Labour is still eight to ten points behind in most polls and to look as though ministers are considering electoral advantage at a time like this would be disastrous. If the rumour does grow (and a senior journalist told me last week they had heard it from several sources) I would expect it to be rebutted swiftly by the Number Ten.
I said on Friday that I was doing an item on the Politics Show on Sunday arising from various blogs about the politics of recession. Fortunately I have not yet met anyone who saw it as it was not my finest hour! Having expressly asked not to be portrayed as the former Labour voice this is exactly what happened. But more embarrassingly I agreed to dress up as a doctor in a terribly contrived piece about how to tell the patient/ public the bad news about the economy. It may have made good telly – who am I to judge – but I felt like an idiot.
Over the weekend I finished reading ‘Organising and Disorganising’ by Michael Thompson. I found the book enthralling. I am now a firm believer in what Thompson calls cultural theory. If you want to know why you can hear Michael speak here on December 4th or read the Journal piece we have just commissioned from him. I will try to expand on the theory and why I think it is powerful in further blogs this week
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24 October 2008
What should really worry the Tories ...
David Cameron’s advisors may be seeking this morning to protect him from the further rumblings of the Corfu affair or the attempt by the Independent to embroil the Tory leader in a ‘scandal’ of his own. But if I were them I would be much more worried by the combination of the pieces in the Guardian by LibDem MP Chris Huhne and in the FT by Samuel Brittan, doyen of economic commentators.
Brittan joins a number of other commentators in saying that, given the improbability of rising inflation in a global slowdown, it is not only reasonable but advisable for the Government to allow an increase in the public deficit:
‘the obvious temptation is to allow too much money to be created and to end up with rapid inflation and no lasting gain to output or jobs. But faced with the risk of a severe slump, when men and women who could be working are left needlessly idle, conventional wisdom needs to be stood on its head as the danger is of too little spending’
Brittan goes on to argue that this would have been the view not only of JM Keynes but also of Milton Friedman.
Huhne berates the Conservatives for alarmism about public borrowing. Citing several examples of Cameron’s claims that the public finances are in crisis, Huhne argues:
‘in reality, the government has substantial leeway to help maintain activity. The UK is better positioned to use fiscal policy to stabilise output than at the onset of the 1973 or 1979 recessions….It is frankly irresponsible of the Tories to pretend otherwise’.
The problem for the Conservatives is not just that a well respected economist is dismissing alarmism or that the third party is turning its guns on the Opposition when the Government is itself such an easy target. The political danger lies in Huhne’s closing line
‘the Tories should not be talking Britain down’
This allegation is uncomfortably similar to the charge put explicitly by Labour and implicitly by Boris Johnson against the Tories ‘broken society’ campaign. There too critics argued that the Conservatives were willing to run the country down to make political capital.
None of which is to say that Labour can simply sit back and keep spending. As I will be arguing on this weekend’s Politics Show, while Brittan, Huhne (and Darling) are right about the justification for extra borrowings, Labour needs to be bold about re-ordering spending priorities towards measures that can tackle and alleviate recession rather than other commendable but now hard-to-justify aspirations.
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23 October 2008
Can we overcome our inner Sid James?
The news that the Government is to mandate sex education lessons for primary school children prompts a fond recollection of my time in Government. Policy wonks from inside and outside Whitehall were gathered in Admiralty Arch to discuss strategies to tackle the UK’s stubbornly high levels of teenage pregnancy.
I recall a very detailed and authoritative presentation from leading social policy analyst Leon Feinstein. But what really sticks in my memory is the contribution of a young German researcher from the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit (don’t worry, Axel, I will protect your identity). His contribution to the debate was evidence both of the poor levels of basic sexual knowledge among the young and of the greater levels of resistance among British parents to talking to their young about sex. In precise language reinforced by his clipped German accent, he asked why it was that the British seemed to be so embarrassed. Was it, he asked, to do with the British tradition of smutty comedy exemplified by the Carry On films?
I sensed that some in the room were becoming rather irritated by being lectured by this foreign upstart. But before anyone could rebut his impugning of our national character the young man offered a specific example of the kind of thing parents should teach their children. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it may have involved the words penis and condom. As he said these words he looked around at this room of senior civil servants and academic researchers and, yes, several of us were suppressing giggles. I will never forget his look of total mystification as he realised that even in this august body the mere mention of naughty bits exposed our inner Sid James.
Anyway, it looks at though he stuck to his argument and eventually won through; if parents can’t be trusted to overcome their embarrassment schools will have to do the job. Which is all well and good. Indeed, we hear that as well as lessons in sex and relationships youngsters are also to be given advice on money management (certainly something they could usefully take home to their indebted parents), all as part of a curriculum aiming at giving people the practical skills they need to thrive in the world.
