Scotland in Britain?

 

Alastair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) in the previous disastrous Labour government in Britain and currently leader of the NO campaign in the forthcoming referendum on whether Scotland should become an independent country, has delivered himself of the mind-boggling judgement that, if the YESes win, Scotland would no longer be part of Britain.

Did nobody tell him, say at school, that Great Britain is an island, and that Scotland is and always will be part of that geographic entity? Just one more bonkers scare tactic aimed at encouraging Scots to vote NO.  And one more in a long line of these that are bound to back-fire.

My whole career in advertising I noticed that apparently intelligent people, aiming to sell their product, accurately shoot themselves in the foot.

 

But the leaders in this NO campaign take the biscuit thus far. By far.

 

Immigration to save our bacon

The widespread public opposition to immigration in Britain is something that will have to be tackled, sooner rather than later, by the major political parties.

With our rapidly ageing population and consequently shrinking workforce, and with all the future demands on the healthcare system and pensions, Britain is going to need a consistent influx of immigrants ready and willing to do the work, be entrepreneurs and drive innovation.

Together, this might just provide the wealth creation (and therefore taxation) to sustain our old folk (and our young) in the style to which we have become accustomed.

(I notice that the annual Fiscal Sustainability Report of the Office for Budget Responsibility, out yesterday, has lots of tables and graphs demonstrating all this.)

To block immigration at this juncture would seem to be next door to suicidal.

Or have I missed something?

Giving it a Go

I’d been living and working in Sydney for a few months when a young journalist from the Financial Times in London showed up. She was to write a feature article on my experience there, particularly comparing British and Australian management styles.

“Well,” I began, “in England we’ll discuss some new project for eighteen months or so, and there will be a really good reason when we decide not to go ahead with it. Now in Australia we’ll discuss it for about twenty minutes and decide to ‘give it a go’.”

I got into trouble with my boss in London over the article when it ran. “Unpatriotic,” he called it. It was certainly somewhat overstated, but the impulse behind it was, and remains, fundamentally true. “Give it a go” is an essential Australian expression, without an exact equivalent in English English.

The upside to a lengthy gestation period can be to reduce risk, aiming to get towards perfection. But the downside is that there’s often no chance in the meantime to see what will happen in real life – then to learn and adapt.

The advantage of the Aussie version is that things are tried out in practice with customers. And the problem can be that risks are not managed adequately.

Where am I on all this? In innovation, as in so many things, the perfect is the enemy of the good – and is often unachievable. So my advice is usually to give it a go.

Which culture do you live and work in?