Sex, lies and magical thinking about CEO behaviour

The departure of Bernard Looney is another example of how boards are stepping up their scrutiny

BROOKE MASTERS

FT

Bernard Looney quit as BP chief executive this week after admitting he had failed to fully disclose his past relationships with work colleagues © Jason Alden/Bloomberg

Let’s make this clear up front. I don’t know any personal secrets about Bernard Looney and in an ideal world none of us would want to.

The BP chief executive quit this week after admitting he had failed to fully disclose his past relationships with work colleagues. His resignation came after the oil company received its second anonymous complaint about Looney in the past two years.

His departure comes at time when turnover at the top of big global companies is running well above 10 per cent for the second year in a row. In the UK, 18 FTSE 100 companies are getting a new CEO this year. This is already the second-highest total since 2000 — and there are still three months to go.

Much of the change is planned, but personal conduct has played a larger role in forced departures since the #MeToo protests against workplace harassment took off in the late 2010s. The initial wave of firings sparked by that movement stemmed from serial rape or harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes and others, but it also swept out leaders who engaged in allegedly consensual relationships such as Intel’s Brian Krzanich.

The rethink in how companies approach workplace behaviour had other prompts too. The pandemic played a part while growing numbers of younger employees now argue for greater alignment of personal and professional beliefs.

Many employers now have much stricter rules on everything from sexual relationships to teasing and bullying, often extending to incidents outside the workplace. That shift recognises the fact that poorly handled workplace relationships, whether sexual or not, can create a culture of favouritism that silences people and saps productivity.

This goes all the way to the top. Last year, fully half of the forced CEO departures among the 3,000 largest US companies were due to personal misconduct, up from 14 per cent in 2017, according to the Conference Board.

The shift has caused some qualms. “How much should your employer be able to dive in and control your personal life?” asks Alison Taylor, a New York University professor who studies business ethics. “We’ve all tolerated [bad behaviour] for years but the correction opens up a lot of questions.”

Two senior executives in different industries volunteered to me this week that they thought the ousting of Looney was due to a new wave of Anglo-American puritanism that we will one day regret. A talented CEO who was positioning BP to lead the energy transition should not have been felled by an active personal life, they said.

That misses the point. Looney lost his job not because of sex but because of lies. The probe that prompted his departure marked at least the third time that the company had talked to him about personal relationships at work. Investors told the FT that the subject came up when he was appointed in 2019.

The first probe was opened after a complaint came in last year. The board concluded that the CEO, who had spent his entire career at the oil group and was single for almost all of that time, had not violated company policy. Without knowing the details, it is hard to judge whether that was the right call. But BP’s board did a wise thing: it asked Looney for written formal assurances that there were no further relationships or other matters that he needed to disclose.

When another complaint came in with new details, Looney was sunk. The board had already made clear that the issue was about trust and there could be no next time. “He accepts that he was not fully transparent in his previous disclosures,” the company said in its statement announcing his departure.

It is hard to understand why anyone would sign a statement promising all had been revealed when it could so quickly be called into question. But Looney is not the first CEO to try the route of limited disclosure. In 2019, McDonald’s chief executive Steve Easterbrook walked away with a severance package worth up to $40mn after he admitted to “one recent consensual relationship” and appealed for privacy.

A year later, the fast-food chain sued its former chief claiming that there had been three more sexual relationships and that he had lied to the board, deleted explicit images from his work phone and approved share grants for one of the people involved. He agreed to return more than $105mn in cash and stock and paid a regulatory penalty for lying to investors.

Perhaps the nature of a chief executive’s job makes some occupants vulnerable to magical thinking, both about what they are entitled to do and what they can get away with. Deeply driven and surrounded by those who defer to their judgment, it is easy to start to believe that ordinary rules do not apply.

“Good decision making is a social activity, yet the system deifies CEOs and is designed to suppress dissent,” says Roger Steare, a corporate philosopher. He argues that boards need to spend more time looking at the moral character of the people they promote and testing how potential CEOs react to personal pressure.

Boards and executives more used to focusing on numbers and strategy may find such a shift uncomfortable. But talking about character before hiring is better than talking about sex afterwards.