Given the RSA’s role in developing and successfully disseminating Opening Minds our own competencies based curriculum, the Society should be fully supportive of these announcements. But I have a caveat. As any parent knows, children forget most of what they are told and are much more likely to retain something if they see its immediate relevance and applicability. So we need to be realistic about how many of these new life skills will be retained if they are taught in abstract (some would say this is the big lesson of the mixed impact of the citizenship curriculum). Instead the best way to teach these skills is to attach them to activities which engage and stimulate young people. So, for example, the best way to develop financial literacy may be to explore how schools can establish their own micro-businesses or token economies in which children apply their knowledge to motivating and fun tasks.
Which is fine for financial literacy but a great deal more problematic when it comes to sex education. I’m just glad I’m not a primary school teacher. I can imagine the child’s hand going up and the question being asked:
‘Sir, if it is important that we know all this and that we don’t get embarrassed, why do you keep blushing and giggling?’
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22 October 2008
Time to take up knitting
Soon, I hope, the RSA will be guaranteed at least one mention in the national press every week. Currently, Luke Johnson’s entertaining and informative FT column lists him as Chairman of Channel Four. By the end of next year it should say Chairman of the RSA.
Mind you we will need to improve our coordination. Writing today about ambition Luke mentions the downfall of Jonathan Aitken. Sadly, he doesn’t take the opportunity to advertise Mr Aitken speaking at the RSA tomorrow. The former Tory cabinet minister will be responding to a talk by Susan Wise Bauer author of a new book ‘the Art of the Public Grovel’ which traces the history and theology of public confessions in modern America from Ted Kennedy to Bill Clinton.
The lesson Luke draws from the downfall of political and business figures, and there are plenty of the latter crashing back to earth, is that ‘we must each know our limit, and resist the urge to overreach’. Those involved in the tangled Corfu holiday saga, featured on most front pages, may wish they had such wisdom.
The whole sorry episode is best captured by the standfirst of Julian Glover’s column in today’s Guardian.
‘What part of: ‘Oligarch. Big boat. Peter Mandelson. Spells trouble’ did George Osborne fail to understand’.
An aspect of the hubristic culture of the last fifteen years has been fawning over the super rich. To become rich in business (as distinct from simply by inheritance) you must have worked hard, taken risks and if you are over forty you’ve probably had some bad times to go with the good. But none of this means you necessarily have great insight into world affairs or policy making.
But the super rich have come to believe that having the ear of politicians is an expectation that goes with the yacht and the private jet. And for a variety of reasons (few of which are good) most senior politicians are only too happy to look as though they are fascinated by the lives and opinions of multi-millionaires. Just as the super rich often expect to get away with sexual philandering, so they enjoy showing that not only can they carouse with politicians of all stripes but that they can get them to forget their boring Party allegiances in favour of their much more important shared membership of the global party of the rich and powerful.
Who knows who said what to whom on the Greek island? What is in no doubt from the cast list of this drama was that it was an accident waiting to happen. The overlapping of the worlds of celebrity, high finance and politics is another example of the detachment of status and rewards from merit which has been such a characteristic of our hubristic elite culture. Well, we face a different world now. With business leaders and politicians facing major challenges – not least of which is to retain any respect and authority amongst an increasingly disenchanted and volatile public - it’s time to stay off the yachts and stick to the knitting.
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21 October 2008
The inequality debate ...
According to the OECD, arguably the world’s leading think tank, not only have most people in the UK become better off over the last eight years but poverty has dropped and inequality declined. These findings will force a change of script from the Government’s many critics and even from ministers who have pleaded mea culpa in the face of earlier evidence of widening inequality.
The OECD findings further highlight the paradox I am addressing in my concluding essay for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation project on ‘new social evils’. It was already difficult to explain why it is, when we are living longer, healthier lives, enjoying greater opportunities and freedoms and demonstrating more tolerance and even, arguably, compassion towards our fellow citizens, we are also so prone to say society is going to the dogs. Combining an internet survey of 3,500 people and commissioned essays from leading thinkers across the political spectrum, the JRF project shows this social pessimism to be as prevalent amongst the public as it is among public intellectuals. Left leaning thinkers tended to explain our unease in a time of plenty by highlighting social polarisation. If the OECD report is correct this argument may need to be re-examined.
Forgive my unformed thoughts (after all, that’s what blogs are for) but I am beginning to develop a new theory to explain social misery amidst social progress. This came to me when I pondered the impact of the coming recession on the public mood. The obvious assumption would be that our pessimism would be exacerbated by a downturn – a bit like a reworking of the old office witticism “they said ‘smile, things could be worse’ so I smiled and they were”.
But the assumption may well be wrong. Not only is there no simple correlation between objective conditions and subjective mood, it can be at times of greatest threat and danger that communities feel most united in solidarity and hope. Throughout the nineteen seventies and eighties the people of conflict-torn Northern Ireland regularly reported among the highest levels of life satisfaction in the UK.
