The Sunday Telegraph - 01.09.2019

20 ***^ Sunday 1 September 2019 The Sunday Telegraph

T

he people of Totnes have

finally allowed a Caffè Nero

owned outlet to open in their

High Street. Such is the Devon

market town’s aversion to chains

that Costa Coffee earlier backed out

after locals threatened a boycott.

The locals’ disdain for large

businesses seems confined to coffee

shops: after all the café will replace a

Barclays Bank, itself obviously part

of a chain.

And, if there is one industry in

dire need of break-up, it probably is

not catering: as I remember, the

collapse of the world economy in

2008 was not particularly

precipitated by the overexpansion of

Pret A Manger.

It may surprise you to know that

there is nothing new about this

debate. In 1939, George Orwell

decried the growth of the J Lyons

chain and ABC tea rooms as evidence

of the industrialisation of once

homely practices. As early as the mid

Twenties those two chains between

them had more than 500 outlets

in London alone, double what

Starbucks has now.

The relationship between chains

and independent operators is never

easy. But we should perhaps be

more sympathetic to large catering

operators than our natural instincts

incline us.

For a start, many of Totnes’s 24

other cafés may only exist to serve a

market created by the larger players:

A

ll entrepreneurs and investors

can quickly get a sense of how

well a company is doing from the

moment we walk through the door.

Since Boris Johnson walked into

Downing Street, there has been a

palpable change in the energy and

drive of the UK Government. Gone is

the timidity and nervousness which

marked Theresa May’s disastrous time

as Prime Minister. And in its place is a

positivity and optimism which is so

very refreshing. The Government is

obviously focused on leaving the

European Union by October 31. And I

feel confident that if a general election

takes place either before or after this

date that voters will return Boris

Johnson to No 10 with a renewed and

enhanced mandate.

Next Wednesday, Sajid Javid will

announce his one-year spending

review and we now also know that

we have a Queen’s Speech on October

14. Preparing for these two important
    announcements presents an excellent
    opportunity for the Government to step
    back and take stock of how the UK can
    best take advantage of the economic
    opportunity that Brexit presents.
    What are we good at? What are
    we better at than other European
    countries? How can we play to these
    strengths? And what policy changes
    are required to make the UK the most
    prosperous and attractive place to do
    business in Europe?
    Our dominant position in financial,
    legal, accounting and media services

Take note, Totnes: towns that have

joined the chain gang have thrived

We must turbocharge forgotten corners

of the country to succeed after Brexit

before the advent of the big brands

in the Nineties, anyone trying to

charge £2.80 for a coffee would have

been ridiculed.

More important, chains perform

an invisible service by forcing the

worst of the independent operators

to raise their game or disappear.

Even if you never eat in chain

restaurants, the service you enjoy

elsewhere has been elevated by their

existence.

Take the hotel industry as an

analogy. While you may not frequent

Travelodges yourself, their presence

raises the acceptable baseline of

service and cleanliness for all hotels.

As a child of the Seventies, I can

remember British hotels before such

chains existed: Fawlty Towers, if

anything, painted a glossy picture.

It’s also worth remembering

that the catering and hospitality

industries are one of the last truly

meritocratic employers, where it is

possible to rise from a drive-thru

window to a corner office through

talent and persistence alone.

Ah, but you will say, chains kill off

smaller businesses through unfair

competition. Maybe. But Indian and

Chinese restaurants have not been

killed off by chains.

One possible reason for this is

that they generally remain open

at times when people are hungry.

Independent tea shops often do not.

A couple of years ago, 10

colleagues and I walked into a

charming café at ten to four, happy

to pay London prices for their

freshly made scones and lashings of

Darjeeling.

“We close at four o’clock,” we

were told. And where do you

suppose that this outrage occurred?

Um, Totnes.

very well on this front, but the prospect

of EU corporate tax harmonisation

post-Brexit means we can position

ourselves to become by far the most

business-friendly place to headquarter

in Europe.

