Best of this week in our opinion pages: from a business-friendly Labour Party to the migration crisis in the Channel
On Monday, party leader Keir Starmer outlined his vision for a Labour Party with business interests at its heart. As the resilience of British businesses get tested by inflation, supply chain problems and labour shortages, Starmer suggested a revival of relations between his party and private companies. This new alliance would focus on upskilling with a focus on digital, a change in business rates and more climate investment.
After the twin crises of Brexit and Covid we need to reset. In many ways, so did the Labour Party when I took over 18 months ago.
Keir Starmer
As more news came out about Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, Jhonny Patterson argued that the sport star is just the latest object of abuse by the Communist Party. The coercive political apparatus in China has amassed a list of victims over the years, with people in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong suffering severe mistreatment. The UK should now step in and provide help for those fighting for democracy in their corners.
If this is how China treats a national icon; just think what it will do to those threatening its autocratic power in Hong Kong.
Johnny Patterson
Boris Johnson’s speech at the CBI on Monday was surely one of a kind. Neil Bennett took this week’s revamped interest in Peppa Pig as an opportunity to sketch out the character’s virtues. Peppa is a product of the well-functioning British regulations on trademark and copyright. Her story came to life thanks to the creativity and the access to finance possible only in the British commercial world – when that world gets the political support it needs.
What business wants from the government is to maintain the environment that created Peppa Pig.
Neil Bennett
As more reactions to the CBI speech emerged, Josh Williams looked at what place Thatcherism has – or hasn’t – in the current government’s economic policies. With his promise to “level up” the country, Boris Johnson is outlining a more active state than most of his predecessors. He is doing that without a clear focus, however. What we need is not an ever-swelling state nor a Thatcherite one, but a focused government able to communicate its intentions to the business community.
Like any large bureaucracy, when states swell they sprawl – hoarding power while growing less effective and more corrupt.
Josh Williams
The tragedy of 27 people drowning in the Channel on Thursday shed light once again on our fraught asylum system. Sascha O’Sullivan writes that world leaders should acknowledge how the migration crisis is affecting everyone everywhere, no matter where asylum seekers leave from or which shores they reach. Sending small boats back will work only for a moment, while what is really needed is a long-term solution to tackle the root causes of this crisis.
The long-term implications will require us to accept something that has always been true: people move, they seek better fortunes, better living conditions.
Sascha O’Sullivan
