Lord Tom McNally at IF Webinar
Lord Tom McNally, a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, was Intelligence Forums’ speaker at its meeting on 10th June 2021, chaired by Harry Corbett.
A former senior Downing Street adviser, MP and founding member of the SDP, Tom McNally has been active in politics since the 1970’s, in both the Labour party and the SDP and latterly the Liberal Democrats. A member of the House of Lords (“HoL”) since 1995, he became Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the HoL from 2004 to 2013 and Deputy Leader of HoL and Minister of State for Justice from 2010 until 2013, when he became Chair of the Youth Justice Board.
Lord McNally set out the current and future challenges for government reminding us of a quote attributed to Harold McMillan, who when asked by a journalist “what keeps you awake at night” purportedly replied “events dear boy, events”. Every prime minister who takes up office has, he said, has a big agenda but the immediate challenges for the current PM appear particularly significant; namely:
Covid. Almost as soon as he took up office, the PM had to deal with the Covid crisis. Lord McNally cannot recall ever having seen a paper suggesting the peril from a global pandemic, and really does believe that it came out of the blue. As a result, part of the response was not good. He gave credit to the government for the vaccination program but warned that the country has taken on a lot of debt and will have to make some very hard decisions in the future.
Brexit. He believes that the country made a fundamental mistake in voting for Brexit, but we must now find the best way to exist outside the EU because there is no easy way back in. He cautioned, too, that Brexit has not been “done”. Rather we are only at the start of it, and it will remain an issue for successive governments.
Climate change. The responses of a number of countries have been good, he said, and we await their impact.
Emergence of China. We are in a new world order and will have to live with China as an economic superpower for the rest of the century. While he does not believe that China will pose a military challenge there are some issues around Taiwan and the South China Sea.
In the shorter term he asked how “Levelling-up” will be achieved. He told us that during the 1980s and 1990s the US and UK engaged in “trickle-down” economics. The theory was that the benefits resulting from tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy would trickle down to everyone else, including the poorer sectors of the community. In this way everyone would become better off without pain for the rich.
Critics, however, argued that tax breaks for the rich increased income inequality across the country and Lord McNally fears that “Levelling up” might yield a similar result. The more that we can move to decentralised decision-making, he said, the better the chance of “Levelling up”, and he applauded the move to elect more regional mayors .
In the longer term, Lord McNally suggested that the world’s challenge is to manage what Klaus Schwab (Chairman of the World Economic Forum) describes as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Unprecedented developments in material sciences, digital technology and biology, research in neuroscience, 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, are revolutionising not only industrial processes, but human beings themselves and their society.
He posed the questions
Will our present political structure be fit to handle the impact of these technological changes; and,
Will Generation Z (“Gen Z”) - those born between 1997 and 2012 - be equipped to make the decisions that make society work, when for so much of their lives the information upon which they rely has been curated for them on a social media platform?
Although huge decisions are required of the PM, political leaders he said, have risen to such challenges in the past, reminding us of Franklin D Roosevelt in 1932 and Clement Attlee in 1945. He believes that this country is well equipped to face the challenges ahead. We have an enormous reservoir of talent spanning media, design and space technology, and while we will have a tough period ahead in funding the national debt, he is optimistic that we will see them through.
He cautioned that the “Trump Adventure” had shown that individualist inward looking government does not solve such problems. Following WWII a whole range of new international alliances such as the UN, NATO and Breton Woods were created and these provided stability over some 70 years. We shouldn’t underestimate the success of international cooperation which, for example, has brought magnificent advances in treatment of major killer diseases over the years. He believes that the UK’s priority should be to encourage the US to be internationalist, and is encouraged that under Joe Biden, the US has reverted to its post-WWII role. That said we have to make efforts to bring China on board. There is no future in Cold War, he said, and warned of the weaponisation and militarisation of space.
His advice to the PM is, in short, to be optimistic and internationalist.
Harry Corbett led a wide ranging discussion which included the following contributions:-
Derek Kinchington PhD, FRCPath and Scientific Advisor to Intelligence Forums, reminded us that that a number of coronaviruses circulate every year, and some have been around for 100 years. COVID is with us and we will have to learn to live with it. The pandemic has been yet another signpost that we must be concerned about how we treat the world and how we look after it.
Alistair Winter, who advises international organisations on Geopolitics, Macroeconomics and Global Financial Markets, suggested that the pandemic has exacerbated inequality, changed the structure of public finance and has distracted from urgent work that is required on climate change.
He is fearful of what could happen in the USA now that it has opened up. How will it respond if the Delta variant hits them? While it is touch and go in the UK he doesn't believe that there will be further lockdowns. In the trade-off between protection the economy or life, governments will now have to opt for the former.
Joe Biden, he said, has really thrown down the spending gauntlet while Rishi Sunak in the UK looks like the new George Osborne. Why, he asked, is the UK government debating a relatively miniscule small amount of £2.9 billion in overseas aid? If this is large enough to cause concern, perhaps the situation is more serious than we realise!
Robin Habberley, who is based in Arlington, Virginia, in a business development role for the UK’s National Association of Home Builders, contrasted the UK and the US lockdowns. That in the US has been fragmented, he said, while the UK’s has been universal. Americans appear to have more of a “as long as it doesn't affect me then I don't really care” view, while the UK’s is a more collective concern for the health of the nation.
Rachael Sullivan , Managing Partner UK 3rd Space U.K. and a partner at Scaffold Coaching agreed that “Levelling up” can't come quickly enough particularly in places such as Doncaster where some people have very tough lives.
As a millennial who started her own business she seeks clients whose businesses are “purpose driven ", in other words, those which have a purpose beyond profit. Gen Z, she said, wants to be associated with businesses that give back to society and the environment. Businesses, which (to steal a quote) “seek to produce profitable solutions to the problems of people and planet, and not to profit from producing problems for people or planet”. For Gen Z the current capitalist business model is self-serving and does not represent or even understand their values. Gen Z and the millennials want to get on with their agenda but need the older, risk averse generation to move aside.
Robin Habberley, suggested that Gen Z is probably supporting many “purpose” led companies such as Facebook and Amazon, which were started by millennials are now themselves involved in green-washing!
Tom O’Brien, Director at TOMWROTEIT Limited, asked the question “where can the UK exercise greatest global influence?” to which Lord McNally replied that the UK is not and cannot be the world’s policeman. It is, however, important that it participates in collective roles, without involving British troops in every engagement around the world. He is not in favour a “…stop the world I want to get off…” policy, nor the self-aggrandising notion of Global Britain, but he does believe that the UK must play its part.
Lord McNally concluded with the thought that the meeting had achieved its purpose in that “minds had been set thinking”, which is surely the aim and the measure of a successful forum.