Centre Write

Growth. That all elusive beast whose lack of presence has haunted the chancellor since taking office in 2010. For all Mr Osborne’s plans, he’s had as much luck finding growth as Essex police have in searching for one (so called) lion.

I’m of course making light of our most pressing economic problem because the only other response to the fact the UK has entered a prolonged double dip recession is to weep. Here’s why (and it is worth going back to basics on this).

Simply put, a country like the UK isn’t supposed to have good years and bad years of economic growth in equal measure. The norm is supposed to be growth – which has by and large been the case over for well over 100 years. Leaving aside economic efficiencies derived from investment into productivity, the simple fact that our country has increased its population, is meant to increase our output accordingly.

So, the fact that we have a larger population now than we did in 2010, and yet have had zero overall growth is a terrible disaster. The equivalent would be running a factory, adding a few dozen employees and (forgetting the extra expenditure on that new machine in the corner) seeing no improvement in output.

This is a mystery which has been answered by two – increasingly stale – responses. Those on the liberal side of the debate say our previous output was only maintained by mis-allocated credit. In essence we printed money to pay for goods (produced domestically or from abroad) which we could never really afford. The subsequent depression is the inevitable response to the boom, but it will bring us back to a more naturally ‘affordable’ standard of living. Government should not intervene in the process of deflation.

Those on the Keynesian side of the debate say that what we have is a problem of confidence. People have become unsure of the future and have changed their consumption patterns to fit with an increased lack of security. The government, they argue, should step in and provide security and that this should take the form of printed money handed to where most insecurity lies, the banking sector. Once the banks are secure, they will lend again and demand will once again come on stream and people will start spending and consuming like they once did.

Both arguments have some merit but something pretty central is being missed – an understanding of consumption through the life cycle.

Our population is growing, it is true. But the greatest growth has come from people living longer. Or to put it another way, people aren’t dying like they used to. This shift in demography, which has been dramatic over the last 20 years and affected every single western European economy, is little studied.

As my co-author, Ed Howker and I argued in Jilted Generation, an ageing population has not just effected the distribution of wealth by age, but that this re-distribution of wealth, which has occurred through the welfare state (in the form of health expenditure and state pensions) but also through private markets (housing and wages), is having a huge effect on consumption patterns and the realisation of economic demand.

As a recent detailed analysis by the FT has helped further demonstrate this generation of young adults are the very first in 75 years not to have higher living standards than those born ten years previously. This is a trend which has had long term roots.

Added to this, is the fact that much of the squeeze of austerity has been visited upon young adults – whether it is through cuts in the state spending in education and housing benefit, increased rents, deflationary wages, or just plain unemployment.

But it is not just disposable income that is being squeezed today. Government debt, PFI payments, student fees, and increased health and pension expenditure because of an ageing population are all expected to heap a far higher effective tax rates on young adults through their working life.

Worse than that (yes it gets worse), young adults are also insecure. Savings rates for pensions amongst the young are miserably low (largely I’d argue because they don’t feel they have the disposable income to pay out). ‘Flexible’ employment contracts turn out to be plain unstable and ever more young Britons are being forced into the over priced and insecure private rented sector.

With this deadly mixture of insecurity and lack of income comes an inability to take long term decisions including calculated and economically beneficial risks.

What is the effect on young ability to buy long term durable goods, without a secure home in which to put them in? How can they possibly start businesses without a modicum of capital to their name? Where will they find the money and stability to raise families or will this, as we can seen, continued to be delayed?

How, in other words, how will young adults, who in a modern capitalist society are the group with the largest set of potential economic demand – the very sorts of demands that will return us to growth – come to realise these demands – otherwise known as hopes and dreams – over the coming decades?

The answers are there, but unlike the Essex lion, ignoring the problem won’t make it disappear.

Shiv Malik is a reporter for the Guardian, co-author of Jilted Generation: How Britain has Bankrupted its Youth, and co-founder of Intergenerational Foundation. 

Follow Shiv on Twitter: @shivmalik1 

Listen to Bright Blue blog editor Jonathan Algar in conversation with Shiv & Borja Bergareche (London Correspondent, ABC Newspaper) at the Royal Institute of International Affairs:

{soundcloud}https://soundcloud.com/jonathanalgar/youth-unemployment-in-the-eu{/soundcloud}

The guest blog is published every Friday and views held by contributors are not necessarily those of Bright Blue, as good as they often are.

