DON'T JUST VOTE, RUN!

By Pranav Bhanot

Whether you love it, hate it or love to hate it, one thing is clear, politicians and elections are not going anywhere, anytime soon, even if political and electoral fatigue looms across global democracies.

Whilst many sectors and industries such as banking, law and engineering are being disrupted through technological advancements, the process of electing a politician and the traditional methods of campaigning associated with it remain largely unchanged. Many politicians will confirm that even in the age of social media, there is no substitute for pounding the streets and knocking on doors when trying to convince someone to vote for you. Similarly, voters will be all too familiar with lining up in long queues to then be given a blunt pencil used to mark a box on a ballot paper to communicate their preference of next leader.

Many people appear fed up of our politicians and democratic processes, however, I continue to be a huge advocate of the power of liberal democracy to provide effective governance. Consequently, I am keen to see more people take a proactive interest in public service representation, in particular, groups of individuals who may not be as well represented in their legislature or decision-making body such as young people, ethnic minority groups and women.

Over the past two years, I have felt the bitterness of losing an election and the sweet victory having won an election which led me to write a book called “Get Me Elected. Tips, Tactics and Strategies for Election Success.” The aim of the book is to encourage more people to take an interest in public leadership through campaigning and winning elections. Many argue that the quality of our politicians and leaders is starting the deteriorate. To those who argue such a viewpoint, I challenge you to do something about this and consider throwing your hat in the ring next time your school, university, workplace, local council or Parliament are looking for candidates.

But before you do, ask yourself the following questions:

Why are you running for election? It is amazing, how many people want to run in elections without having a satisfactory answer to why they wish to run in the election in the first instance. It is important to remember that running for office is not an end in itself but a means to an end. The end should be the change or difference you wish to make and the role of elected office is the vehicle to achieve that end. The question originally posed will require a succinct and simple response and no one will be able to answer this question better and with more conviction than you.

What issues matter to your voters? To be successful you should identify the important issues that actually matter to your voters and instead of assuming that your views are the same as the group you want to serve. it is important that candidates understand the needs and demands of voters which should, in turn, shape your manifesto.

How will you stand out? Whether you look at President Trump in the United States, Prime Minister Modi in India or Prime Minister Johnson in the United Kingdom, each of these leaders have spent significant time analysing and refining how they will communicate their messages in a way which is different and can resonate with the maximum number of voters. It is your job to capture their attention effectively, communicate the message efficiently and eventually engage your voter to support you. Therefore, it is worth giving some serious thought about how you can uniquely position yourself from your competition.

Do you have good quality data? It is important that you identify exactly who your potential voters are, as soon as possible in your campaign. This will allow you to identify how you will reach the maximum number of voters in minimum time and as often as possible prior to the election. This process of finding out how the potential voter will vote is known as ascertaining the “Voting Intention”. Once you have got a Voting Intention, you should carefully record this data. As polling day draws closer, you should focus your efforts on communicating and consolidating support from those who have indicated an interest in voting for you or on those who are undecided. Generally speaking, it would not be effective use time for you to try and persuade someone who has pledged their support for your competitor. Your efforts could be better spent on converting someone who is undecided to vote for you instead.

Will they vote for you as promised? Good campaigning before the polling day does not guarantee election success. After all, a supporter saying they will vote for you is nothing more than a theoretical nicety until this actually translates into a reality. Try and empower a team of volunteers to assist you on polling day to contact your supporters to ensure that they have voted. Once you have reminded your supporters to go out to vote, if time permits, you could focus some energy on a final persuasive push to encourage those who have not decided their ideal candidate to consider you. It has been said that elections have been won and lost in the final few hours of a polling day, therefore, this final stretch requires a great deal of effort and energy to try and secure the maximum number of votes.

I hope the above provides some guidance when navigating the murky waters of standing in an election. Being an elected representative who can make a positive difference to a society is one of the most satisfying achievements. I recommend that everyone attempts standing in an election once in their life. More tips, tactics or strategies for election success can be found in my book available on Amazon called: Get Me Elected. Tips, Tactics and Strategies for Election Success.