It is also vital to encourage business

clusters around our world-class

universities and to utilise tax incentives

so that university offshoots are

encouraged to take investment risk

through venture capital. We should

also give fast-track residency to anyone

from anywhere in the world who

graduates from a top 20 university with

a 2:1 or better.

When it comes to spreading wealth,

additional infrastructure spending

most be a priority. Interest rates are so

cheap at the moment that borrowing

£100bn for 100 years at, say, two

per cent would only cost taxpayers

£2 billion a year in interest. Spent

wisely on the right infrastructure

projects, it would reap large dividends

as part of a new long-term economic

plan. Good transport links for Northern

cities should be a top priority, as

pledged by both Sajid Javid and

Boris Johnson in their leadership

campaigns. Additionally, we should

exempt businesses from Employers

National Insurance in specific parts of

the country as an incentive to invest in

more deprived areas.

With Boris Johnson in No10 and

Sajid Javid in No11, our businesses and

livelihoods couldn’t be in better hands.

With the right economic decisions,

free of EU restrictions and a renewed

electoral mandate, the UK could

experience faster economic growth

than the Eurozone. We could have

prosperous and exciting times ahead.

Howard Shore is the founder of Shore

Capital Group plc

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RORY

SUTHERLAND

HOWARD SHORE

ND

D SHORE

ROBERT TOMBSTOMBS

SUNDAY COMMENT

are obvious advantages. We are

also ahead when it comes to tech.

Bioscience is a major strength, with

the UK boasting five of the world’s top

25 universities for life sciences (the EU

has none). And this is before the natural

advantage that the English language

gives us internationally, and our world-

class culture, music and sport.

We therefore have a very good

head start for our post-Brexit future,

but perhaps our biggest weakness is

that our prosperity is not spread more

evenly throughout the country – a fact

which I’m pleased was recognised

by all of the candidates in the recent

Conservative leadership election.

So how can we best play to our

strengths while also spreading that

wealth? First of all, it is important to

have the right regulatory conditions

to boost economic growth, in order to

expand the economic pie. It is notable

that some economists thought that

it was impossible to grow a modern

Western economy by more than three

per cent a year. President Trump has

proved that theory wrong. Trump’s

tax changes plus his “one in, two out”

approach to new regulations have

turbocharged the US economy. We

need to consider how best to take

advantage of the chance to diverge

from Brussels’ job-destroying red tape.

The Treasury also needs to consider

how to encourage further foreign

direct investment and how to make it

more advantageous for businesses to

headquarter in the UK. It is not just a

case of cutting corporate tax (the UK

already has one of the more attractive

corporate tax regimes in the world),

it’s also a case of structuring corporate

tax so it’s cost effective to come to the

UK – encouraging businesses who are

not already based in the UK to locate

here. Ireland has traditionally done

The

Government

is focused on

leaving the

EU by

October 31.

And I feel

confident

that if an

election takes

place that

voters will

return Boris

Johnson to

No 10 with a

renewed and

enhanced

mandate

Large

businesses

perform an

invisible

service by

forcing the

worst of the

independent

operators to

raise their

game or

disappear ...

before such

chains

existed,

Fawlty

Towers

painted a

glossy

picture

SUNDAY COMMENT

T

he best of times, the worst of

times: a tale of two educations.

We have had problems with our

education system at least since the

19th century. Before that, the English

were among the most literate nations

(if less so than the Scots). A

combination of sectarian jealousies

and the Industrial Revolution (which

could employ people without much

schooling) pushed us back.

Radical reforms were not followed

though. Winston Churchill wanted to

democratise the public schools through

plenty of tax-funded scholarships.

Rab Butler’s 1944 Education Act

aimed to set up nationwide technical

schools. These things of course never

happened. What did, a few years

later, was the establishment of the

comprehensive system, which I think

can fairly be said not to have met the

high hopes of its proponents.

Our universities, on the other hand

• once Oxford and Cambridge emerged
  from their comfortable torpor in the
  19th century, and a range of proud civic
  universities were founded – rather
  surprisingly went from strength to
  strength.
  Now there is good news and bad.
  Free schools have shown that even

in unfavourable socio-economic

circumstances, children can excel.