If you are interested in contributing please contact blog@brightblue.org.uk.

The Occupy Wall Street, Occupy London and related movements around the world have described the current economic situation as one pitting the top 1% of the population, there because of their business and financial connections, against the remaining 99%, who must stand up against the encroachment of their interests.

These Occupy protestors have been cleared from their protest sites, but the antagonism remains. There is a widespread impression that the financial community is a cabal that is working against the interests of the general public.

In a sense, these protesters are right: people, whether in the top 1% or not, generally work for their own interests. But the spirit of capitalism, as expressed by Adam Smith in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, is that “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” He could have added financier to this list of occupations that produce our dinner, and much more.

The financiers have become much more important than the butchers, brewers and bakers, for we live today in an age of financial capitalism. Financial structures guide every major activity today.

Finance is not best thought of not as the science of making money, as so many seem to assume these days. It is best described as the science of goal architecture. Every important human activity needs to be financed. That means that the incentives have to be structured for people to give their labor and attention to that activity, and so that they have the resources to succeed. It also means that the activity, whatever it is, has the continuing resources over time to succeed in its aims. Most important human activities take place over many years’ time. The key word here is stewardship. If one is responsible for a new baby, one knows that it has to be nourished every year as it grows up, and one cannot skip a year. The same is true for most other human enterprises. Unfortunately, without the continuing structure of modern financial capitalism, human attention to important goals tends to be inconstant.

The most important thing to do to reduce economic inequality is to fix financial capitalism, to make it work better, is to democratize it, that is, to make it more accessible to the more vulnerable people in the world.

Major human tragedies, as seen around the world, seem most often to be traced to some failure of application of modern principles of insurance, diversification, risk hedging, and the promotion of efficient production structures. Making these principles relevant to a broader swath of the world’s population, on an enlightened basis, with proper regulation so that the financial institutions serve their interests, is the best possible reaction to the Occupy movements.

Young people today, contemplating how they should respond to the idealism in the Occupy movements, might well consider taking on the task of learning finance thoroughly so that they can get inside the financial community or the government regulatory authorities and expand their operations from within, to the benefit of everyone in the 99%.

Prof. Shiller’s introductory Financial Markets course, ECON 252, is available for free through Open Yale Courseware.

Robert J. Shiller is Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics at Yale University and a Fellow at the International Center for Finance at the Yale School of Management. His latest book, Finance and the Good Society, was published in April 2012 by Princeton University Press.

Listen to Bright Blue blog editor Jonathan Algar in conversation with Robert at the Henry Jackson Society:

{soundcloud}https://soundcloud.com/jonathanalgar/finance-and-the-good-society{/soundcloud}

The guest blog is published every Friday and views held by contributors are not necessarily those of Bright Blue, as good as they often are.

If you are interested in contributing please contact blog@brightblue.org.uk.

Today, we have a leadership vacuum unprecedented since the aftermath of World War II. Europe’s leaders have their hands full with a severe crisis of confidence, US policymakers are grappling with politically complicated long-term fiscal challenges, and Japan is on its 16th prime minister in the past 23 years. Emerging markets have their own distractions. China’s next generation of leaders will contend with the largest and most complex economic reform process in history, one intended to reconfigure a development model that premier Wen Jiabao has called “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable.” The Arab world continues to work through a drastic transition. The Indian and Brazilian economies have lost considerable steam. None of these countries is eager to assume a larger share of the costs and risks that come with global leadership.

Welcome to the G-Zero—a world where no country or group of countries is willing and able to set the international agenda. There are two primary reasons why there is no longer a workable framework for global governance: there are simply too many important players at the negotiating table and these players are too different from one another. The G-20 is comprised of nations in starkly different stages of development with a host of conflicting priorities. With different values comes lowest common denominator governance: to persuade everyone to shake hands, agreements must be made broader and shallower. The G-20 members can work together toward substantive progress only when each influential member feels equally threatened by a common problem.

Unfortunately, the G-Zero means that governments will make scant progress on the progressive goals outlined in Bright Blue’s list of core causes. Whether in providing opportunities for the most deprived, establishing the institutions and incentives needed for positive global change, or empowering environmentally and socially responsible industries and individuals, don’t expect a collaborative, broadly adopted approach. When nations are forced to prioritize—and their priorities differ drastically—little can be accomplished on the global stage. This means that many critical progressive causes will not receive the attention they deserve. We may see piecemeal approaches among “coalitions of the willing and able,” but don’t expect truly global coordination. Take climate change, where it is now sadly clear that we won’t see the developed and developing world come together to accept the need for common sacrifice to sharply reduce carbon emissions.