Eddy Grant explained his song 'Electric Avenue' to Donald Trump's lawyers in a deposition. It did not go well.

Laura Italiano
Fri, September 15, 2023 

Donald Trump, left, and 'Electric Avenue' singer-songwriter Eddy Grant, right.José Luis Villegas/AP, left; Andrew Winning/Reuters

• In 2020, singer Eddy Grant sued Donald Trump for using "Electric Avenue" in a campaign tweet.

• Trump's lawyers asked him to "explain" the song, a newly-public deposition transcript shows.

• "Do I have to?" Grant asked. At another point he complained, "that sounds like a trick question."

Donald Trump's lawyers asked Eddy Grant to "explain" his 1980s dance hit, "Electric Avenue," a bizarre, newly public deposition transcript shows.

It didn't go well.

The singer-songwriter bristled when asked about the disco-reggae song's meaning, according to the transcript, filed Friday as part of his $300,000 federal copyright lawsuit over the song's use in a 2020 Trump campaign tweet.

"Do I have to?" Grant answered when asked: "So can you please explain what the song is about?"

"We can stay here all day," Grant told two lawyers for Trump, "And I can go round and round with this," Grant continued.

"But the bottom line of it is that — sorry. The bottom line of the song is that it is a protest against social conditions, and then I can pick out the words to — I mean, obviously you've got those words there, I suppose," he told the former president's lawyers.

At this point in the transcript, Grant recites his lyrics: "Now in the street there is violence, and there's lots of work to be done."

Then he interrupted himself, the transcript shows.

"Well," he said. "You know, I could go a long — you know, I mean, do we have to?"



An excerpt from Trump lawyers' May, 2022 deposition of singer-songwriter Eddy Grant.SDNY/Insider

Grant sued Trump and his 2020 campaign three years ago after a 40-second snippet of "Electric Avenue" was used without authorization in an animation mocking then-candidate Joe Biden. The animation shows Biden puttering along on a slow-moving hand-car as Trump zooms past him in a high-speed train.

Posted to Trump's personal Twitter account on August 12, 2020, the animation was viewed 13.7 million times before being taken down two weeks later, on the day Grant sued.

Grant, a UK citizen who lives in Barbados, appeared at the May 20, 2022, deposition via Zoom, according to the transcript of the testy back-and-forth.

"I don't see the relevance," the artist responded, reasonably enough, when Trump attorney Darren Saunders asked, "Are you knowledgeable on the meaning of the lyrics and title of the composition?"

Grant noted that "Electric Avenue," a common street name worldwide, is also the name of a street in the south London district.

And when Saunders asked Grant if the song "specifically" referred to the street in Brixton, London, the singer snapped, "That sounds like a trick question."

Saunders responded that he's "very familiar with Brixton, the home of David Bowie and many others. But is 'Electric Avenue' a specific reference to a place in Brixton?" he asked.

BRIXTON IS THE SITE OF SEVERAL MAJOR RACE RIOTS IN THE UK

"It's not specific inasmuch as that there are many Electric Avenues in the world," Grant answered. "You know, it stands for something, and I've created something that stands for something else."

Like "heaven" and "hell," he explained, Electric Avenue is more of a concept than a location on a map.

"You've never been to Heaven, and you've never been to Hell," Grant told Trump's lawyers.

"But it connotes something in your memory or in the collective memory of human beings to say, 'You're going to Hell.'

"Where the hell is Hell, you know?" Grant added. "Or, 'We are going to Heaven.' Well, where is Heaven? Well," he concluded, "you're going to Electric Avenue."

Trump and campaign social media advisor Dan Scavino have also been deposed in the case, though transcripts of those 2022 depositions have not been made public.

Scavino testified after fighting subpoenas from Grant's side for months. Trump was asked about his campaign's access to his Twitter account.

Twenty pages from Grant's deposition were made public Friday night as one of some three dozen exhibits supporting a motion by Trump and a motion by Grant — opposing efforts to narrow the issues to be decided should the case go to trial.

Taliban welcomes China’s new ambassador to Afghanistan in lavish ceremony

Alex Stambaugh and Helen Regan, CNN
Thu, September 14, 2023 

Taliban Prime Minister Media Office/AP

The Taliban has welcomed Zhao Sheng as China’s new ambassador to Afghanistan during a lavish ceremony held at the presidential palace in Kabul on Wednesday.

