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unleashing entrepreneurship

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:23:24 +0000

As the economic crisis deepens, redundancy is likely to be happening at a company near you. Many employers and governments will seek to soften the blow but the loss of skills and knowledge threatens to impoverish us all.

Key to the solution is entrepreneurship. While this requires no state programmes to initiate, governments that do assist aspiring entrepreneurs get good value for money – the average cost of a business start-up is less than the average annual cost of keeping a student at university, a prisoner in jail or a family on welfare.

America's Gift to the World

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:42:07 +0000

I remember seeing the first pictures of Germans hacking away at bits of the Berlin Wall. On that night a wall came down. It felt the same on Wednesday morning. A wall had come down.

And joy abounded, not primarily, I think, because the American people have elected a black man, but because of the kind of man they have elected.

Obama’s rise from poverty to the Oval office has not left him believing that anyone who works hard enough can live the American dream, but rather convinced him that most people can’t – unless the system changes. Indeed, though Obama is a brilliant orator, it is primarily his authenticity, his unconcealed intelligence, the content of his character, and the depth of his convictions that have stirred people. This man cares about the poor and the disadvantaged; this man thinks it is a scandal that people can’t afford basic healthcare in what was, until recently, the most advanced economy in the world; this man is prepared to go to war, but only on high moral ground. This man doesn’t want to rule the world, but serve it.

Redundancy

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:45:14 +0100

The sight of stunned employees carrying their personal possessions in cardboard boxes out of the Lehman Bank building is etched in my memory. Gathering in a state of shock in local bars, some dulled their pain with alcohol and tried to rebuild self-worth through group support. And this might well prove to be just the tip of the iceberg; ‘downsizing’ will likely hit many of us with a new intensity as the economy falls into recession.

Shaping Education

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:11:56 +0100

Amid the current banking crisis, it has been reported that finance workers are heading for the teaching profession, leaving the office for the classroom, exchanging the Financial Times for the Times Educational Supplement. It’s not about the money or job security, apparently, or even the longer holidays, but the search for a career that will provide a greater sense of fulfilment; a public sector job in a world in which people are valued. May it be so.

Collectors Cornered?

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:07:28 +0100

Darren Smith has, apparently, the largest private collection of Lego in Britain. That’s more than two million bricks, in case you were wondering. Accommodating the collection has necessitated the conversion of both his loft and his garage. ‘I love Lego’, he explains, ‘the colours and the shapes are timeless.’ His wife, however, regards her husband as ‘obsessed’, commenting ‘the house is overrun. Sometimes he spends large amounts of money on Lego when really he should be treating me.’ For the record, Darren’s collection is worth £50,000 – a more expensive hobby than some, certainly, but considerably cheaper than others.

Recovering Thrift to Solve the Credit Crisis

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:30:11 +0100

The credit crunch stems from a deeper moral and spiritual crunch. At stake is a virtue on which capitalism depends – thrift. Resolving the crisis will involve a recovery of this virtue.

Most westerners have long had access to grassroots saving institutions, such as building societies and credit unions. But recently, while commercial banks have focused their investment opportunities on ‘high net worth individuals’, financial institutions targeting the ‘sub-prime’ market have proliferated. The growth of this anti-thrift sector is partly responsible for the high levels of consumer debt that have become an accepted feature of advanced economies, but now threaten to undermine them.

A healthy appetite.

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:21:53 +0100

I’ve never been a big fan of the Tequila Slammer: licking a lime then snorting salt before downing a dose of Mexican firewater (I’m sure that’s how it’s supposed to be done) seems an awful lot more bother than supping a good old pint of Pedigree.

But if you are a fan of the worm-ridden liquor then despair as its price is about to hit the roof. Fields of the plant from which it is derived, the blue agave, are being uprooted in Mexico in order to grow cash crops that make more green – dollars that is – namely wheat and corn.

Winning and Losing

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:20:36 +0100

Were you screaming encouragement at the TV last Saturday, urging the British men’s coxless four to rowing gold in Beijing? There is something mildly addictive about the Olympics. Perhaps it’s the athletes’ aspiration to, and demonstration of, excellence that stirs something noble in our souls. Only the hardest of hearts could be unmoved by the tears of joy, and the sobs of disappointment that have been headline news for the past two weeks.