It’s not that there aren’t encouraging signs of progress. In recent years, we’ve seen global poverty levels fall dramatically: according to the World Bank, 22% of developing world citizens now live on less than $1.25 per day, less than half the number from 1990. The problem remains staggering in scope, but this positive trend is likely to continue.

But this progress will come largely irrespective—or in spite—of the efforts of the world’s governments. When nations cannot or will not work together to meet common challenges, it’s harder to agree on new rules and standards—and harder to enforce those rules already in place. This trend creates opportunities for non-governmental actors to play a more active role, offering both risks and opportunities to nations, corporations, NGOs, and individuals alike. In this G-Zero environment, an organization like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is all the more vital for progress—and will play a larger role in providing direction that cannot come from lowest common denominator geopolitics.

Unfortunately, actors with a less progressive agenda may also find new opportunities. Thus, some aspects of the G-Zero will empower a wealthy, highly mobile cosmopolitan elite at the expense of those with less consistent access to new ideas, information, and capital. Nations that channel their wealth to favor the few will do so with more impunity and less oversight.

That said, an individual’s role in addressing progressive issues—as a citizen or as part of an organization—is all the more vital when the world’s governments cannot effectively come together to resolve them.

That’s why, in a G-Zero order, the essential element for success is individual initiative.

Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and author of Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World. 

Follow Ian on Twitter: @ianbremmer

Listen to Bright Blue blog editor Jonathan Algar in conversation with Ian at the Royal Institute of International Affairs:

{soundcloud}https://soundcloud.com/jonathanalgar/winners-and-losers-i-326e42{/soundcloud}

The guest blog is published every Friday and views held by contributors are not necessarily those of Bright Blue, as good as they often are.

If you are interested in contributing please contact blog@brightblue.org.uk.

This week, 6 – 10 August 2012, marks a year since the London riots enveloped parts of the capital in flame and spread as far as Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool and Manchester. At the time, the riots were felt to signify a nation in crisis: David Cameron flew home early from his holiday in Italy and foreign governments advised their citizens not to travel to the UK.

A year on, with the success of the Olympics creating an ebullient mood throughout the capital, we may feel that the issues underlying the riots have resolved. So, too, as a period of time passes from the financial crisis of 2007-2008, we may cease to worry over our immediate job security and adapt again to a lifestyle that assumes money will be available in the bank.

It was the urgency of the London riots and the on-going effects of the financial crisis, austerity cuts and the Occupy Wall Street movement that first brought together the Henry Jackson Task Force for Inclusive Capitalism. With public trust in business falling and with serious systemic challenges facing capitalism and our societies – challenges which were thought to lie beneath the mass outpouring of youth violence witnessed during the London riots – a demand for leadership and for action-led solutions both sides of the Atlantic arose.

Our task force focussed on three pathways in which it felt that business could provide demonstrable impact to build the type of inclusive system that would enable the hallmarks of capitalism to flourish once more: job creation and education for personal aspiration and the reduction of poverty; support of small and medium-sized companies to inspire innovation and allow for entrepreneurial liberty; governance strategies for long term wealth creation in contrast to short term profit.

The Task Force launched its white paper, ‘Towards a More Inclusive Capitalism’ in May of this year and the Henry Jackson Initiative (HJI) was established to continue this work. The vision of the HJI is to support and multiply the many great efforts of businesses, NGOs, consultancies, academics and leadership networks working towards a system in which the benefits are more broadly shared by all.

Over the coming months, the HJI will be convening a coalition of actors and supporters with the power and passion to act. We will be highlighting integrated business programs that transform societies and create dynamic business environments. And we will be supporting these to amplify overall impact. We will also continue to push forward the debate on 21st century capitalism and best practices for business impact in thought leadership forums and transatlantic meetings.

Speaking last October after the Bank of England had decided to resume its quantitative easing programme, Sir Mervyn King described how the world was facing the worst financial crisis since the 1930s “if not ever”. The effects of this crisis, as well as the dislocations caused by capitalism as it has been practiced over the last 30 years – social immobility, high youth unemployment and greater inequality – have not failed to touch all of society.