It does not have to be the case that economic adversity adds to social pessimism. What may be the determining factors? Try fairness and leadership. It is important that the pain of the recession is seen to be felt appropriately. This probably means three things: that those who are most held responsible suffer the most (thus the ‘no bonuses’ strings attached to Government bank bail outs), that as much as possible is done to stop a drama turning into a crisis (thus the emphasis on stopping repossessions and small business failures) and that the most vulnerable in society are protected (thus the Government’s defence of public spending in a downturn).
So far the Government seems to be getting this message broadly right. Indeed, Phil Woolas’s controversial comments about immigration at the weekend can be seen as another sign of ministers’ determination to counter claims of unfairness. From the public’s perspective it is one thing for economic migrants to cash in on a strong UK economy, it is another for those migrants to be competing for scarce jobs and resources in a downturn.
On leadership I still feel that none of the Party leaders have managed to frame what is happening in a way that is realistic, compelling and heartening. We need the kind of message that Churchill was brilliant at delivering: we are in a very bad place but if we stick together and do the right thing we will pull through. Currently the message we are hearing veers between ‘don’t panic it may all still be OK’ and ‘the world is collapsing but Gordon Brown is its saviour’. As for the increasingly disappointing David Cameron, just when he might have been expected to show how he is a new kind of leader he has retreated into an oppositionalist comfort zone.
But the bigger point I am trying to get my head round is the link between social unease, affluence and consumption. Here is my tentative argument. As individuals most of us want to feel useful, that our life has a purpose and that we are giving something back. We like to have fun and say we want to win the lottery but, in fact, the most consistent sources of satisfaction are the feeling we are doing a good job and that we looking after our loved ones. If this is true for individuals why shouldn’t it be true for society? In other words if things feel too easy we become uneasy. If we don’t know how to deal with that sense of unease we channel it into aggression – towards Government, towards outsiders and towards society as a whole. The perception of a social deficit becomes self fulfilling.
To this account one of the most vital roles – indeed possibly the most vital role – of politics is to shape, engender and sustain a sense of social purpose. For a variety of powerful reasons both major parties have largely abandoned this objective. A tough recession may provide an opportunity for politicians to reclaim their role of the articulators and mobilisers of social meaning. So far the signs are not encouraging.
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17 October 2008
The effect on national mood and character in a downturn
I never know what to make of the Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins. He writes brilliantly and is always provocative. Yet, he is also one of those columnists who repeatedly invites readers to view politicians as venal morons and to conclude that the world could be a much better place if only it was run by, well, Simon Jenkins.
I am more than willing to recognise that my tendency to defend the political classes from the wilder allegations made towards them betrays the defensiveness of a former insider. But it reflects also my experience of watching politicians at close quarters trying to do the right thing in a world they couldn’t control, and in the context of a public which makes incommensurate and contradictory demands egged on by the ‘disorganised conspiracy to maintain the population in a perpetual state of self righteous rage’ (a conspiracy that sometimes goes by the name ‘the news media’).
So, for example, Simon is an outspoken advocate of decentralising power. He puts the blame for not doing this squarely on the shoulders of politicians but perhaps understates, on the one hand, the public’s antipathy to variations in local service levels and standards and, on the other, the tendency for the media to blame national politicians when things go wrong locally. As Geoff Mulgan said at yesterdays’ Public Administration Select Committee (see yesterday’s blog), the kind of Government we have tends to reflect the kind of society we live in. If social attitudes are contradictory and confused this will tend to be echoed in Government policy.
Anyway, this is all by way of drawing attention to Simon’s column this morning which goes to an issue I have been discussing in my own blog; what will be the effect on the national mood and character of the downturn. His almost utopian view is more upbeat than mine (although I detect some tongue in cheek), but he is surely right in his core argument that this is an opportunity for us all to question our values and purposes as well as worry about our debts and savings.
Yesterday I suggested we needed a brave political speech which levelled with us about the scale of the crisis but which engaged us in thinking about what we could learn and what we must do to grow from adversity. Today we have David Cameron’s take on the economic crisis.
It’s a perfectly decent speech which may achieve its intention of countering Labour’s projection of ‘Gordon Brown saviour of the world economy’ (although, irritatingly for the Tories, this projection is daily receiving reinforcement from many independent sources). But it is a speech which to my mind falls short of what we need.
In essence this is because Cameron blames what has happened 90% on Government and 10% on a contagion in a corner of the capitalist system. What he fails to do is to invite us - the people - to recognise the role we have played in fuelling the bubble. It was after all people themselves who spent more than they earned or saved, it was people themselves who demanded that their house be a source of wealth rather than simply a place to live. (And then when it became such a source demanded that it be exempt from tax - indeed this time last year the Conservatives asserted that the top priority for the UK was to lower tax revenues and add gas to the housing bubble by cutting inheritance tax). The greed contagion among the rich was not just a few bankers it was an entire class of people; incidentally almost exactly the same people as are Mr Cameron’s most enthusiastic followers.
