Soft Skills

June 27, 2018

Leadership and the power of metaphor

As a general rule it’s important to avoid ‘mind reading’ or assuming you know what another person is thinking, writes Dave Rawlings. At first sight…

January 1, 2018

Facing the future

Dave Rawlings helps get around that perennial problem……….When resolution is not enough! Are you looking forward to 2018 in hope and anticipation or in fear…

August 24, 2017

Moving on up the evolutionary scale

When challenging ideas take root old assumptions wither, writes Dave Rawlings. When popular uprisings swept North Africa and the Middle East in 2010 and populations…

July 25, 2017

Life and politics: a war of words

Political parties create conflict, always highlighting the differences between them. There’s no political advantage in finding common ground, writes Dave Rawlings. An earlier article has…

June 14, 2017

When worlds collide

Taking the beliefs of others on board, trying them on as a temporary experiment, is the key to understanding their view of the world, writes…

May 16, 2017

You say you want a revolution

Populists have succeeded in making people feel that they belong to a group that feels what they feel, writes David Rawlings. The wave of populism…

April 18, 2017

Déjà vu – again

David Rawlings reflects on what happens when you try to make sense of something that you can’t understand. We’ve heard quite a bit of witness…

March 16, 2017

I like the way I map things out

When you think somebody is being irrational, cruel or stupid it’s useful to ask yourself a simple question, David Rawlings says. ‘What must the world look…

February 28, 2017

When the worm turns How we reinforce past choices

David Rawlings poses the question: if the reality of “control” turns out to be different from the promise will people change their minds? Left-wing or…

February 10, 2017

One step at a time The DNA of success

Change management specialist Dave Rawlings poses the question. Have you lost the ability to try new ingredients and different methods? In his book The Greatest…

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Britain has millions of antibody tests, but they don’t work
None of the antibody tests ordered by the UK government is good enough to use, the new testing chief has admitted. Professor John Newton said that tests ordered from China were able to identify immunity accurately only in people who had been severely ill and that Britain no longer hopes to buy millions of kits off the shelf. Instead, government scientists hope to work with companies to improve the performance of antibody tests and Professor Newton said he was “optimistic” that one would come good in months. However, Dame Deirdre Hine, the public health expert who chaired an official review that criticised failures of modelling in the 2009 swine flu pandemic, said that it was “difficult to understand” why the government had not planned for more testing. The Times, April 6

Johnson can run country from hospital bed
A senior minister has insisted Boris Johnson is fit enough to lead the country from his hospital bed after he was admitted with persistent coronavirus symptoms. Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, said Johnson was continuing to run the country from an NHS hospital, despite concerns the prime minister has been working rather than resting over the last week. Johnson was admitted on Sunday evening with a high fever on the advice of his doctor, with Downing Street insisting he was undergoing routine tests. He was kept in overnight. Most coronavirus patients are in hospital for more than a week on average. However, Jenrick told BBC Breakfast: “We all hope and expect that he can get back to No 10 very soon.” The Guardian, April 6

Keir Starmer replaces Corbynistas
The new Labour Party leader has given a top job to one of his leadership rivals but found no room to promote Jeremy Corbyn’s preferred successor as several Corbynite MPs left the shadow cabinet. Sir Keir Starmer, 57, has begun reshaping the party after winning a comprehensive victory in the Labour leadership election, promising that membership of his shadow cabinet would be “balanced across the party”. Last night he appointed Anneliese Dodds, 42, a member of John McDonnell’s Treasury team who became an MP in 2017, as shadow chancellor. The Welsh MP and former barrister Nick Thomas-Symonds, 39, was named shadow home secretary. Both were frontbenchers under Mr Corbyn’s leadership but avoided getting drawn into the party’s factional infighting. Lisa Nandy, 40, who finished third in the leadership contest, was named shadow foreign secretary and will join other holders of senior posts on a new committee to co-ordinate Labour’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Times, April 6

Stocks rally on hopes pandemic is stabilising
Global stocks rallied on Monday, as investors welcomed signs that measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic were starting to bear fruit in some of the worst affected countries. London’s FTSE 100 rose 2.5 per cent at the open, while in Frankfurt the Dax gained 3.9 per cent and the CAC 40 in Paris was 3.4 per cent higher. The virus has shown signs of peaking in continental Europe, as the daily death toll in Italy, Spain and France slows. Signals that some governments will consider easing lockdowns imposed across much of the continent have also raised hopes that economic activity could begin to resume in the medium term. Still, Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid advised caution and questioned whether western economies will be able to quickly break free from the restrictive measures put in place to slow the pandemic’s spread. Financial Times, April 6