Nevertheless, we believe in capitalism and believe it has made the world healthier, richer and freer than previous generations could ever have imagined. We are interested in its future. If you would like to find out more about the work of the HJI, or how to join the HJI coalition around inclusive capitalism visit the website.

Fleur Brading is the Director of the Henry Jackson Initiative, a transatlantic coalition working towards a more inclusive capitalism. Fleur oversees analysis, research focus and development for the organisation. She was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. 

Follow Fleur on Twitter: @hjinitiative 

The guest blog is published every Friday and views held by contributors are not necessarily those of Bright Blue, as good as they often are.

If you are interested in contributing please contact blog@brightblue.org.uk.

IN the first week of the Olympic games and the preceding build up, it has felt easy for someone like me to think of London as the world’s most genuinely global city – indeed, the BRIC capital of the world. Our time zone, the increasing use of English as the language of business and cross border communication, the era of technology and the internet, our legal system, general openness and of course, as demonstrated beautifully by the opening ceremony, our creativity especially as it relates to music and the arts, give us all sorts of advantages not available to other cities.

As I joked at the Mayor’s conference on London’s role on Monday, if New York City changed her time zone by five hours, then we might have some issues. But in fact there is little overlap between NYC business hours and those of anywhere in Asia or Russia. The opportunity, which as well as the Olympics has been further highlighted by the Royal Wedding and Queen’s Jubilee, fills me with real excitement and should offer that to many, especially those with an international outward looking nature.

These recent events remind of many of the issues raised in my book published last December, ‘The Growth Map: Economic Opportunities in the BRICs and Beyond’. There I described, as simply as I could, the theories that drove me initially in 2001 and on multiple occasions since with my team, to highlight the considerable changes afoot in the world as a result of the rise of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as I christened them, together with the next 11 largest populated emerging nations .

These fifteen nations include around two thirds of the world’s population. Economic growth in at least eight of them – the four BRIC countries together with Korea, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey, will each be likely part of the top ten contributors to global growth within this decade. Their combined dollar contribution to global growth will be as much as that of the US and Europe combined.

So next time you read about how Greece is going cause the world to blow up and experience an even worse era of weakness than the one we have been through since 2008, my advice is to turn the page. For us here in the UK we must export our way out of our considerable challenges. Succeeding in selling goods and services ranging from education to luxury to the BRICs is going to be key, critically including those currently excluded from work and opportunity. It will be a great journey for us all way beyond the Olympics.

Jim O’Neill is the Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, managing over $800bn in client assets. He coined the term ‘BRICs’ and is author of ‘The Growth Map: Economic Opportunities in the BRICs and Beyond’. Jim is chairman and one of the founding trustees of the London-based charity SHINE. 

Listen to Bright Blue blog editor Jonathan Algar in conversation with Jim at the Royal Institute of International Affairs:

{soundcloud}https://soundcloud.com/jonathanalgar/ten-years-of-bric-life{/soundcloud}

The guest blog is published every Friday and views held by contributors are not necessarily those of Bright Blue, as good as they often are.

If you are interested in contributing please contact blog@brightblue.org.uk.

THE government has decided that Rolls-Royce is selling too many jet engines to foreigners. From now on, there will be a strict quota on the number it may sell. OK, I made that up. And you weren’t fooled for a moment, were you? After all, no government would be so foolish as to throttle a great British export industry.

Or would it? Education is one of our most lucrative exports. After America, we have the most prestigious academic brands in the world. Foreigners are queuing up to pay handsomely to attend Oxford, Cambridge and a host of other fine institutions.

Yet the government wants to impose a tight cap on immigration from outside the EU that will fall heavily on foreign students. This is every bit as short-sighted as that imaginary cap on jet-engine exports.

Actually, it is worse. For foreign students do much more than subsidise the fees of British ones. They also improve the educational experience for locals, by exposing them to fresh ideas from far-flung parts. And, more importantly, they build ties between Britain and the rest of the world that can last for generations.

Such ties matter. Foreigners who have lived in Britain are much more likely to do business with British firms. For example, Tata, an Indian conglomerate, is investing in steel plants in Yorkshire, car plants in Merseyside and information-technology jobs in Peterborough. In fact, it is Britain’s largest industrial employer, having bought and revived Jaguar LandRover and Corus (formerly British Steel).

It invests in Britain not only because British laws are investor-friendly, but also because so many Tata executives have personal ties to our country. Tata’s new boss, Cyrus Mistry, was educated at Imperial College, London.