A BASKETFUL OF CHALLENGES - LIFE AS A HIGH END FASHION SME

By Debbie Leon

Top-end fashion and high-quality clothing businesses have always relied on external influences and variables to be innovative. But, when factors outside their control occur daily, how does this impact on the business? Fashionizer, a high-end designer of luxury uniforms explains what these outside influences are and how they manage them to remain profitable and in business. Fashionizer is an award-winning designer and manufacturer of high-quality staff uniforms for luxury hotels, spas and resorts. Founded by Debbie Leon and based in West London, they have been running for 25 years and have an impressive client list worldwide and a comprehensive European supply chain. Fifty per cent of the company’s sales are exported to 40 countries, of which a third are in the EU.

In the wake of September’s London Fashion Week, the BFC’s Positive Fashion initiative has been ringing in our ears. “Positive Fashion” champions the long-term sustainability of the fashion sector by encouraging future business decisions that create positive change. There are three guiding principles - SUSTAINABILITY, EQUALITY & DIVERSITY and CRAFTSMANSHIP & COMMUNITY.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) are essential to the fashion industry and the UK economy as a whole, contributing £32.3 billion to the UK GDP and providing 890,000 jobs, the majority of employees are women. Although Fashionizer is a B2B supplier to the hospitality industry, our supply chain imitates that of luxury fashion and our ethics and sustainable agenda reflect the Positive Fashion principles, so we are also suffering the frustrations and challenges of the industry first hand, so why is little heard about the challenges SME’s face?

One hears about large high street giants floundering, but not of the impact of this on the many smaller business in their supply chain. Founded in 1993, Fashionizer has witnessed significant change that we have embraced and so far we have successfully managed to navigate the events happening around us. Technological developments, a London location, business rate rises, crippling rent increases, currency fluctuations and of course the big “B” – Brexit, is a perfect storm that leaves UK’s SMEs like us with a basket of challenges:

Fashion is a collaborative business and requires staff to work together from the same location, so remote working is not a viable option for most of the team. Fashion companies have a physical product and need room to execute their business. The shortage of affordable housing in the capital means rents are high and living costs are constantly increasing. As a result, how do we address the justifiable requests for annual salary increases and remain profitable?

In 2017 Fashionizer was a tenant of one of the capitals largest commercial landlords, who delivered a significant blow: a rent rise of 90% without warning or notice period. Finding an additional £40,000 for rent within a carefully controlled overhead would be a challenge for any of the UK’s 5.7 million SMEs. In response to the rent increase, we had to think smartly and swiftly so we moved to smaller premises and fought the unfair rate increase which resulted in a 25% rebate. Since then Fashionizer has been calling for firmer legislation for SME commercial lease contracts to include statutory notice of rent increases and reasonable break clauses supported by our local chamber of commerce and MP.

Lack of access to working capital from traditional banks has meant that finding working capital is more expensive and complex, coupled with the decreasing value of the sterling after Brexit was announced, we have now seen an increase of oncosts of sales. Finally, the continued uncertainty about what Brexit will involve and how much it will cost, makes any form of business planning and prevention of disaster impossible.

Since the referendum in June 2016, currency fluctuations have become a huge burden and as a business that trades within Europe, the exchange rate has had an impact on our pricing. Due to our high-quality products and excellent customer service it has meant that, so far none of our customers have left us, but we need to be mindful of their tightening budgets. When the credit crunch hit the bank cancelled part of our overdraft. Fortunately, this coincided with the launch of the government-supported Funding Circle which was set up in 2010 to facilitate lending to SMEs. Fashionizer was the first company to benefit from the government investment scheme. The overall burden of tax administration, compliance, national insurance and pension costs have increased over the last five years. To counteract these costs some of our staff work part-time and freelance, and we are compelled to control salaries which we find challenging as we believe that our staff should be rewarded for their hard work and contribution to our success. 

Doorman’s Coat

The challenges do not end there, insufficient broadband and constant strikes and tube delays are also having an impact on us. However, advances in digital over the past decade have empowered us to use e-commerce as a global opportunity. We are conscious that this new world of instant gratification means customers expect instant results, innovative communication channels and top-quality online shopping experience, which is tough, but in response to this, we implemented a new integrated company’s websites to ensure a fully responsive, user-friendly experience.

For Fashionizer, we believe that this looming storm could threaten our future, but we are powerless to prevent it. We are finding that these challenges are not internal or known in advance, instead, the day to day running of our business is being jeopardised by the external occurrences and variables brewing outside of our control. However, we have developed coping mechanisms, and work closely as a team to overcome the challenges that come our way and continue to focus on what we are good at – making luxury uniforms that delight our customers and suit their specific needs.