So when Cameron says:
“Over the past decade, we have seen a total breakdown of economic responsibility.
From the government, as it has spent and borrowed without restraint.
And from our financial sector, which has taken decisions which have harmed the rest of our economy",
he avoids asking what role the public, and in particular the privileged public, played in all this. He implies that the solution lies in Government policy and not in the kind of wider self examination that Simon Jenkins and others are advocating.
As I have said before, the political speeches that deserve a place in the pantheon are those that seek to engage the people in understanding the role we all have in things that go wrong and in the solutions that we need. Kennedy did this in his test ban treaty speech after the Cuban missile crisis (my all time favourite).
Barack Obama did it in his speech earlier this year on race. which is why I believe he could be a transformational President.
Cameron’s aim this morning was much lower. It’s probably all he needs to do. It’s certainly not all the country needs.
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16 October 2008
What we need to hear
I’ve been off to the Public Administration Select Committee to give evidence on good government. A strange affair. The committee chair Tony Wright asks intelligent questions and thinks deeply about the future of public administration. Other members of his committee seem intent on using the opportunity as a platform for their own personal agendas or vendettas.
So, as well as important questions about the relationship between ministers and officials, between leadership and public management and on how the centre might let go, a witness panel comprising Geoff Mulgan (Young Foundation), Zeena Atkins (OFSTED) and Sir Steve Robson (ex Treasury) and me (West Bromwich Albion) were asked to deal with questions on issues ranging from drugs policy to Afghanistan.
Most committee members did attempt at least some link between their question and the subject at hand but one somehow managed to segue from the future of Government to asking me whether I thought Labour Party members should be balloted on post office closures.
The starting point for some of the questions was betrayed by the tendency of one Labour MP to refer to the Labour administration he was presumably elected to be part of as ‘the Blair regime’.
While I’m on matters political, I had a fascinating exchange with a very well networked Conservative activist yesterday.
I suggested to him that if I was advising Gordon Brown I would be telling him to make a particular speech right now. My Tory friend replied that he was advocating that David Cameron make almost exactly the same speech. So what would be its main points?
a)
we’re screwed – the economy is going to be in a very, very bad place for at least the next year and even if it then picks up we won’t feel any improvements for at least a year after that b)
for everyone things will be more difficult and some will see their hopes – whether for a career, a home or a business shattered. c)
but we will come though it. We have come through bad times before. It is at times of adversity that we find out what we are made of. That’s true of Government, it’s true of communities, it’s true of people d)
All our energies are focussed on three tasks; making the slump as short as possible, helping people (home owners, business owners etc) survive through the bad times and protecting the most vulnerable e) But we are all going to have make sacrifices.
As a symbol of this I am giving up things you all know I care about. So I am putting on hold/closing down the following Government programmes for two years (for example Education Maintenance Allowances, ID Cards).
I am putting in place a small but significant two year time limited increase in taxation levels for the wealth.
As a further token of my commitment to provide leadership I am reducing the ministerial payroll by 25% and asking all ministers to accept a wage freeze.
The money released will be spent on infrastructure projects which are necessary will create jobs and will put us in the right place when things pick up.
f)
If we understand what is happening and we do what we need to do we can come out of this crisis - as our nation has from other crises - as a stronger, wiser and more united nation The reality of a speech like this is that it is as much about delivery as about content, which is why it may not be made. Cameron’s background makes it difficult for him to do ‘sacrifices for all’ empathy while Gordon Brown has difficulty achieving the connection with the public vital to a speech like this succeeding.
It’s a pity. Such a speech (forget the detail it’s the tone that matters) could form a strong bond between the public and the politician who made it. And it’s what we need to hear.
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15 October 2008
A cold climate?
So the European Union is already finding ways to wriggle away from its ambitious carbon emissions reduction target.
It is a difficult time for those who argue climate change is our most pressing priority. The global recession will give Governments an opportunity to disguise a cyclical downturn in emissions as a structural reduction (rather like Labour has encouraged us to see the consequences of the dash for gas as evidence of its environmental commitment). Hard pressed consumers will be asking ‘which is the cheapest?’ rather than ‘which is the greenest?’. But the falling price of energy will mean less incentive for us to turn down the thermostat and get on our bikes. And, as I said yesterday, the public’s willingness to trust experts and obey leaders may well be further damaged by the implosion in the financial sector.
Add to this – and please someone tell me if I’m wrong – the fact that aggregate global temperatures actually fell last year. Apparently this kind of mini blip in the overall upwards trend is not unexpected and does little to disprove the climate change thesis. But this won’t stop the climate change deniers (amongst whom there are a couple of vociferous Fellows) offering us all the opportunity to hear what we want to hear; that the whole thing was got up as an excuse to make us pay more tax and have less fun.