China is among a handful of countries, including Pakistan, Iran and Russia that have maintained a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan since the Taliban retook control of the country in 2021.

In the palace ceremony, Taliban Prime Minister Mohammad Hasan Akhund shook hands with Zhao and “accepted the credentials of the new Chinese Ambassador,” the prime minister’s office said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“The Honorable Prime Minister of the Islamic Emirate thanked the leadership of China for the appointment of Mr Zhao Sheng as ambassador and expressed hope that this appointment would elevate the diplomatic relations between the two countries to a higher level and the beginning of a new chapter,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in the statement

According to the prime minister’s office, Zhao said that China was “a good neighbor of Afghanistan” and “fully respects Afghanistan’s independence, territorial integrity and independence in decision-making.”

Zhao added that China does not have a policy of interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, and it does not want Afghanistan “to become its area of influence.”

The Taliban prime minister said relations between the two countries had “been on a good level” and “expressed his hope for taking more steps to further strengthen the bilateral relations,” according to Mujahid.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement the appointment was the “normal rotation of China’s ambassador to Afghanistan” and was “intended to continue advancing dialogue and cooperation” between the two countries.

The ministry said, “China’s policy toward Afghanistan is clear and consistent.”

China, a neighbor of Afghanistan with substantial investment in the region, was cautious about the potential security challenges posed by the abrupt return of the Taliban following the US withdrawal in August 2021.

Since then, Chinese officials have stressed increasing cooperation with Afghanistan, along with other regional neighbors, on issues such as anti-terrorism cooperation, “economic collaboration” and boosting “regional stability and development.”

In May, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan vowed to strengthen trilateral ties on security and counterterrorism at a meeting of the three country’s foreign ministers in Islamabad.

Speaking at that meeting, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang said China attached “great importance to the friendship with Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Notably from the meeting, the three sides agreed to cooperate on China’s Belt and Road trade and infrastructure program, through which China has heavily invested in the region.

They also agreed to forge closer economic ties by extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan “so as to promote connectivity, improve cross-border trading, enhance the economic integration of the three countries and achieve sustainable development.”

CPEC is a $60 billion Belt and Road flagship project that links China’s western Xinjiang region to Pakistan’s strategic Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea with a network of roads, railways, pipelines and power plants.

CNN’s Mengchen Zhang contributed reporting

The Taliban have detained 18 staff, including a foreigner, from an Afghanistan-based NGO, it says

Associated Press
Updated Fri, September 15, 2023


This is a locator map for Afghanistan with its capital, Kabul. (AP Photo) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban have detained 18 staffers, including a foreigner, from a nongovernmental organization based in Afghanistan, the nonprofit group said Friday.

NGOs have come under greater scrutiny since the Taliban seized control of the country two years ago. The Taliban introduced harsh measures and barred Afghan women from education beyond the sixth grade as well as from public life and work, including working for NGOs. A U.S. watchdog reported earlier this year that the Taliban are harassing NGOs operating in the country.

The International Assistance Mission said 18 of its staff were taken away by the Taliban on two separate occasions this month from the NGO's office in central Ghor province. The 18 detained were taken to Kabul, the group said.

“We are unaware of the circumstances that led to these incidents and have not been advised of the reason for the detention of our staff members,” it said in a statement. “The well-being and security of our colleagues are paramount to us, and we are doing everything possible to ensure their safety and secure their swift release.”

Afghan officials were not available for comment.

Local media, quoting the provincial governor's spokesperson, Abdul Wahid Hamas, said that the foreigner is a U.S. national and that the staff were detained for “propagating and promoting Christianity.”

The reports did not identify the supposed American staffer and the NGO did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press.

The State Department said it was aware of reports about the detention of a U.S. citizen. It urged U.S. nationals not travel to Afghanistan because of armed conflict, civil unrest, crime, terrorism and kidnapping.

“Travel to all areas of Afghanistan is unsafe and the risk of kidnapping or violence against U.S. citizens in Afghanistan is high," it said in a statement. “We have no further details to share at this time.”

The nonprofit group, which is registered in Switzerland, says it only works in Afghanistan.