Clever foreigners who have studied or worked here often move back and forth between Britain and their home countries, spreading ideas as they move. Consider Devi Shetty, an Indian doctor who trained at Guy’s Hospital in London. There, he learned the latest techniques in heart surgery. Then he moved back to India, where he combined what he learned in Britain with mass-production techniques of the sort you might find in a car factory.

At his hospital in Bangalore, patients are whizzed through operating theatres. Surgeons perform operation after operation, steadily becoming faster and more skilled. Dr Shetty offers the cheapest heart surgery in the world: less than £1,300 for a bypass. This is barely a tenth of the cost in the West, yet the survival rates at Dr Shetty’s hospital are equally good.

As Britain ages and the NHS buckles under the weight of rising medical costs, could we use a few tips on how to cure people more cheaply? I think so, and so does Dr Shetty. He visits Britain regularly to share ideas with people he knows who would like to adapt Indian frugal medicine to British circumstances.

If Britain wants to compete in a connected world, we need to keep forging links with foreigners. If we shut out people, we shut out ideas. A Conservative government ought to realise this.

Robert Guest is the Business Editor of the Economist. His book ‘Borderless Economics, Chinese Sea Turtles, Indian Fridges and the New Fruits of Global Capitalism’, is published by Palgrave Macmillan and is available now. 

Listen to Bright Blue blog editor Jonathan Algar in conversation with Robert and Prof. Ian Goldin (Director, Oxford Martin School) at the Royal Institute of International Affairs:

{soundcloud}https://soundcloud.com/jonathanalgar/migration-creating-networks{/soundcloud}

The guest blog is published every Friday and views held by contributors are not necessarily those of Bright Blue, as good as they often are.

If you are interested in contributing please contact blog@brightblue.org.uk.

At last we are having a real national debate on values – on how we should live our lives. This is particularly important for young people, since the mental habits we acquire at that age determine the kind of society we then live in.

What is needed is one single principle which can guide and inspire us in all that we do. In a secular age that principle should be “Produce as much happiness in the world as you can, and as little misery”. That is the great Enlightenment idea that brought Europe out of the Middle Ages and needs to be at the centre of our culture for the 21st century. It should guide us personally in the decisions we make about our families and our work. And it should guide our politics. The whole debate about specific values and specific policies should be conducted with reference to that objective.

But why, you might say, should people’s happiness be the ultimate touchstone. There are of course all kinds of goods we value: health, freedom, accomplishment, wealth and so on. But for each we can ask why we value it, and we can have a reasoned discussion. For example, health is good because sickness makes you feel dreadful. Or freedom is good because oppression makes you feel awful. But if we ask why it matters if we feel bad, there is no answer. It is self-evident. It is basic to the way we are, as humans.

But won’t talking of happiness encourage selfishness? On the contrary, for there can be no morality without the idea that ultimately everyone is of equal importance. If we combine that idea with the central importance of happiness, we reach the fundamental principle of how we should live – to produce as much happiness in the world as we can, and as little misery.

We all, and especially the young, need a fundamental principle to guide our lives. Surveys show that young people are increasingly at sea – twice as many are emotionally or behaviourally disturbed as in the 1970s. So it is of urgent importance to develop a strong and convincing message to offer.

That is why Anthony Seldon, Geoff Mulgan and I launched a mass movement called Action for Happiness in April 2012. It now has some 22,000 members drawn from over 120 countries and from all political parties. Its members pledge themselves to “try to create more happiness and less unhappiness in the world around me”. The movement’s website links them to the best evidence, ancient and modern, on how to achieve that objective. As part of this, the movement has separate activities on better values at work and in schools.

The idea in schools is to develop a code in which a school would promote, as a major objective of the school, both the happiness of the pupils and their capacity to become happiness-creating adults. As part of this each school would work hard at its overall ethos, and at making Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) a really well-taught part of the curriculum.

Evidence suggests that when children are happier, they do better at school. So nothing could be more absurd than the view of some Ministers that there is a conflict between improving children’s wellbeing and their academic achievement. However improving PSHE is not straightforward. It is best done by using the well-evaluated programmes that are now available in the US and Australia, and a group of us are looking to pilot these in 30 British schools.