Reaction to different competitors’ medal-winning and misfortunes has revealed the extent to which, in the developed world, at least, respect is based on merit, and achievement the passport to social acceptance. So it is that record-breaking, champion swimmer, Michael Phelps, gets to shake hands with President Bush, while China’s crestfallen Liu Xiang prompts a mass exodus from the birds nest stadium on withdrawing from the 110m hurdles due to injury.

Who Are You?

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:35:09 +0100

The optimistic mantra that began, ‘The future’s bright, the future’s …’ has been ditched. In the biggest global advertising campaign ever launched, Orange have introduced their new litany: ‘I am who I am because of everyone.’ It’s playing on a TV near you.

For sixty seconds, the camera pans over a range of people, a disembodied voice explaining, ‘I am my mum, and my sister. I am my best friend, Mike, who I’ve known since school’ and so on. Backed by a chilled, trance-like music track, it works. It doesn’t scream the product it’s selling, it merely gives off a vibe that emphasises how important communication is.

Driven to Distraction?

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:22:42 +0100

Teresa Clarke finally passed her driving test this week – after 27 years. It was the thirteenth test she had taken, after a total of 450 hours of tuition, at a cost of £15,000. Naturally, she was delighted; or, as her relieved driving instructor put it, ‘she went absolutely bananas.’ Well, wouldn’t you, after 27 years?

Truth is that many of us would have given up long before. However, despite all the setbacks she encountered, Mrs Clarke insists that she, ‘never wanted to give up learning to drive.’ The primary reason why her success is newsworthy is because such perseverance is a rare thing in our ‘instant society’.

Courage and Conviction

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:08:21 +0100

The reason we talk about having the ‘courage of our convictions’ is because there are consequences that flow from those convictions – and not all of them happy ones.

This week, in an interview with The Times, George Bush reflected on his presidency and expressed regret that the rhetoric he used in regard to the Iraq war has created a legacy for him as ‘a guy really anxious for war.’ Had he known back then what he knows now, about the consequences of his language, he would have taken a different tone.

Neither Private nor Privileged

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:18:42 +0100

What’s the best way to win an argument?

You might think it would be to discredit your opponents’ facts or undermine their logic but, in fact, the best way is simply to deny them a voice in the first place.

Although few people openly seek to silence their adversaries, when those adversaries happen to be religious (as has often been the case with the HFE bill this week), it is so much easier to deploy the “religion is private” card than actually to engage with their arguments. Hence Jackie Ashley in Monday’s Guardian: ‘There is no sensible conversation between the opposing views to be had… live according to your beliefs, but don't try to impose them on the rest of us.’

This will not do. Christian and other religious opinions should be permitted to engage in public debate, no matter how fruitless some people think that debate is. Moreover, who is the ‘us’ here? If Jackie Ashley imagines the rest of the population thinks the same way she does, she should think again.

Disaster Relief

Fri, 16 May 2008 13:45:08 +0100

“This report contains images that some viewers may find distressing.”

This is a line that our television newscasters have to deliver with alarming regularity. Barely are we coming to terms with pictures of lifeless bodies floating in filthy water in Burma when we are confronted with pictures from China, of bodies buried under tonnes of rubble after the earthquake. Both sets of pictures tell the story of thousands of lives lost and of human misery in epic proportions.

Enterprising the Imagination in the Fight against Poverty

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:08:31 +0100

In the wake of natural disasters, the scale of human suffering defies comprehension. If we had trouble imagining the multiple lives and livelihoods that were wrecked by the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, we will be even more hard-pressed now, when the full extent of the sufferings caused by Cyclone Nargis in Burma is shrouded by the military’s tight grip on the media.

When our visual imaginations fail us, our moral imagination needs to kick in. We see this in the rapid and vigorous response of governments, relief agencies, NGOs and faith groups to Burma’s unfolding tragedy. But there is another sphere of life that is allowing the moral imagination to play a role in its response to human need, though this is generally ignored or denied by the rest of civil society.

Faith in the Political Process

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:28:51 +0100

Tomorrow, Londoners get to choose between Boris and Ken (do the words, ‘rock’ and ‘hard place’ come to mind, I wonder?). Elsewhere too, local elections are taking place, providing another opportunity to reflect on what matters, for ourselves and for the society in which we live.

Certainly, the manifestos of candidates provide an index of local and national concerns, perceived and real: health, transport, housing, salaries, tax, crime, the environment, race... Not for the first time can we see how many of these play to our fears as well as our hopes.