🌳 Who is the next leader of the Conservative Party? (Part I)
From the desk of Jimmy McLoughlin ...
🎵 What is Blairfest?
🚀 Tim Peake at V&A
🗞️ Media Wrap Up
🧳 We are hiring
Welcome to the 12 new subscribers since our last edition, including my wife - truly our momentum is unstoppable (!) If you are new here, my name is Jimmy McLoughlin, a former Downing Street adviser turned podcaster. I write this notebook on the most interesting things I have seen on the future of work, jobs, technology and somewhat occasionally politics.
🌳 Who is the next leader of the Conservative Party? (Part I)
This is one of the favourite parlour games of Westminster, and we’ll come back to it numerous times. However, first I think it is worth setting out why i don’t think there’ll be an imminent contest.
One of my overarching lessons of working in No.10 between 2016 and 2019 is that the executive in the UK is far stronger than most people give it credit for. However, it doesn’t really make for great copy for ou political commentators to say ‘actually, it is probably going to stay the same’.
There is so much commentary on the up and downs, but ultimately the broad contours I think remain the same, that Boris triumphs at the next election and is Prime Minister until close to the end of the decade. The public are very annoyed to put it mildly, but ultimately Johnson is lucky that an election is two years away.
In addition, Starmer and Labour should be further ahead of the polls in this cycle of a 4th term, before you even take into account partygate. As a side point, the Tory party should be worried about Starmer being toppled because of Durham beergate, the last time a Labour leader left abruptly in a 4th term of a Tory Government, did not work out well for them.
But let’s say Johnson was hit by a bus tomorrow (although knowing Johnson he would probably go under the wheels and manage to loop back up on the routemaster platform at the back and nobody would notice)
The next leader …
One thing that is under commented, is that there is a high probability that the next leader will not be a white man. That is, I think pretty extraordinary. It is possible that it could be Michael Gove at third time of asking, Jeremy Hunt would also be a strong candidate as would Tom Tugendhat as the next generation candidate. But none currently hold, the great offices of state.
Traditionally, the battle to succeed a Prime Minister would be between the Chancellor and Foreign Secretary.
Sunak despite having a rough few months, seems incredible value at 12/1, we know his support for entrepreneurialism is deeply held and something that was borne out of his time at Stanford.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss together this week, put together an impressive list of female entrepreneurs, including JJ alum, Alex Depledge.
Another value candidate, is Priti Patel, at 40/1 if she made it to the final two, she would provide enough red meat for the Conservative Party faithful, to rival a Henry VIII style banquet.
Another value candidate at 20/1 and with impressive entrepreneurial creds is Nadhim Zahawi.
He has a remarkable backstory having fled Saddam Hussein’s Iraq at 11, arriving in the UK, not being able to speak a word of English, founding a billion dollar company in YouGov and being the Minister that oversaw the Vaccines.
He appeared on Jimmy’s Jobs this week, the first time I met Nadhim, we discussed his ambitions to be Prime Minister …
I asked him if that was an ambition he still held … You can see the answer on YouTube below and it is worth checking out his funky artwork that hangs in his office.
There are many more outstanding candidates who will have a run Sajid Javid will be in the mixer, and there are other candidates such as James Cleverley who I would expect to run …
And of course, what would Gavin Williamson do? He ran the last two campaigns of successful PMs …
This will be an issue we return too, you can subscribe 👇👇
🎵 What is Blairfest?
A couple of weeks ago I bemoaned the lack fo corporate ideas for Britain.
Step forward, Tony Blair.
It has been reported that Blair is planning a conference to discuss ideas, it is mainly politicians who have been announced so far to speak, it will be fascinating to see if any corporates or entrepreneurs are invited. First reported by Politico.
Mr. Blair could do far worse than ask his son, Euan to come along who runs the soonicorn, Multiverse which he founded alongside Jimmy’s Jobs alum, Sophie Adelman.
🚀 Tim Peake at V&A
To the V&A for British Growth Funds 10th anniversary party. It was fantastic to be outside and see so many faces in person. There were many of the great of the good of the business world, including Douglas Flint and Nigel Wilson of L&G
BGF was set up in 2012 post the financial crash by the big five banks to fund SMEs. It was the brainchild of Vince Cable, and it shows how Government and entrepreneurship policy can come together. It has been led by Stephen Welton and lifelong Derby County fan, Sir Nigel Rudd, always a useful sign of resilience.
Welton gave a good speech, using a magic trick to catch the audience’s attention, undoubtedly the star attraction though, was soldier turned astronaut, Tim Peake.
There are no official statistics on this, but Tim Peake was probably the most requested podcast guest of 2020 and 2021, I boldy asked him on the pilot series for Jimmy’s Jobs, well shoot for the Moon and you might land amongst the star etc.
Well you can see I pitched him below, watch this space (pun intended)
🗞️ Media Wrap Up
One of my biggest lessons of doing a podcast is that you need to spend a lot more time on distribution and marketing. In fact, you probably need to spend three times more time than actually creating the product as a rule of thumb.
Our interview with the Governor got picked up a lot by the traditional media last week, as well as featuring at the top of Apple’s Carousel, meaning it became our most downloaded episode ever after seven days.
Coverage: Dail Mail (twice!), The Times, Bloomberg, The Telegraph and The Guardian
Big thanks again to Octopus Group and Fintech Alliance who partnered with us on the podcast, if you would like to see how you could do so, please see here.
🧳 We are hiring
It is a very strange job market out there at the moment, we are still recruiting fora Campaigns Associate to join what we are building.
We will shortly start interviewing for Social Media Content Manager that we advertised joint with Eliza Filby, couple of days left to submit an application though.
End of the Notebook …
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