The Surprisingly High Cost of Being a Middle-Class American

Geoff Williams
Sat, September 16, 2023 

Unless you’re extremely rich or poor, you probably think of yourself as being part of the “middle class.” As you’re probably aware, “middle class” is an income level that describes people whose annual income is directly in the middle 50% of all income. If you’re middle class, you are not considered to be rich or poor. However, when it comes to middle-class income, how much money is that, exactly? We analyze below but if you’re part of the middle class then you could likely benefit from working with a financial advisor in order to maximize your potential wealth growth.

Why Is It Important to Know If You Have a Middle-Class Income?

You could argue that it isn’t all that important. Knowing you have a middle-class income won’t make you richer or poorer or change anything about your income. It isn’t as if it will help you save more money.

That said, understanding that your income is less than a middle-class income could theoretically push you to try and earn more money. Or knowing that your income is above the middle class may make you feel more grateful for what you have. It certainly can’t hurt to know where you and your income stand in the country, compared to everyone else.

If you’re ready to be matched with local advisors that can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.

What is Middle-Class Income in the U.S.?

The middle class has been eroding for some time now. According to recent research from the Pew Research Center, a respected nonpartisan American think tank based out of the District of Columbia, in 1971, middle-class Americans made up 61% of the population; in 2021, it was 50%. During that time, both lower-income and upper-income families grew as a group.

So what is considered middle-class income? That can be tricky to define, in part due to the size and location of a family. After all, a household making $100,000 a year is going to feel more squeezed if there are two parents and six children in the family than if there are two adults and two kids. Likewise, your community’s cost of living plays a large role in whether a family feels as if they are middle class. A hundred thousand a year will go a lot farther in a small town than in a big city.

The Pew Research Center describes the middle class as an individual who generates between two-thirds and doubles the median U.S. household income, which was $65,000 in 2021, according to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. Using those numbers, a middle-class income would be any household that makes approximately $43,350 to $130,000.

Put another way, if you’re making less than $43,350 in your household, you are probably considered a low-income family. If you’re making between $43,350 and $130,000, you’re considered middle class. If you’re earning $130,000 and above, you’re likely considered upper class.

That’s a simplistic way of looking at it, however, since a family making $130,000 might not be living quite like a middle-class family if one adult is the breadwinner and there are many mouths to feed. Still, if it helps visualize how much a middle-class family earns, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the third quarter of 2022, the median weekly salary was $1,068.

Middle-Class Income Doesn’t Matter as Much as Tax Brackets

If you realize that your income is squarely in the middle class, it’s interesting information to have, but as noted, that knowledge obviously doesn’t directly affect your finances. What does impact your finances are federal tax brackets and there are seven of them.

The lowest tax bracket is 10%. The highest tax bracket is 37%. If you’re in the middle class, you’re probably in the 22%, 24% or possibly 32% tax brackets. That may sound as if you’re paying 22%, 24% or 32% of your income toward taxes, but you’re actually not.

The first part of your income will be taxed at 10% and then more money will be taxed at 12% and so on until you reach your tax bracket. As your income goes up, the money within the tax bracket is taxed at the corresponding rate. This type of system of taxing, where you pay more, the more money you earn, is known as a progressive tax system. Some states, meanwhile, tax their residents differently. Some states have a progressive tax system and some have a flat tax rate.

The Bottom Line

Being “middle class” is almost more of a mindset than anything else as it refers to your annual income. Politicians and the media often talk about middle-class values, but it isn’t as if anybody gets a certificate if they enter or exit the middle class. “Middle class” is really simply a label that describes one’s financial situation, rather than a label that changes one’s finances and it doesn’t make any household better than the other, whether they are part of the lower class, middle class or upper class. Just remember that your net worth, which you can always grow, should never be confused with your self-worth.

California fast food workers will earn at least $20 per hour. How's that minimum wage compare?



Sara Chernikoff, USA TODAY
Sat, September 16, 2023 

Unions representing health care workers, fast food workers and other industries are increasingly flexing their power, as employees take to the picket lines this summer.

Across industries, workers are seeking improved benefits, better working conditions and most commonly, increased wages.

