Where the City’s movers and shakers have their say. Today, Michael Martin, founding partner of Overton Advisory, takes the pen to talk Labour’s business agenda, Monzo’s Linkedin stardom, and the UK’s manifesto menu
Businesses need to be at the table, otherwise they will be on the menu
Labour’s electoral victory seems an almost foregone conclusion at this stage, and for that reason, it remains remarkable how unprepared many small and medium-sized businesses I speak to are for it.
The big change will not be stability or competency, as many businesses expect, but prompt and decisive action.
That may be refreshing for some businesses after years of Conservative infighting and inertia, but for many that sit outside of Labour’s good books, that scrutiny is unlikely to be fun. Unconvinced? One of the few sectors that Labour has been clear about has been the North Sea energy sector, where their policy proposals are already costing many SMEs millions, disrupting a local and regional economy, and diverting billions of investment to other markets.
To be clear, I am not scaremongering – the Conservatives are not offering up much better to the business community. But the reality is Labour is not just projected to win, they are projected to dominate, meaning the views of Labour leadership will have an outsized importance as scores of new MPs vote as they are told.
While Keir Starmer has done an excellent job of moving the party’s relationship with big business on from Corbyn, it is also clear that Labour’s manifesto is silent on which taxes they intend to cut or which regulations they plan to make more business-friendly for SMEs. That should raise an eyebrow amongst the business community.
The Conservatives’ lack of action made it easy for SMEs to avoid investing in politics and policy because little was getting done. That approach won’t cut it with Labour, which intends to reshape the economy and business environment.
Like all of Keir’s previous campaigns, the current approach of “we’re not the Tories” and “we would do the same, just better” is set to be jettisoned. The smart businesses began their engagement campaigns over a year ago, while the ones fretting over whether to expense a lunch could be set for an abrupt surprise.
Monzo’s a Linkedin hit
As an entrepreneur, my platform of choice tends to be Linkedin. Amidst the drone of false modest “honoured to” and “truly humbled” announcements, there has been a beacon on the hill, making the platform more liveable and fun: Monzo. Monzo’s marketing team has done an exceptional job carving out its niche as the cool account in the virtual office, with its sardonic, yet inclusive insights going as close to viral as Linkedin gets. Whoever oversees Monzo’s Linkedin should have their salary immediately doubled.
Manifestos as sharing plates
Most politicos dislike manifesto season, when political parties’ ambitions for governance are presented en masse to be picked apart by the media and political opponents. A few Labour Party operator friends have pointed out, though, that this year has been their equivalent of ordering tapas: they have withheld their big, divisive ideas and left the Lib Dems and Greens to spell them out. Closer ties to the EU? Merci, Lib Dems. Greater spending on net zero? Thanks, Greens. A mature party knows when best to eat policies off a smaller party’s plate.
Time for HMRC to get cultured
I visited UCL’s Slade summer show over the weekend, where graduating art students showcase their work (faves: Ross Head, Lexia Hachtmann and Isabel Mills). HMRC currently sets a €10,000 purchase threshold for onerous anti-money laundering rules to kick in, disincentivising banks and fintechs from innovating in the world of art finance. HMRC should update its rules to use the pound sterling and increase the purchase threshold so innovation can flourish in the beautiful yet often overlooked intersection of art and financial services, two areas where the UK already leads the world.
Opening tonight: the Complete Kafka at the European Parliament Liaison Office in London
The first time I read Kafka’s A Hunger Artist, I felt like I was meeting the cool person at a party that arrives late, leaves early and leaves you thinking differently. With that memory in mind, last week I went on a private tour of the European Parliament Liaison Office in London’s new exhibition, the Complete Kafka. Held jointly with the Goethe Institut, Austrian Cultural Forum and the Czech Centre in London, the exhibition showcases Kafka’s work through the work of Austrian artist Nicolas Mahler, whose bibliography includes the seminal Franz Kafka’s Nonstop Laughing Machine. The exhibition was excellent and left me in a pleasant, liminal space as I drifted back to Westminster. It opens tonight and runs until October – go see!