Category Archives: Politics

Why Labour should go ‘lean’ to win the General Election

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Today is the day after the local election results, with the Conservatives looking dominant and Labour looking weak. As I started off my entrepreneurial life launching left-wing magazine Red Pepper I am going to approach this blog from what Labour could have done if they borrowed a few concepts and practices from the startup world. Bear in mind that I am working on the basic premise that the Labour leadership are out of touch with voters’ concerns. To quote Susan Woodward, the leader of the Labour group on Staffordshire county council, where elections were held on Thursday 4 May: ““If people are saying, ‘I will vote Labour in locals but not in general’ – and we’ve had a sprinkling of those – the leadership have to listen and redouble their efforts. They need to show they are focusing on Labour voters’ priorities rather than their own priorities.”

The problem here to start with is that left wing politicians like Jeremy Corbyn are in principle interested in getting direct feedback from voters, he even used emails from people in his first Commons PMQ (chk). But it is much harder to translate this gesture into a full blown strategy to help win a General Election. But this where lean startup methodology can help (at least in principle). Lean methodology learns from the business failures of the past in one key way, the approach that any good ideas are practically worthless unless you the entrepreneur “get out the building” and go and ask potential customers what their problems are first, before plowing ahead with developing new products.  The problem for Jeremy Corbyn is that he doesn’t want to hear negative feedback as he doesn’t really know how to meet the needs of people and the needs of the party halfway – the essential requirement of any successful politician.

But what makes that problem super-difficult, (and is true for all liberal politicians in the era of Trump), is that the gut response of the majority of the voting public is so counter to the instinctive politics of Jeremy Corbyn that any creative responses seem futile. In other words for want of a better idea the UK Labour leadership are sticking to their guns. Like a business in a declining market, which is being disrupted by new technology (think Kodak’s inability to change its core business with the rise of digital photography) Labour is losing market share fast. However, as news this week from CEO Kazuo Hira of the 666% pre-tax profit turnaround in tech behemoth Sony show nothing is inevitable.

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So for Jeremy Corbyn, it’s not enough to simply get out the building with a list of policies to push, he needs to ask people what their problems are first and come up with creative solutions inspired by Labour’s own rich heritage that appeals to a broad cross-section of the voting population.

And the analysis of the results of #GE2017 by expert John Curtis…go to 08:50 where John says what was distinctive is that the Labour “election campaign had the largest ever impact in the UK on General Election voting”. So maybe Jeremy Corbyn somehow did follow my advice (LOL), not to just “get out the building” lean-startup-style but to also show he was listening to voters needs – in other words, voters believed him.

Burning money?

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Burning

Fuel poverty and health campaigners today called on the newly launched Public Health England to address the devastating impact of cold homes on the health of the nation.

Campaigners welcomed the shift in responsibility for public health to local authorities and the opportunity this creates to address a major root cause of health problems in the UK – the woeful levels of insulation in the nation’s homes.

Mostly as a result of poor insulation levels, fuel poverty now affects over 5 million households in the UK. Living in cold homes doubles the likelihood of a respiratory illness such as asthma in children and quadruples the risk of mental health problems for teenagers. Fuel poverty is estimated to cost the NHS over £1bn every year.

The Energy Bill Revolution campaign estimates that on average over 7,000 people die every year from living in cold homes.  The big freeze that has affected the UK in recent weeks almost certainly means that more people have died because they cannot keep their homes warm.

The Energy Bill Revolution is calling for carbon tax to be used to fund an ambitious energy efficiency programme to super-insulate the homes of the fuel poor. The Government will collect over £60 billion in carbon tax over the next 15 years which is enough to make every fuel poor home highly energy efficient and slash their energy bill by over £300 ever year.

Carbon Tax can provide a massive financial boost for Public Health England and local authorities to support the delivery of such a programme.  This would help improve the health of some of the UK’s most vulnerable citizens, keeping them out of hospital and easing the burden on the NHS.

The Department of Health’s new ‘Public Health Outcomes Framework for England, 2013-2016’ identifies reducing fuel poverty as one of its key indicators for addressing the wider determinants of heath. Reducing mortality from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and excess winter deaths are also identified as indicators against which the whole public health system should deliver improvements. It is vital that local authorities, in partnership with health and well-being boards, prioritise these indicators in local strategies if they are to fulfil their responsibilities to protect the health of their local population.

 Jo Butcher, Public Health Adviser for Friends of the Earth, said:

“As energy bills continue to soar and another cold snap hits the UK, millions of fuel poor households face difficult ‘heat or eat’ choices. It is a national disgrace that so many die each year due to cold, damp and poorly insulated housing. Public Health England must prioritise action to tackle fuel poverty and the Government must use carbon tax to fund a much bigger programme to insulate UK homes. Energy efficiency is commonly perceived to be the domain of the environment sector but I hope the new public health service will demonstrate it has a central role to play. The transfer of public health to local authorities is good news – they are used to managing housing and environmental health issues and are well placed to bring together the range of services that need to be involved in tackling the cold homes crisis.”

Jane Landon, Deputy Chief Executive at the National Heart Forum, commented:

“Cold, damp homes are responsible for avoidable deaths and needless health problems for many people in this country. The Government has committed to reducing avoidable mortality and action to tackle fuel poverty and its effects must be a priority to help achieve this. We welcome the establishment of Public Health England. Its role in the delivery of public health nationally and locally and its focus on reducing inequalities is a new opportunity to tackle fuel poverty.”

Energy Bill Revolution, the largest fuel poverty alliance ever assembled, is backed by 120 organisations representing the children’s, health, environmental, housing, disability and consumer sectors, businesses, academia, politicians, local councils and the public. The Energy Bill Revolution is asking Government to recycle the substantial funds it receives from carbon tax revenues (an average of £4bn annually over the next 15 years) into energy efficiency programmes to eradicate fuel poverty www.energybillrevolution.org