In California, nearly 1 million fast food and healthcare workers are set to get a major raise after a deal was announced earlier this week between labor unions and industries.

Under the new bill, most of California's 500,000 fast food workers will be paid at least $20 per hour next year. And a separate bill will increase health care workers' salaries to at least $25 per hour over the next 10 years.

How does minimum wage for health care and fast-food employees compare in other states?

Minimum wage varies across the US, see map

Fifteen states have laws in place that make minimum wages equivalent to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, according to the Department of Labor. Another five states have no minimum wage laws.

Strike a deal: California fast food workers to get $20 per hour if minimum wage bill passes

Health care walkout: Kaiser strike authorized by unions in 4 states; 3 more may follow

Which states have the lowest minimum wage?

The following states require businesses to pay employees a wage that’s equivalent or higher to the federal minimum wage at $7.25:

• Georgia

• Iowa

• Idaho

• Indiana

• Kansas

• Kentucky

• North Carolina

• North Dakota

• New Hampshire

• Oklahoma

• Pennsylvania

• Texas

• Utah

• Wisconsin

Which states have the highest minimum wage?

Washington, DC has the highest minimum wage of any state of territory in US at $16.50 an hour. Washington state has the highest minimum wage of any state in the country at $15.74 per hour, followed by California at $15.50. These following states have minimum wages higher than the federal level:

• Washington, DC, $16.50

• Washington, $15.74

• California, $15.50

• Massachusetts, $15.00

• New York, $14.20

• New Jersey, $14.13

• Connecticut, $14.00

• Arizona, $13.85

• Maryland, $13.80

• Maine, $13.80

• Colorado, $13.65

• Oregon, $13.50

• Vermont, $13.18

• Rhode Island, $13.00

• Illinois, $13.00

• Missouri, $12.00

• New Mexico, $12.00

• Virginia, $12.00

• Delaware, $11.75

• Arkansas, $11.00

• Florida, $11.00

• Hawaii, $11.00

• Alaska, $10.85

• South Dakota, $10.80

• Minnesota, $10.59

• Nebraska, $10.50

• Nevada, $10.50

• Michigan, $10.10

• Ohio, $10.10

• Montana, $9.95

• West Virginia, $8.75

Which states have no minimum wage laws?

There is no minimum wage law in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina or Tennessee, so minimum wages default to federal law at $7.25. In Georgia and Wyoming, the state minimum wage is lower than the federal minimum wage at $5.15 an hour. But, many employers are subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act and must pay the current Federal minimum wage.

Do minimum wage laws vary within a state?

Nevada has two tiers of minimum wage: Employers that provide health benefits must pay workers at least $9.50 an hour, while employers that do not provide health benefits must pay at least $10.50 an hour.

How many workers make federal minimum wage or less?

According to the Department of Labor, 78.7 million workers age 16 and older were paid at hourly rates, making up 55.6% of all wage and salary workers. Of those hourly workers, about 1 million were paid wages at or below the federal minimum wage, making up 1.3% of all hourly paid workers.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: California minimum wage now among highest in US: See where states rank

Job postings with salary ranges are fast becoming the new norm


Kerry Hannon
·Senior Columnist
Sat, September 16, 2023 

It’s gotten so much easier for job seekers to find out how much a potential job may pay.

Half of US job postings in August advertised at least some employer-provided salary information, according to a new report by the job board Indeed. That marked the highest share yet recorded by the firm. Overall, the share of postings with pay transparency has nearly tripled from its February 2020 level of 18%.

The increase is largely due to a host of pay transparency laws enacted over the past few years by states and the share of postings with pay data likely will rise with New York State’s disclosure law going into effect this month.

"Now that the share of postings advertising pay is passing the halfway point, it looks like salary transparency is here to stay," Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told Yahoo Finance.

"Given the near-tripling transparent postings in the last few years, it’s not looking very likely that we’ll return to the days of having pay in 15 to 20% of job listings, even in light of a cooling labor market."

By the end of this year, roughly one in four workers across the country will be covered by a state or local law that requires businesses to be transparent about their pay range.

New York state's pay-transparency law, which requires employers to disclose a salary range in job listings, takes effect on Sunday, while New York City's law has been in place since last year.