CAN BREXIT DELIVER A FAIRER IMMIGRATION SYSTEM?

By Syed Kamall

The Windrush debacle is a stain on our record as an open, tolerant and welcoming society.

But if we fail to learn from it, it will be something worse than a stain - it will be destructive influence with the potential to drag our community relations back to the resentment and tension of the 1960s and 70s. As the child of a father who came to London in the 1950s to work on the railways then the buses, and a mother who followed in the 1960s, I am just grateful that my parents got themselves passports - otherwise, we might have faced the problems so many others did.

I regret the fact that the Labour Party is using it as an opportunity for playing party politics. After all, former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson has admitted the decision to destroy the records was taken in 2009 while he was in office, even though records were destroyed later. And by the way - didn’t anyone think of scanning or microfiching these documents?

If you ignore the fake news of The Economist, which blamed Theresa May for the “hostile environment” at the Home Office you will see it was, Labour Ministers such as Liam Byrne and Yvette Cooper who initially used the phrase, “many people believe we should be tougher on tackling illegal immigration”. I believe part of the mess is due to targets over immigration. Since so-called “freedom of movement” from the EU means that we cannot put caps on EU migrants, most of whom happen to be white, it means we put restrictions on non-EU migrants, most of whom happen to have dark skin. This leads to a racist immigration system.

During the referendum campaign, I met a number of people who voted Remain who told me they were in favour of immigration but wanted to see “the right sort of immigration.” What they really meant was they preferred “the white sort of immigration.” So what is a fair immigration system? I believe there are three types - but only one makes sense.

The first is to close our borders and to let no-one in. Most companies and most reasonable people know this would be an act of economic self-harm since not all vacancies could be filled by the unemployed - despite the improvements in training offered - or by technology.

The second would be to let everyone in. In fact, the UK had an open-door policy in the Blair years. Andrew Neather, a former advisor to Blair admitted this when he wrote that Labour’s plan “to open up the UK to mass migration” was a deliberate attempt “to rub the Right’s nose in diversity”.

The result was a backlash as white working-class Labour voters deserted the party and voted BNP. In 2009, the former Labour voters helped propel two BNP MEPs into the European Parliament. As I remarked at the time, as in other countries, abandoned socialists crossed the thin line between socialism and national socialism.

While the election of BNP MEPs, BNP London Assembly members and BNP local councillors provided white metropolitan liberals with another subject to debate at their dinner parties and further opportunity to feel morally superior, the real effect was felt by millions of black, ethnic minority and Jewish voters who were worried about their future safety. Open door migration leads to hostility to immigration and immigrants.

The third solution for fair migration is to treat all potential immigrants the same, regardless of where they come from. Then we should decide immigration policy on what skills gaps they fill. An exception should be made on humanitarian grounds for apart for genuine refugees fleeing persecution.

Let’s look at a points-based system where the criteria are clear and regularly reviewed, say every 6 months, as certain sectors fill their skills gaps while others open up. And we could look to technology to help us. With the advent of big data, computers can scan jobs boards, university application data and economic performance data in fractions of a second and assess where the skills shortages lay. Smart automated systems can also make complex tasks much simpler. Such as today’s labyrinthine application systems for visas, often still designed for an age of filing cabinets and paper forms.

Today we can access academic qualifications online. We can look at whether someone’s personal history is real or not. Did they really live where they say they did? In some countries, some credit agencies even scan Facebook for credibility indicators to issue credit cards. If someone is willing for their references to be checked we can increasingly do that. And better, more credible data would also make explaining immigration policy easier. Instead of crude targets, we could show how industries or companies which genuinely need to fill vacancies from overseas are able to attract staff to help our economy grow. Of course, there will always be some who want no immigration and claim that migrants take jobs (even though these may be jobs they would not want to do themselves). However, I believe that a points system based on the needs of the economy could change the narrative on immigration from a crude focus on numbers to filling the skills gaps to grow our economy so that we are all better off.

We should acknowledge that there are genuine concerns to be addressed as to whether rather than filling vacancies, immigration would reduce the wages and standard of living for existing workers in some parts of the country, as we saw after 10 countries joined the EU in 2004. However, if we move to a genuinely fair and transparent immigration policy post-Brexit, no longer giving preference to mostly white Europeans, as a country we can be seen to have learned the lessons from both the EU referendum and the shoddy treatment of the Windrush generation.