Trump | Timpson | Euro 2024 and AMA
Extraordinary scenes from the USA last night, whilst it will undoubtedly change the context of the election, I thought this was an interesting tweet from US pollster Frank Luntz.
In the end, voters will settle down and return to their candidate of choice. The people who move towards Trump out of sympathy will probably move back.
But what happened in PA will definitely impact the final vote, guaranteeing that every Trump voter will actually vote. Biden, or any other candidate the Democrats put up, will not have the same participation certainty. full tweet here.
And of course, England gets ready for the Euro 2024 final - I sometimes think in our culture we don’t talk about being English much, we talk about being Scottish, Welsh and British. I wrote about why I am nervous about what it will be like if it actually comes home here.
If you have been a subscriber since the start of the year, you may remember my 2024 predictions piece, in which I wrote how England would win the tournament and Sunak could potentially call a general election in the week.
It is 10pm on 14 July, Rishi Sunak sits in Downing Street and sends two discreet messages, one to his Private Secretary: ‘please speak to the Palace and assess travel to Balmoral’ and one to Issac Levido and Liam Booth Smith: ‘we move’.
Sunak had just watched Harry Kane, and Jude Bellingham inspire the England team their first international title in 58 years. Dismantling Germany in Berlin was the perfect way to end such a drought. Sunak could hear ‘It’s coming home’ floating over the Downing Street Garden walls from jubilant fans in Trafalgar Square.
Sunak would allow the nation a day of celebration - no need for a Bank Holiday though, as most employers had given up the prospect of anything meaningful being achieved the next day …. Full piece here.
Thank you so much to everyone who sent in questions for my first Ask Me Anything.
It was a lot of fun (if I didn’t get to your question, ping me and we will try next time)
You can read the AMA exchange below, edited for brevity. Click here if you’d rather have me in your ears, or even - god forbid if you want to watch me - you can find the full 15 minute episode on Youtube.
Ps. Myself and the Jimmy’s Jobs team will be taking a break over the summer, so see you again after the school holidays!
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What do you make of the appointment of Prisons Minister James Timpson as a non career politician? Is no government experience a help or a hindrance?
I think it's a very smart and inspired appointment. Timpsons employs six and a half thousand people across the UK, and one in nine of them is a former prisoner, so he’s well versed in the issue.
There have of course been business leaders who go into politics and don’t particularly enjoy it. One example is Archie Norman, who became a Conservative MP (1997 - 2005), having previously been the chief executive of Asda. He has talked often about how he found it very tough. People who work in government are often incentivized by public service, etc (vs being financially motivated), so that can be a difficult shift. But I also worked alongside William Vereker, who's now the chairman of Santander UK. And William was brilliant because he knew how to cut through all of the flannel and really made stuff happen.
What’s good is James has already got a bit of government experience (he was chair of a business council when I was at Downing Street). His brother (Ed) was also a Conservative Member of Parliament, so it's a very public service minded family. He’s got his work cut out - reports say there are only 500 places left in UK prisons. But I think James could be brilliant at figuring it out. He was a great guest on the podcast earlier this year.
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What advice would you give to former Special Advisors and Members of Parliament?
I always like to remind people to think of the Special Advisors, Members of Parliament, who have lost their job after an election or reshuffle. It can be quite frustrating and discombobulating. Working in politics is a full time - and then some - occupation. It takes up so much of your life. And then all of a sudden it goes to absolutely zero. There will be no phone calls from journalists anymore. All of a sudden your diary is completely empty. It’s a real challenge to readjust - even though it won’t have come as an enormous surprise. It is almost like going through a bit of a grieving process.
I’ve written here about some things people in that position can do (including starting a podcast, which is what I did!) I’ll come back to it over the summer about how I used a few different models on how to plan through the different options.
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When should the Conservatives look to elect a new leader?
There are basically two schools of thought here at the moment. One is that you try and do it as soon as possible - get a new leader in place by Conservative Party conference in the first week of October, start putting in place a serious opposition as soon as possible. And then there's the other view, which is the camp that I fall into, which is that they should wait until December. Give it six months. Nobody is going to change their mind about the Conservative Party in that time.
You can actually use party conference as an opportunity for people to trial their skills. That's partly because the skills of opposition are quite different to those of government. And seeing how people perform in front of the Tory faithful can also be a way to reinvigorate the conference too. And it follows the model of the 2005 election process which saw David Cameron come from a very unexpected position at that time to become the party leader and then go on to become Prime Minister.
We’ve also seen what can happen from rushing into leadership contests over the past few years…!
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Do you the Conservative Party will move further right?
The honest answer is that I think it's too early to say. There is a danger with elections, particularly in the initial few weeks after them that people say, “Ah, you see, this is not going to work. This election result demonstrates what I always thought beforehand.” So I'm very keen to not fall into that trap and take a bit of time to think about it, which is also just generally what I believe the Conservative Party should do post a defeat of this scale from one of its biggest ever victories in 2019.
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Who should the shadow business secretary be?
It depends slightly on who becomes the Tory leader - for instance, Kemi Badenoch could be a very interesting shadow business sec, but she is also among the favorites to become the new Tory leader.
Whoever it is, the shadow cabinet has an important role to play in Parliament and it can be a good platform to appoint some rising stars. When Michael Howard lost the 2005 election, he took the opportunity to promote a lot of young talent. David Cameron became shadow education secretary, George Osborne became shadow chancellor, and Liam Fox was promoted as well. I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks going through the list of new Conservative MPs too, to see who has a business background, and come back with some with more thoughts then.
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How do you drive innovation in tech across all sectors?
The most innovative people that you have in an economy are often entrepreneurs. And it's entrepreneurs that create new jobs, create new businesses and drive that forward. (I’m beating this drum so loudly I actually wrote about this in the Times this week)
Keir Starmer has said that his number one priority is going to be wealth creation. But actually most of his front bench don’t have much experience of wealth creation. So I think he should look potentially to appoint an entrepreneur's minister, or someone at the heart of government that be the router for entrepreneurs, because entrepreneurs don't have big public affairs or lobbying teams helping them (unlike big corporations). For instance, Margaret Thatcher had David Young, and I performed a similar role for Theresa May. Before me, there was Rohan Silva and Daniel Korski as well.
These figures are able to hold the torch for entrepreneurs in number 10. You need to get on the front foot, make a list of businesses that you want to meet, that you want to get out and understand what they're doing, etc. There are so many amazing companies right across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom - from drone companies who make the New Year’s light displays to Middlesbrough-based video games gurus.
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What is your pick for the investment minister?
One option is Douglas Alexander, who was a Labour MP and cabinet minister under the last government, and he's just being re-elected as an MP and has been appointed as a Minister in the Department. But I think it would be brilliant if they could appoint somebody with some proper private sector experience. One of the names that's been floated is Nigel Wilson, the former chief executive of L&G.
Saying that, one of the challenges with private sector is knowing who's available and who's around. If you're a chief executive of a FTSE 100 company, you're not going to necessarily drop everything to go and serve the junior ranks of government!
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Can I interest you in membership of the Labour Party?
I'm afraid on that one, Jon, it's a categorical no. It's four crosses Simon Cowell-style for me on that. Not interested. But I appreciate those lobbyists that are members of the Labour Party.
You can read more on the background of Jimmy’s Jobs on our website here.