They have done so through radical

teaching methods (often called

“traditional”), high expectations

and exemplary discipline. Katharine

Birbalsingh, creator of the Michaela

Community School in Wembley, has

said that she wants to give our poorest

children the same quality of education

as our richest. That is what she and

others have done. I’ve seen it, and

recent examination results prove it.

Michaela’s first ever GCSEs have had

18 per cent of the results awarded

Grade 9 compared to a national average

of 4.5 per cent – despite many of

the children having English as their

second language and coming from

disadvantaged backgrounds. Similarly,

the West London Free School, set

up by Toby Young, is in the top

1 per cent of secular co-educational

comprehensives, with 40 per cent of

its GCSE class from disadvantaged

backgrounds. Vive la revolution!

If only the news from our

universities gave similar grounds for

hope. A devastating article by Harry

Lambert, “The great university con”, in

last week’s New Statesman (Aug 23-29)

laid out what those of us who work in

universities know: that a perverse set

of incentives imposed by successive

governments on universities has

degraded the education they provide

and devalued the quality of their

degrees.

If we are to succeed in future as

“global Britain”, we must universalise

the improvements in our schools, and

reverse the decline in our universities.

Daniel Hannan is away

Free schools are a shining inspiration in our Dickensian educational system

The constitutional rage of the Establishment

harks back to Britain’s pre-democratic era

W

e have entered the

realm of fantasy

politics, as if Lewis

Carroll had written

the script. “When I

use a word”,

Humpty Dumpty said in a rather

scornful tone, “it means just what I

choose it to mean – neither more not

less.” Absolutist. Totalitarian.

Dictatorial. Fascist. Do those flinging

these words about know what they

mean? Are they careless of how they

demean those who really suffered

these horrors? “Off with his head”,

cries the Red Queen – or is it Philip

Pullman? The nastiness and verbal

violence that diehard Remainers have

wallowed in since 2016 have reached

new depths. Oh, but we don’t mean it

literally, they say, as if that makes it

less deplorable. I recall Albert Camus,

who knew what he was talking about:

“I abhor comfortable violence. I abhor

those whose words go further than

their deeds.”

This verbal incontinence is

contemptible, and also rather comical.

It is a sickness of our present political

culture, but in Marx’s phrase, an

infantile disorder. Infantile tantrums

of those with identikit opinions

who want their own way: the Violet

Elizabeth Bott tendency – “I’ll thcream

and thcream till I’m thick”. Senile

tantrums of the ageing League of

EU Loyalists, apoplectic as their old

certainties dissolve. Let us hope that

they are, in Burke’s words, like half

a dozen grasshoppers who make the

field ring with their importunate

chink. Let us hope too that their verbal

extremism is not taken literally by

people less dainty than themselves.

One expects more measured

language in a court of law, perhaps

especially a Scottish one. And yet a

QC, no less, exhorted the Court of

Sessions to stand against “arbitrary

despotic power” exercised by “evil

and wicked councillors”. Perhaps

this was a ponderous legal joke, and

indeed it is hard to imagine even

its exponent taking it seriously.

The court duly threw it out. But it

is nevertheless significant. It was a

reference to the 1689 Claim of Right.

It shows that Remainers are willing

to use the most arcane and archaic

arguments, and even try to divert

the royal prerogative if they think it

can serve their purpose. This is more

than merely a lack of consistency and

principle on the part of people who

think of themselves as modern and

progressive. They are obliged to use

legal and political arguments dating

from a pre-democratic age in order to

combat modern democracy. The most

important of these arguments is that

of “the sovereignty of parliament”,

now with ominous allusions to the

17th century. The Civil War, we are

told, resulted from parliament’s heroic

resistance to the “tyranny” of Charles

I, which is supposed to inspire their

successors to resist the tyranny of

Boris I.