This is the backdrop to a talk I am supposed to give in two hours to a WWF event about how you change social values and influence behaviours in the direction of sustainability. I hate being to voice of doom (well, OK, like everyone else I enjoy it - it but it’s not very responsible) but as I write I’m grasping for a more positive spin.
Dear readers (mum are you there)? What shall I say?
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14 October 2008
Wave of anomie
The worst of the banking emergency appears to be over and the stock market may recover its losses but we have yet to see the long term effect on social norms of the credit crunch.
Emile Durkheim – one of the founding fathers of sociology – is famous, among other ideas, for developing the concept of anomie. Academics still debate exactly what the term connotes, but broadly it is a state of dislocation between the individual and society resulting from a failure of social expectations and norms. Durkheim himself said that conditions of boom and bust create anomie by attenuating the links between personal effort, social order, status and reward.
The credit crunch will generate a wave of anomie. For the public being reminded about city bonuses, and seeing even now generous payoffs for the architects of the recent disasters, underlines the break down of any relationship between merit and reward. The volte face of Governments on not only on state intervention but also the way the state has suddenly discovered a bottomless pit of extra money has undermined whatever lingering faith the public had in the protestations of their elected representatives. Finally, the failure of any expert to sound the alarm bell (hardly a single refereed article in any respected economic journal predicted the global contagion) will have ramifications for many other areas where the layman relies on the insights of experts. CERN’s large hadron collider hasn’t managed a full speed smash yet, but in the build up to the machine being turned on we were told not to worry about wacky predictions of the end of the world. After all, every expert said the technology was safe. But how is Joanna Public to distinguish this expert consensus from the complacency of the decision makers, academics and journalists who observed our walk to the edge of the financial abyss? More seriously, who now will trust what anyone in authority says about climate change?
In periods of anomie rates of murder, suicide and depression go up. People withdraw from society disoriented by the failure of its norms and systems, or they become susceptible to demagogues offering a simple explanation for the breakdown of the old order.
This is why it is such a problem that so few people in authority are willing to take responsibility for what is happening. It is not that apologies from millionaire bankers or superannuated regulators are worth a spoonful of spit in themselves, but the people need to believe that there is an explanation for all this. If the reaction of those retreating to their mansions in Gerrards Cross is simply to shrug their shoulders and murmur ‘shit happens’ they can hardly then complain when the hoi palloi not only treat the ruling class as undeserving parasites but also view their own place in life as a matter of crude fate. Once again we are reminded that censorious phrases like ‘rights and responsibilities’ or a ‘a hand up not a hand out’ are meant to apply only to the great unwashed.
The social elite is not a homogenous whole but it can look that way from the wrong end of the telescope. Unless we see some serious reflection, soul searching and humility from the rich and the powerful the longest lasting effect of the credit crunch may be to stretch the tattered fabric of social trust and respect to tearing point.
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10 October 2008
Brown's recovery
It’s a risky prediction as I could be proved wrong very quickly but I suspect the next batch of opinion polls will show a further narrowing of the gap between Labour and the Conservatives. No one is thinking about politics right now - as I write the stock market is down more than 8% in its first hour’s trading – but has there ever been a year of fluctuating fortunes like it? In a year Gordon Brown has gone from what looked like an unassailable lead to the lowest poll ratings ever recorded by Labour only now to find himself (if my prediction is right) a few points behind with everything to play for.
Excuse the anecdotalism, but down at the pub last night it wasn’t just that people thought Gordon was handling the crisis as well as could be expected. There seemed to be a deeper sense of cleaving to a man whose personality fitted the gravity of the world situation. In contrast, David Cameron was talked of as nice but irrelevant.
My favourite commentator Daniel Finklestein (not that I always agree with him) discussed this a few days ago. He made the powerful point that while Gordon Brown may benefit from a crisis, the next election will probably be fought out not with a global emergency as the backdrop but after fifteen months of economic slump. The mood then will not be ‘all hands to the pump’ but instead ‘time for a change’.
Danny may well be right. But there’s another way of looking at things. Gordon’s big problem with the electorate over the last nine months is that the voters have stopped listening to him. Government political strategists and policy analysts might agonise over what to he should say or announce but it was pretty much irrelevant if the average voter greeted the Prime Minister’s appearances on their TV screens by putting their hands over the ears and shouting ‘la la la’. Well, the voters are listening now. Labour’s challenge will be to keep them listening if and when the economic storm has passed and the long dispiriting clear-up begins.
Those who know Gordon well would also argue that his insecurity has been another problem. Over the last year it has too often felt that he and his advisors have, on the one hand, tried to avoid unpopular decisions while, on the other, scrabbling around to find something – anything - that might reconnect Brown with the voters. The consequence is that the Prime Minister has at times seemed both indecisive and desperate. People might have pinned their dislike for the PM on his personal characteristics or style but underlying this was a deeper critique of someone who claimed to be determined but seemed to back down under pressure, who talked about principle but seemed (especially over the election that wasn’t) an opportunist, or who called for a new politics but ran a divisive Number Ten.
