Blog
25 november 2020, europe: taking stock, edging forward
Wednesday 25th November 2020
As the dust clears on the american election, the standard holder of the free world is somewhat tarnished. The new president will adopt a different lexicon and approach to global matters, but a still divided and inward-looking nation will not reverse the general downward drift from its unipolar moment to merely primus inter pares in the global community. Russia will continue causing storms and china changing the climate, as it showed with the recent asean regional agreement for an integrated trading zone that now encompasses some 30% of global trade and population. Other blocs though do exist, with the eu still the world’s largest single market. As washington wanes and beijing becomes bolder, more than ever it is time for…
10 October 2020, slowbalisation
Friday 9th October 2020
The economic story of the last 50 years is globalisation, capped by china joining the world trade organisation, and, for europe, the single market and euro. That took a knock with the 2008 financial crisis, a downward trend sustained by the deepening bifurcation of global trade between the usa and china, which has seen tariffs pop up and a deep-rooted tech war, most recently with huawei, wechat and tiktok. Links are still strong, with american investment in china continuing to increase and the chinese still reliant on american infrastructure like payment systems. Despite being championed by trump though, economic hostility to china is a bipartisan consensus in washington and covid has brought trade flows crashing. Brexit can also be seen…
2 july 2020, of mice and, you know
Friday 3rd July 2020
It’s a tough time for events people that work in the (jargon alert) meetings, incentives, conferencing and exhibitions space, and isn’t going to get easier any time soon. Fueling over 1 in 5 international trips, mice is a serious beast. Every industry has its annual shindig, networking, awards, agm or whatever descriptor for movers and shakers getting together and getting things done on the margins (end of jargon). It’s going to be rather smaller now though, indeed positively virus dead at the moment, but trying to restart. Falling into the lethal mass gathering category, this is tail-end stuff for most countries' planning, though some, like switzerland, with its solid tracing scheme and ‘clean & safe’ labelling (expect versions of the…
15 may 2020, air travel reboots, but not quite as we know it
Friday 15th May 2020
Air travel will bounce back from its current 95% global drop, but it will never be the same. The last decades saw relentless growth, from 310 thousand air travellers in 1970 to over 4 billion in 2019. More planes, travelling further and faster, holding more people with less space but cheaper, partly as the industry made its mass market money turning journeys into experiences with ever more touchpoints to be savoured by trading up. At a stroke, air travel has again become about essentials, getting from a to b, with as few touchpoints as possible, less people on planes, each needing more space, with less moments to make money and fearful travellers not in the mood for it. All as…
18 april 2020, xi trumps absent america
Saturday 18th April 2020
Commentators pointing to putin as the trump years’ beneficiary don’t have their eye on the ball. Since america’s unipolar moment in 1999, china is easing its way to becoming the new indispensable nation. In his excellent article, Kishore Mahbubani cites the pandemic as the start of the asian century. Obama’s pulling back on active american leadership set the stage for trump’s outright america-first isolationism, with its unilateral sanctions (like iran), wholesale vandalism of the post-war international architecture (latest, the who) and its bullying unilateralist trade policy. Until corona, this held his domestic coalition and support, but caused irreparable damage to america’s global influence, “the ruination of america’s reputation as a safe, trustworthy, competent international leader and partner”. Trump has “insulted…
16 december 2019, from empire to england
Monday 16th December 2019
As the dust settles on friday the 13th, a ruthlessly-executed strategy gives boris a strong working majority to 2024. Most likely 2029: he is already showing savvy ability (nhs, education, transport…) to lock in enough of “the north” for another term. Whoever takes over labour, if it gets through transition without too much of a civil war, has a long hard march back, though all things equal there ought to be a strong enough not-boris platform to compete on. The big first of a majority of mps being women is a good foundation. More than likely though, once media interest in the divisions of the leadership contest are done, they will be just noises off. The next years will be…
7 november 2019, yes wa kan
Friday 8th November 2019
This longest space ever between blogs is in part due to rather too much activity both at work and, with family now here, at home, but also perhaps because rather too many topics are too hot to write about, several I care about I am rather too remote from, and in the organised chaos of our big move, I may have put my creative mojo somewhat into abeyance. To get going again then, I give you wakan: not the fictional country in black panther, but the very real village in oman, which we visited last weekend. At the cost of sounding like a tourism advert (which is, after all, part of my job), it was delightful. The drive was a…
5 may 2019, glocal
Friday 3rd May 2019
Like the wonderful 7up, distance gives insight, so even if I don’t have geography (being these days as connected in muscat as if still in manchester), the last time I looked at the city’s politics was 2011 (3 entries no less, before 11 may, the luck of the draw). Back then, greater manchester was colourful, with 4 labour councils, 2 conservative, 2 libdems and 2 of those local election-night favourites, no overall control (see also 10 june 2012, manchester as europe). With central government blue since, manchester moved steadily red, last night taking the final fortress of tory trafford, with altrincham adding a splash of green, as they won all 3 seats there and notched up several other wins, including…
26 april 2019, chaos, calamity, catastrophe: things can only get…
Friday 26th April 2019
It’s one of those periods where anyone who thinks they understand what’s going on doesn’t understand what’s going on. Like an itch that must be scratched, brexit is the boil that can’t be lanced and british politics remains entrancing as it gets even worse. May’s local then european elections are likely to shake foundations further, with the new brexit party of jack-in-the-box nigel farage (“the most successful politician of our era”, see 22 december 2017, ever-shrinking england goes back to black) set to win an online election (it’s worth watching carole cadwalladr’s ted talk), precipitating more splintering of the main parties, probably a new prime minister and probably the general election no-one wants. At some point, the emergency trap door…
15 march 2019, “order, order…”
Friday 15th March 2019
Excuse starting with football. Order, order, apparently, is what they were chanting from the bayern munich terraces as liverpool beat them to join 3 other english (not uk) teams in the quarter finals of the champion’s league, global football’s top competition, the first time this has happened in a decade, when my own manchester united went on to win it spectacularly against the very same bayern, the winning goal coming from today’s manager, ole gunnar solskjaer. It was a truism for years in british politics that nobody outside obsessive westminster-watchers really cared about europe, which all changed in 2016, since when it has become the issue that ever more blots out absolutely everything else, no more so than this week,…
20 february 2019, the magnificent 7, 8, 11…
Wednesday 20th February 2019
Their approach seems rather light the blue touch paper and see what happens, but the fireworks are quite exciting. It remains to be seen whether the independent group so masterfully gaining the uk media spotlight is white knight or damp squib. They tick boxes like young, female, non-tribal, caring, centrist and, of course, anti-brexit. The steady drip of defections in these first days provides that greatest of political potion, momentum. It already has more mps than the dup, more twitter followers that the actual momentum and some 14% in the polls. Add in the libdem’s 7% and they are nipping labour’s heels. There is every chance of more leaving, although the “30 or 40” the charismatic heidi allen mooted is…
4 january 2019, get away from it all…
Friday 4th January 2019
I’ve been in oman some months now, so having tried it out on the family, here’s my make-the-most-of-it, 7-day, modest traveller itinerary. You can of course embellish, depending on budget & time available. My oman air tip is sign up to the emails & book immediately when they announce a sale (other airlines are available). Best time to come is november to april. Start with a highlight: get yourself down to ras al jinz to see the turtles. Don’t book a “nearby” hotel, take the eco-tent on the beach. This is a genuinely magical experience, late at night then 5am in the morning. You’ll see massive green turtles, who have swum 3000km to india then come back to lay eggs…