When I outlined this overall approach recently at the annual meeting of the Boarding Schools’ Association, it was well-received by many heads. But some complained that it involved turning our backs on two thousand years of Christianity. I do not see that. One cannot believe that God would will anything other than what is good. So it is totally legitimate to discuss what is good in human terms. Surely the happiness of your fellow-beings is about as good an objective as you could imagine.

The majority of young people will, for good or ill, have lost their religious faith by their 20s. Yet is it is vital they have a fervent belief about what kind of values they should live by. In a secular age there can be no better rule than as Jeremy Bentham put it, “Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove”.

Richard Layard is a Labour peer and Director of the Well-Being Programme at LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance. His book Happiness: Lessons from a New Science has sold 150,000 copies in 20 languages. 

The guest blog is published every Friday and views held by contributors are not necessarily those of Bright Blue, as good as they often are.

If you are interested in contributing please contact blog@brightblue.org.uk.

The modern world generates a staggering quantity of data, and the business of government is no exception. Extraordinary quantities of data are amassed in the course of running public services – from managing welfare payments and the National Health Service, through to issuing passports and driving licences. Regardless of the stance a government chooses on openness and transparency (and the recent open data white paper suggests good progress is being made on the points we care about), an abundance of data and computing power gives the public sector new ways to organise, learn and innovate.

The opportunity for public service transformation is real. For citizens, the application of data, technology and analytics has the potential to save time and make interacting with government a much smoother experience. This runs across the whole spectrum – from pre-populating forms rather than asking for the same information twice, through to personalising welfare to help people access the support they need.

There is also significant scope to save money. The government’s annual budget is around £700 billion, so even incremental improvements in productivity can add up to big savings (and are long overdue – public sector productivity has been pretty much flat for a decade). We already know that fraud in the public sector costs around £21 billion a year, a further £10 billion is lost to errors, and £7-8 billion lost in uncollected debts. And we know that the tax gap – the difference between theoretical tax liabilities and what people actually pay – is around £35 billion. So there is clearly potential to make progress.

Of course, data and analytics technologies alone are not a silver bullet for transforming the public sector. Governments must have the capability to conduct, interpret and consume the outputs of data and analytics work intelligently. This is only partly about cutting-edge data science skills; just as important – if not more so – is ensuring that public sector leaders and staff are literate in the scientific method and confident combining data with judgment.

Governments will also need the courage to pursue this agenda with strong ethics and integrity. The same technology that holds so much potential also makes it possible to put intense pressure on civil liberties. Both governments and businesses are exposed to tensions when attempts to extract value from data collide with individuals’ wishes not to be tracked, monitored or singled out.

Our research on big data made two main recommendations on a way forward.

First, to kick-start progress an elite data team should be set up in the Cabinet Office, with responsibility for identifying big data opportunities and helping the public sector to unlock them – be they in central departments, local authorities or elsewhere. In its first year it should look to identify savings and benefits for government, over and above existing plans, worth at least £1 billion. We propose a lean, agile approach, modelled on lessons learned from the Nudge team. This is emphatically not about starting with a large, lengthy IT programme.

Second, the government should adopt (or possibly even legislate) a Code for Responsible Analytics, to help it adhere to the highest ethical standards in data use. Important elements of such a code might include being transparent about what data and analytics capabilities are being accumulated and why; respecting the spirit of the right to privacy; and committing to review big data initiatives in a lab environment before implementation.

Both of these proposals could be acted on quickly and without significant up-front costs. The prize at stake from making better use of data in government is large. We need to accelerate practical, radical efforts to capture it, whilst being mindful, always, that we do not sacrifice our integrity along the way.

Chris Yiu is Head of the Digital Government Unit at the think tank Policy Exchange, and author of its recent report ‘The Big Data Opportunity’. 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @PXDigitalGov

Getting to grips with data and analytics could revolutionise the business of government, but presents challenges as well as opportunities. Recent research from Policy Exchange points a way forward. 

The guest blog is published every Friday and views held by contributors are not necessarily those of Bright Blue, as good as they often are.

If you are interested in contributing please contact blog@brightblue.org.uk.

Africa is experiencing positive economic growth and social change and the whole world is yet again looking at ways of benefiting from Africa’s wealth. AFFORD believes that it is especially important for young Africans in the diaspora to engage with the fast changing continent and capitalise on the growing opportunities.