In California and Washington state, laws requiring employers to post salary ranges on all advertised job postings went into effect on Jan. 1. Similar pay disclosure laws are in place in Colorado, while Maryland and Rhode Island require salary information to be provided when an applicant requests it.

In preparation for the new law, many employers in New York state had already jumped on board. More than six in 10 (61%) of job postings in New York State featured some level of pay transparency in August, almost double from a year prior (31%), according to the Indeed data.

(Photo: Getty Creative)

More than eight in 10 (81%) of listings in Colorado featured salary data, making it the most transparent state. Its law took effect in 2021 and was the first in the country to require employers to reveal the salary nitty gritty.

Other states with a lofty share of salary data listed on their job postings also have laws on the books, including California, where 70% of listings include pay details, and Washington state with 75%.

While salary transparency rates are rising overall, that growth is not occurring evenly across state lines and geographic regions. In general, employers in the West provide pay details in postings at the highest rate, while employers in the South are less likely to advertise salary upfront, according to the research.

And, for the most part, employers are not disclosing the pay information out of the goodness of their hearts. Pay transparency rates have grown the most in cities subject to pay disclosure laws.

Better bargaining power for job seekers

The upshot of having the new laws for job seekers is that knowing a salary range for a position can help job hunters catch a whiff of what a job is likely to pay and how far they can push in negotiating compensation.

And for many employers, posting those salaries, well, paid off.

"When it comes to pay transparency, SHRM research has found that 70% of organizations that list pay ranges in job postings say doing so has led to more people applying, while 66% said disclosing pay has increased the quality of applicants they’re seeing," Emily Dickens, chief of staff and head of public affairs at SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, told Yahoo Finance.

"Moreover, 65% of companies that list pay ranges said it makes them more competitive in attracting top talent."

(Photo: Getty Creative)

One concern, though, is that now job openings have begun to decline, employers may opt to pull back on how much they reveal about their pay structure.

"It’s possible that employers may continue to advertise pay in postings, but reduce the precision of that information as recruiting intensity fades," Stahle said.

There are many reasons why employers resist posting detailed salary data. For example, knowing what a job pays elsewhere can make it more appealing for current employees to jump ship for higher pay. It can also give them the courage to request a raise based on the salaries posted by their employer for new hires in the same or similar position.

In fact, 36% of 1,300 HR professionals surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management said transparency laws caused more current employees to ask about receiving a pay raise.

As the need to hire eases, some of that might "already be happening," Stahle added. "Job postings containing pay information are less likely to advertise an exact salary or wage than they were a few years ago (only 22% mentioned precise pay this spring, down from 38% before the pandemic)," he said.

(Photo: Getty Creative)

While there is much to be applauded for the open pay disclosure, the biggest flaw so far is laughably wide pay ranges, often covering more than a six-figure span.

"Indeed data shows that pay ranges have widened in areas with new pay transparency requirements since last year," Stahle said.

For example, the gap between the low and high end of salaries in San Jose increased to 25% from 17.5% in one year. A recent job posting for a software engineer at Google in San Jose pays a salary ranging from $157,000 to $235,000 plus bonus, equity, and benefits.

"People are shortchanging themselves if they look at just the salary number and not all the components that go into a compensation package," Dickens said. "Employers covered by the new law need to publish their salaries, but they remain free to also publish full compensation if it is in their interest to do so."

In general, though, salary ranges have widened most in mid-to-high paying sectors like pharmacy and medical information and have narrowed in lower-paying jobs like driving and food preparation and services, where finding and retaining workers is hardest right now, Stahle said.

"To some degree, this information, even when the range is wide, is going to help job seekers," Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, the employment search site, previously told Yahoo Finance. "It'll help them to focus on jobs that actually provide the pay that they want, rather than going down a rabbit hole, writing out a whole application, then finding that the job pays much less than they need."

Kerry Hannon is a Senior Reporter and Columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a workplace futurist, a career and retirement strategist, and the author of 14 books, including "In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in The New World of Work" and "Never Too Old To Get Rich." Follow her on Twitter @kerryhannon.