But, events maketh the man. The voters want the Gordon Brown they see now. Serious, determined, willing to be bold at home and to provide leadership abroad. Perhaps the Prime Minister who emerges from the crisis will be someone who no longer feels the need to try to project anything other than who he really is. And when there is no easy option (the policy context for the next three years at least) why not do the right thing and be damned?
If I was forced to bet I guess I would still put my dwindling savings on the Tories but politics is only one of the many aspects of our world of which we can say; ‘what seemed possible a month ago is impossible now, what was impossible a month ago is suddenly worth thinking about’. -
09 October 2008
Olympics - what sort of legacy?
To a breakfast hosted by Editorial Intelligence to discuss the legacy of the 2012 Olympic Games. From which I drew three conclusions:
The good news: As the always impressive Neale Coleman (the Mayor’s senior advisor on the Olympics) outlined, the building project is going well. One in ten of the workers on the site were previously unemployed and one in five lives in the surrounding area. The innovative and sustainable techniques being used to clear, equip and build on the site are setting a new benchmark for major development schemes.
The mixed news: The main legacy will be the redevelopment of the Lea Valley into a pleasant, modern quarter with many good facilities. But some of the hopes for a life for the Olympic facilities beyond 2012 are starting to look forlorn. In particular, it looks increasingly unlikely that an investor will be found to ensure that the media centre turns into a permanent facility.
The bad news: When London bid for, and after it won, the Olympics much was made of the intention massively to increase sporting participation, particularly among disadvantaged groups. This intention seems to have been largely abandoned. It is true that there has been improvement in school sports but central London is lagging even in this. Meanwhile the costs of sports at the grass roots – whether its athletics or kids’ football – continue to rise with little or no extra revenues funding going in.
This issue was raised this morning by Professor Stefan Szymanski from the Cass Business School and then reinforced by me from the floor. But the reaction of many others there was a mixture or complacency and indifference. To give one example, my own sons play for a really good Sunday youth football team but with rising referees’ fees and pitch costs already three teams in our league have folded and the fees we have to charge are at over £100 per child - making it really hard for poorer kids to stay involved. To be told in the face of this that the issue isn’t really about facilities and funding but ‘that’s its all a matter of parental commitment’ rather gives the lie to all those videos emphasising social inclusion that accompanied the London bid. -
08 October 2008
Have we had enough?
We had a fine AGM last night and a great speech from Gerry Acher, who applied his long standing engagement in corporate responsibility to today’s remarkable circumstances.As Gerry pointed out to a packed Great Room, both Bradford and Bingley and HBOS had recently been given top marks by Business in the Community for the ethical standards. Yet all the time they were making irresponsible loans and taking almost criminal gambles with our money.
Whether or not the Darling plan works - and the big question is whether the solvency of the country will being sacrificed in vain for the solvency of the banks – autumn is ushering in a new age of austerity. Who knows when it will end?
After its own debt and asset crash Japan suffered its ‘lost decade’ of stagnant growth. For fifteen years most of us have assumed that this year we would be better off than last year. We exhibited the consumer confidence, not to say hubris that comes with this assumption. All this will surely change.
What will we do with the psychic energy that has been poured into getting richer, piling up our housing assets, spending more and planning to spend even more again.
What does it feel like to be in a world where just to stay the same as last year feels like a result?
Can any of us, apart from the old and the poor, remember when shopping was simply about buying essentials and, once in a while after much thought, replacing goods that had worn out? Whither retail therapy?
Before the roof fell in there was a spate of books critical of the culture of consumer capitalism, the waste, the inequality the triviality. John Naish’s Enough: Breaking free from the world of more is just one example.
There were many others in the pipeline. Marketing guru Jules Peck, and Robert Philips, recently sent out the e-draft of their book Citizen Renaissance, a clarion call for a sustainable well-being economy.
Will the economic collapse of hyper consumerism combine with the growing critique of its culture and consequences (and with the climate emergency) to create a fundamental shift in human values? Or as the cake shrinks we will become even more hungry and willing to kill for our slice?
A friend told me about a recent conversation with a southern American. ‘In my part of the world’, he said ‘when things go bad the men-folk either get religion or they get drunk go home and beat their wives’.
What is it to be? Will we learn the lessons and emerge from this wiser and better or will we look for someone to blame before turning on each other.
There are big issues here to debate and new ways of thinking to develop. It is both an opportunity and a responsibility for the RSA to lead this discussion.
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07 October 2008
The RSA AGM 2008
This evening we are holding the RSA AGM 2008. It’s an opportunity to stand back and look where the RSA has got to and reflect on what we have learnt.