In our experience, the most productive and ethical manner to engage with Africa as a member of the diaspora is to ask ‘what can I give to Africa?’ By deploying technical skills, professional experiences, charitable donations and business investments, the diaspora finds practical ways to give to and take from Africa in a manner that fosters ethical progress and sustainable development. AFFORD’s Africa-Gives project challenges young African professionals and leaders, to innovate and activate new and effective ways of enhancing how Africans give to Africa.

Our key objective is to deepen learning and understanding of young diaspora giving, by creating opportunities to engage young Africans, a group that are currently underrepresented in ‘official’ giving and philanthropic profiles; and to build on this learning by developing strategies and schemes to improve and enhance young diaspora giving that realises significant resources for Africa’s development. The initiative will also foster the development of new giving networks amongst young diaspora Africans that will harness their enthusiasm for African development and encourage collaboration amongst them. Finally it will develop innovative platforms, utilising new media and other technologies that will enable this particular audience to focus and direct their giving.

Young Africans will contribute significantly to driving this programme of research and action by giving of their time and skills. Africa-Gives provides a platform, network and support for the young generation of diasporan Africans; offering guidance on how to capitalise on the growing opportunities in a fast changing continent.

Onyekachi Wambu is Director of Policy for the African Foundation for Development UK.  

Follow Onyekachi on Twitter: @AFFORD_UK  

Listen to Bright Blue blog editor Jonathan Algar in conversation with Onyekachi at the Royal Institute of International Affairs: {soundcloud}https://soundcloud.com/jonathanalgar/launch-of-the-africa-gives{/soundcloud}

The guest blog is published every Friday and views held by contributors are not necessarily those of Bright Blue, as good as they often are.

If you are interested in contributing please contact blog@brightblue.org.uk.

One of the hallmarks of an enlightened, civilised society as postulated by thinkers such as Habermas, was the construction of a public sphere; a venue for free debate. The existence of agoras, speakers corners etc. have historically been to stimulate public discussion on philosophical and political issues.

Yet as Michael Sandel recently noted, the evolution of market economy to market society over the past twenty years has tied public debate even closer to political special interests. A 21st Century UK public sphere might resemble the clusters of think tanks, but given their lack of engagement outside Westminster, and their limited remit – well, they’re not exactly public. It is no surprise that one of the Occupy Movement’s central tenets is to ask for dialogue, to try and open up society to these debates. But it can be hard to have a debate when trapped in the dominant political and economic paradigms of 21st Century thought. Is the lack of creativity in policy due to an inability to link questions of today’s society with the philosophies and principles of our past?

To return to the naïve idealism of the public sphere as suggested by Jurgen Habermas would in actuality be a replication of the current system whereby important debates outside parliament only involved narrow sections of society; paid to opine and to debate. Instead we need a public space which gives individuals the opportunity to think outside dominant paradigms, to formulate new thought and most importantly to share them with others inside, but crucially, outside academia. Yes the market society has given rise to private night schools and philosophy institutes where you can pay to learn – but learning is not necessarily the core aim of the public sphere.

Enter How the Light Gets In (HTLGI) – a relatively young philosophy and arts festival unparallelled in modern academia or culture. A ten-day festival running alongside the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts, HTLGI brings hundreds of influential philosophers, politicians such as Matt Hancock MP, musicians and artists to debate topics which are directly relevant to society but not intimately connected to the ten second sound bites of Question Time. HLTGI allows for the free flow of ideas and themes sometimes virgin to philosophy itself as 2012’s Uncharted Territory title attests. This year’s festival had topics ranging from the possibilities for robotic technology in human bodies, to busting the “green and pleasant land” myth of popular histories of England. Unlike Philosophy 101 courses, HTLGI presents modern philosophers to bring newer, more expansive thinking into the mix as well as grounding much in classical philosophy.

The festival is not-for-profit and its charitable status is becoming more assured. Refreshingly free of big corporation sponsorship, the festival has instead tied to smaller brands and media outlets such as the Huffington Post. Where to now? The direction the festival takes in the next few years could see expansion out of a single Hay format into other events and discussions. Again, one of the key advantages of the festival is that it does not seek to teach, but offers its visitors the chance to be participants and to debate well into the small hours of the morning with others. If the HTLGI can continue to develop and engage with participants across the UK and perhaps the continent, it may prove fertile ground for a philosophical social movement.

Bianca Brigitte Bonomi is the Head of Press Relations for HTLGI Festival. 

Follow Bianca on Twitter: @HTLGIFestival 

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