UK lockdown to cost £2.4bn a day to economy
The coronavirus lockdown will cost the economy £2.4 billion a day for as long as it lasts and consumer confidence has crashed to its lowest level since the financial crisis, according to two gloomy new reports about the state of the economy. Shutting down the economy will reduce Britain’s gross domestic product by 31 per cent as social restrictions prevent businesses from functioning, the Centre for Economics and Business Research said. Output at hotels, restaurants, retailers, cleaning services, museums and galleries and manufacturing will more than halve. The figures are consistent with those put forward by other economists, who have warned that the economy will shrink by 30 per cent in the second quarter of the year, while the national lockdown is expected to remain in place. The Times, April 6

Carmakers face over $100bn hit to revenues
The car industry’s shutdown in Europe and North America is set to cost more than $100bn in lost revenues if factories across both continents remain closed until the end of April. Lost European sales are forecast to rise to 2.6m cars, worth €66bn, while in North America they will hit 2m cars, worth about $52bn, if – as expected – the closures remain in force for the rest of this month. The calculations have been made by Ian Henry, who owns research group AutoAnalysis and compiles vehicle output forecasts for Britain’s motor industry trade association, the SMMT. Mr Henry said each further week that European sites were closed would cost the industry an additional €8bn in lost production value. In North America, the figure would be up to $7.5bn. Financial Times, April 6

Babcock to make 10,000 ventilators
Defence firm Babcock has said it will be manufacturing 10,000 ventilators to help deal with the coronavirus crisis. The plan comes nearly two weeks after Dyson said it had received a government order for 10,000 ventilators. Both devices still have to pass stringent medical tests before they can be accepted. The move came as tech giant Apple, best-known for phones and computers, said it would start making face shields for medical workers. Apple chief executive Tim Cook tweeted on Sunday that it has designed and is now making the protective gear. The tech giant plans to make more than one million shields a week, which will be shipped first to US medical workers and then distributed globally. It has also sourced 20 million face masks which it is donating worldwide to help prevent the spread of the virus. BBC news, April 6

Plan to turn jets into intensive care wards
A group of medical, technology and aviation experts has called on the government to back a plan to create hundreds, possibly thousands, of intensive care beds in grounded aircraft. It says that using aircraft is a proven concept used by the military and that there is a surfeit of wide-body aircraft, such as Boeing 747 jumbo jets or double-decker Airbus A380s, lying idle at airports. The jets have oxygen delivery systems, can be hermetically sealed and have laminar airflow systems similar to operating theatres to restrict the spread of germs. Stripping out seats, each airliner could host between 100 and 150 ICU beds. The plan could be deployed rapidly and has the support of the Civil Aviation Authority. The group has been offered aircraft but needs government support to start the programme. The Times, April 6

Fans vent fury at Liverpool over furlough use
Liverpool have come under mounting pressure to explain the decision to furlough staff members amid concerns that the move has damaged the club’s reputation and values. As Manchester City became the first Premier League side to announce that they would not take advantage of the government’s job-retention scheme, Liverpool supporters’ group Spirit of Shankly penned an open letter to Peter Moore, the chief executive. Liverpool, the seventh-richest club in the world, said on Saturday that a number of non-playing staff would be furloughed as a consequence of the suspension in the Premier League in light of the coronavirus pandemic. The Times, April 6

Man rescued from Pyrenees fined for lockdown breach
A man has been rescued by helicopter from the Pyrenees after trying to walk from France to Spain to buy cheap cigarettes, reports say. The local mountain rescue service said the man was found “exhausted, shivering, cold and lost” when he was eventually picked up. Despite his ordeal, he was fined 135 euros ($146; £119) for breaking coronavirus lockdown rules. “We remind you once more. STAY AT HOME,” the regional police tweeted. The mountain rescue service said the man, from Perpignan – about 25km (15 miles) from the Spanish border – had initially set off by car but was turned back at a checkpoint. BBC news, April 6

Rees-Mogg firm accused of cashing in on crisis
Government minister Jacob Rees-Mogg’s investment firm has been criticised for exploiting the coronavirus crisis after telling clients it provided a chance to make “super normal returns”. Somerset Capital Management, which manages investments in emerging markets, told clients that the dive in stock market valuations around the world since the pandemic took hold had made “excellent entry points for investors”. “Market dislocations of this magnitude happen rarely, perhaps once or twice in a generation, and have historically provided excellent entry points for investors,” SCM fund manager Mark Asquith wrote in a note to clients. “History has shown us that super normal returns can be made during this type of environment.” Rees-Mogg co-founded SCM and continues to hold a 15 per cent stake in the business. He stepped back from day-to-day work at the firm when he became an MP in 2010 and quit his role as part-time adviser when he became a minister in 2019. He reportedly received a payout of about £1m from the business last year. The Guardian, April 5