Last year I said almost in passing that the fundamentals of the Society remain strong. Now, looking at the economic climate ahead, this seems like a much more important point to make. Our investments have suffered from the stock market downturn but we have no need to call on them at present. Fellowship numbers continue to rise, albeit more slowly and, despite the hit many people are taking on their personal finances, the drop-out rate is steady. Taking out some one-offs, like the Academy donation, last year’s budget was in surplus and this year is looking strong too. Even the hospitality business is holding up. Few other venues could say the same.
One area of unquestionable progress has been the RSA as a platform for ideas. Our lectures programme goes from strength to strength. To take one example, we have been key supporters of the Birmingham Book Festival with our successful events including attracting Any Questions to the city last Friday. The Journal is widely praised and I have lost count of the people asking about how we revamped our web site.
Other areas have been more challenging. In my frequent conversations with Fellows and visits to regions I find an ever greater support for the idea that the Fellowship should aim to be a powerful network for social progress. But we are still learning how to turn this aspiration into action. Glitches like the delaying of the on-line networks platform have added to our sense of impatience. The next twelve months have to be when the RSA Fellowship, with the full backing of HQ, starts to deliver on the ground.
Change has been slow too in programme. We are still able to boast that in the Opening Minds curriculum (now being taken on in out Academy) we have one of the most influential think tank projects of recent years but this success has not been replicated in other projects. Initially, I had thought it was just a matter of closing down failing projects and developing better ones. But the deeper problem was a lack of confidence and gaps in core competencies. The team is now stronger, its vision clearer and new skills are being developed and applied. Our education campaign is going to make a big splash, our design team is setting itself new ambitions and our arts and ecology programme is truly innovative. Over the next few months programme will be generating important outputs and there are some exciting projects in the pipeline.
There are few parts of the RSA that aren’t engaged in fundamental change. And this creates its own difficulties. When senior people are immersed in trying to transform their own part of the organisation there isn’t much energy left over for working together on the big picture. If the RSA has suffered from change overload this is something for which I hold up my hand. The good news is that there is still a lot to be learnt in your late forties!
The RSA has done great things in the past but too often it has punched below its weight. Now, once again, we are seen as an organisation that is going places. The key task for me – and for the Society’s Trustees – to bring all this change and ambition together behind a compelling account of the RSA’s core purpose. My best take on this is that the RSA is here to develop citizens for the future. Being clear what this means and how we can align the whole organisation with this mission is the next stage on our journey.
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06 October 2008
As the stock market bombs again
As the stock market bombs again – for millions of people their next pensions statement will be grim reading – the search for culprits continues. Will Hutton, one of the few economists who can credibly claim to have warned us what was coming, yesterday described what he sees as a toxic mix of free market ideology and weak global regulation http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/05/banks.marketturmoil.
For long term critics of capitalism like Madeline Bunting – writing in today’s Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/06/economics.economy – the downturn is the result of Government and people succumbing to the false religion and marks the failure of the religion of neo liberalism.
On the right there are those who see the crisis as resulting from Governmental interference. It was weak politicians who made debt to easy to come by, politicians who changed the rules so the poor could be enticed into home ownership. My old sparring partner John Montgomery FRSA makes this latter point in The Australian (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24427661-30538,00.html).
The crisis is so fast moving that speculation about the long term consequences remains just that. Dominique Moise in the FT says that the weakness of the West’s response, particularly highlighted by the nationalistic behaviour of European countries, ensures that the crisis will mean a further transfer of power from the West to the East http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/afca6780-92e0-11dd-98b5-0000779fd18c.html
Larry Elliot (another economist entitled to say ‘told you so’) also highlights the failure of the European Union to act collectively or collectively http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/06/creditcrunch.eu. If ever we wanted evidence of the ‘free rider’ problem at the international level we need look no further than the behaviour of the Irish!
So it is far too early to know what all this will mean but here, for the sake of debate, are two ‘finger in the wind’ thoughts:- The retreat from globalisation: On the one hand the credit crunch is a global contagion – with bad decisions on American mortgage lending impacting every economy in the world. On the other hand, the failure of global regulation and the behaviour of European states in unilaterally guaranteeing the deposits in their own banks demonstrate the weakness of collectivism at the international level. While financial capitalism is genuinely global, the institutions of global governance and civil society are weak. The rich East will buy out big swathes of the Western economy (a kind of reverse imperialism), but before a future wave of economic globalisation, national publics and decision makers will demand the institutions are there to provide effective governance and the capacity to act in an emergency. This could take a generation.
- The reconnection of politics, democracy and economics. By the time this is all over Governments around the world will hold major stakes in their country’s commercial assets. This power, allied with citizen disenchantment at a debt fuelled, inequality enhancing, quality of life sapping economy (which was only ever justified by a broken promise to keep making us richer every year), will lead to a more substantive debate about what kind of economy we want than we have ever seen before. This will be shock to the system of politicians and business leaders alike. But it will also have implications for all of us. As our Tomorrow’s Investor project is showing, people want safe, ethical, high return financial products but resist the idea that they will have to be more engaged as investors. A more democratic economy means one where we take responsibility for our power as consumers and investors.