If we are to dabble in history, let

us dabble properly. Charles had

his faults but, as one of the leading

historians of the period puts it, his

parliamentary opponents were more

bloodthirsty, far more bigoted, and

vastly more paranoid in their vision

of the world. The parliamentary side

in the Civil War had at its core a sort

of Christian Taliban, backed for their

own reasons by a major element of the

Establishment – the parliament side

included much of the old aristocracy.

Such a mixture of ideological

extremism and Establishment self-

interest may for some readers evoke

our present toils: I could not possibly

comment.

Charles always had more popular

support, which is why he had to

be executed. We then enjoyed a

parliamentary government whose

aspirations included torturing

witches, closing the theatres, hanging

unmarried mothers, removing

Catholic children from their parents,

and abolishing Christmas because

of its “carnal and sensual delights”.

Not surprisingly, the restoration of

the monarchy was met with popular

rejoicing.

But Charles II and James II

showed a risky penchant for

Catholicism, because Charles

thought “no other creed matches

so well the absolute dignity of

kings”. Worse still, they clung to a

special relationship with Louis XIV’s

France, which was busy trying to

establish a European hegemony and

persecuting Protestants. A powerful

Continental bureaucracy with no

sympathy for populism, one might

say. Hence the Glorious Revolution

of 1688 – undeniably an illegal and

unconstitutional act, but from which

the 1689 Claim of Right stems, along

with many of our parliamentary

rights and privileges. But what

gave it legitimacy were not the

tortured arguments of lawyers and

constitutional experts (who tried to

show that there hadn’t really been a

revolution at all), but the action of the

people, and their subsequent consent.

Whatever legal and constitutional

theory has said throughout the ages

• often in a desperate attempt to
  catch up with events – it is popular

consent that has always conferred

legitimacy, whether symbolically (as

in the acclamation of monarchs at

their coronation), or really, as in the

landmark upheavals in our history.

So I would urge Remainers to

continue to draw lessons from history,

even though those lessons may not be

what they wish.

History also helps us to understand

and assess our present turmoil. Is it

confected candyfloss, or something

real? I would say a bit of both. To talk

of this as one of the gravest crises of

our history, as some do, betrays very

limited knowledge and not much

imagination. We have had much

posturing but, so far at least, no real

violence or bloodshed. No armed riots,

no general strikes, no terrorism, no

mass arrests. Nothing comparable with

Peterloo or the Suffragettes, earlier

occasions on which the Establishment

tried to close its ears. So if one were

to draw up a league table of domestic

political crises (not to mention

international conflicts), our present

travails would be very far down the

ranking.

And yet there is something real

and serious too in this crisis, one

fact that, however absurd many of

its manifestations, cannot just be

laughed off. This is the first time since

the advent of full democracy after

the First World War that a significant

part of the Establishment (the political

class, the media, the intelligentsia)

has deliberately tried to resist a legal

democratic vote.

We all know that a variety of

arguments and subterfuges have been

used, some open, some disingenuous.

But the main argument has necessarily

been based, as I suggested earlier,

on pre-democratic ideas, above all

an inflated notion of parliamentary

sovereignty. This dates essentially

from the Victorian age, when only

a minority of wealthy and educated

men had political rights, and when

parliament therefore claimed an

effective monopoly of political

wisdom and economic interest.

Hence Parliament, it was claimed,

could do anything it wished. It

is truly astonishing to hear this

repeated today. It cannot be too often

emphasised: parliament alone – and

certainly not the House of Commons

or a makeshift coalition within it

• has never had such sovereignty,
  and it has never been legitimate for
  parliament to overrule the popular
  will, certainly not when expressed
  legally and solemnly, as in 2016. Even
  that parliamentary titan Mr Gladstone
  accepted this.
  To return to Lewis Carroll, when
  using and misusing words, what is
  at stake is “which is to be master,
  that’s all”. That question has been
  democratically answered. The only
  “constitutional outrage” is to try to
  claim that parliamentary sovereignty
  overrides it.

I would urge Remainers to

continue to draw lessons

from history, even if they

may not be what they wish

As mad as a hatter: where is the sense in using arguments from a previous age in order to combat a modern democracy

Leading the way: Katharine Birbalsingh

ALAMY

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