As the stock market dips again what comes next is full of doubt and peril but there are opportunities too for us to remember that the economy is our invention and that ultimately it must be judged by whether it works for us.
- The retreat from globalisation: On the one hand the credit crunch is a global contagion – with bad decisions on American mortgage lending impacting every economy in the world. On the other hand, the failure of global regulation and the behaviour of European states in unilaterally guaranteeing the deposits in their own banks demonstrate the weakness of collectivism at the international level. While financial capitalism is genuinely global, the institutions of global governance and civil society are weak. The rich East will buy out big swathes of the Western economy (a kind of reverse imperialism), but before a future wave of economic globalisation, national publics and decision makers will demand the institutions are there to provide effective governance and the capacity to act in an emergency. This could take a generation.
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03 October 2008
Gordon Brown's Masterstroke
I got back from Wiltshire all ready to write abut what a masterstroke I thought Gordon Brown has pulled off bringing back Peter Mandelson (clever politics and good substance given that Peter was a very well respected Secretary of State in his previous tenure at DTI and now has all his European experience). But in my inbox was this incredibly moving short film. I don’t usually circulate things like this but I thought others should see it too. Just go to http://www.xdrtb.org/
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03 October 2008
Matthew Taylor's Blog - What has become of society?
I am just preparing to write the final summary chapter for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation social evils project (see earlier blogs for further discussions). So, having read the thoughts of figures as diverse as Ferdinand Mount, A C Grayling, and Zygmunt Bauman, with such an array of perspectives, I was surprised to see that one theme runs powerfully through them all: what has become of society?
Those on the left tend to the bemoan the decline of social solidarity, rising inequality and the stigmatisation of the poor; while those on the right bemoan the decline in social norms reflected in rising crime and disorder, and a lack of civility. Many on the left and right worry about the weakening of social cohesion reflected in tensions around diversity and identity.
There is something about all of which echoes the universal condemnation of the greed and irresponsibility that have precipitated the credit. All our leaders – with the benefit of hindsight of course – criticise the erosion of supervision and responsibility. The big question is why, if so many of our opinion formers and decision makers can see the problems and the risks facing us, they were unable to provide effective leadership. The looming economic recession is a consequence of the failure of leadership to alert us to the perils ahead and we face a deepening social recession unless we are able to warn our Fellow citizens of the consequences of loosening the ties that bind us without replacing them with new ways of holding society together.
I’m writing this on my blackberry on my way to speak to the great and good of Wiltshire. I wonder what they will make of my connecting of economic and social ills – perhaps I’ll blog in again on the way back and tell you how I get on.
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02 October 2008
Matthew Taylor's Blog - Lurching to the left on my second moral maze
I found myself lurching to the left on my second moral maze last night. The discussion was on the morality of capitalism. It wasn’t a terribly balanced panel as Will Self and Claire Fox are both left leaning and Melanie Philips, while socially conservative, is a vocal critique of the excesses of consumerist individualism. Indeed, as an advocate of the social market economy, I might have been the most pro-capitalist of us all.
The problem was that the more I quizzed our two witnesses defending the free market the more frustrated I became. Neither Richard North from the Institute of Economic Affairs, nor Eamon Butler from the Adam Smith Institute, seemed willing to admit there are inherent problems of modern financial and consumer capitalism that have been exposed by the current crisis. For Richard North the problem wasn’t that capitalism had failed but that the people running it had been unwise and unprofessional. For Eamon Butler the problem wasn’t capitalism but bad regulation by the state. While both had to recognise that things have gone seriously wrong now, they both gave the clear impression that when the worst of the storm has passed they will again be standard bearers for free markets, minimal regulation and a residual state.
This prompted me to think back to a fantastic event we held last week marking the publication of the second volume of Bernard Donoghue’s diaries, covering the last years of the 1974-79 Labour administration. Listening to Bernard and also to former Labour MPs Shirley Williams and David Marquand it was obvious that the events of the time had left deep scars. The winter of discontent exposed profound failings in both the Labour Movement (particularly the inability of trade union leaders to control their shop stewards) and the corporatist model of decision making. As Labour confronted those failings it lurched first to the left and then eventually to a new centre.
My worry now about the champions of free markets is that they don’t seem ready to engage in this kind of soul searching. Instead the search is on for an easy scapegoat so that when the good economic times come back they too can return to the old slogans and certainties. Markets are a brilliant mechanism for processing information and matching demand and supply. The desire to succeed at business has driven innovation, raised productivity and made us all materially better off. But if the friends of capitalism aren’t willing to ask hard questions and come up with brave and cogent answers they will leave this territory to those who think the problem is the market itself.
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