UK 

Rishi Sunak’s Last-Ditch Plan to Save His Job: Don’t Look Back

Alex Wickham
Fri, September 15, 2023 


LABOUR PARTY LEADER IS SIR KEIR STARMER, RED TORY

(Bloomberg) -- Much of Westminster sniggered earlier this month when Rishi Sunak branded Keir Starmer “Captain Hindsight.” But the meme-ready moniker gives away more than a little about the UK prime minister’s plan to save his job: Don’t look back. Barrel ahead. Hope for the best.

Painting the Labour leader as backward-looking and opportunistic was among the tactics discussed this month during high-level strategy meetings at Conservative Party headquarters, according to people briefed on the deliberations. The idea is to draw a contrast between Sunak, 43, and his 61-year-old rival, while attempting to wave away efforts to blame the premier for the Tories’ record on public services and the economy.

Dredging up Sunak’s decisions to put off school repairs? Twenty-20 hindsight. Seizing on a terrorism suspect’s escape to raise questions about prison funding? An attempt to score cheap points. “This is exactly the kind of political opportunism that we’ve come to expect from Captain Hindsight over here,” Sunak shot at Starmer in the House of Commons this month.

Sunak’s strategists believe that getting voters to focus on who’s best-placed to lead Britain over the next five to 10 years is their best hope for avoiding a defeat in an election expected to be held in November 2024. The aim is to portray Sunak as more positive, dynamic and ambitious, better equipped to address new challenges such as the switch to electric vehicles and the rise of AI, the people said.

To that end, Sunak and his top political aides have been focused on crafting bolder policy proposals to roll out in the coming weeks, designed to present a forward-looking vision for voters. The hope is that the strategy will reinforce a common criticism of Starmer, that he’s cautious and uninspiring, and chip away at Labour’s roughly 20-point lead in the polls.

Read More: Sunak Risks Tory Backlash Against Trimming Welfare to Cut Taxes

Sunak’s aides have drawn encouragement from the analysis of James Johnson, co-founder of pollster JL Partners, who has seen negative views of Starmer come up in focus groups of key voters in recent weeks.

“Two factors mean that, though it is clearly Advantage Labour at the moment, the next election is still up for grabs,” said Johnson, a former aide to ex-premier Theresa May. “One, the extreme volatility of the electorate, which is more likely to change its mind than ever before. Two, the fact that Starmer is still viewed miserably by the swing voters that matter most.”

Strategic Shift

This requires a strategic shift by Sunak’s team, who had largely seen their job as mitigating the scale of an inevitable defeat since taking over after former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s brief and chaotic tenure almost a year ago. Since then, Sunak has largely stuck to his so-called five pledges — including halving inflation and growing the economy — and resisted calls for a broader vision.

Now, some inside No. 10 are arguing that they need a bigger strategy to win. One official said they were clear-eyed that the odds favored Labour, but argued that the realm of possibility included a surprise victory and not just a respectable loss.

Read More: Rishi Sunak Puts Himself Before His Party in Social Media Posts

The challenge with this blue-skies plan is that assumes it can counteract the electorate’s desire for change after 13 years of Conservative rule. The party lost more than 1,000 seats local elections in May and was defeated in two bellwhether parliamentary contests in July, even it narrowly held the former seat of ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Starmer, meanwhile, increasingly looks like a prime minister-in-waiting, visiting The Hague this week to tout his border-control plans and planning to meet French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace in the coming days. Labour’s poll lead widened to 22 points this week, according to the polling firm YouGov.

Each week seems to bring more reminders of how public services have declined in recent years, including Sunak’s more than two-year tenure running the Treasury. The government’s decision to close more than 100 schools over overdue efforts to replace a weak type of concrete popular in the 1960s and 1970s seemed tailor-made for Labour’s efforts to charge Sunak with neglect.

During their weekly face-off in parliament, Starmer countered that Sunak was “inaction man.” “Every week, whatever the topic, the prime minister paints this picture as if everything is great and fine out there. It is so at odds with the lived experience in the real world,” Starmer said.

Downing Street aides want to make the Sunak-Starmer showdown a personality-driven presidential contest. They say the public has yet to see Sunak’s best qualities and hope his speech at the Conservative conference in October could provide a breakthrough moment. They’re hoping an economic turnaround next year could provide Britons some relief just before they head to the polls.

Too Cautious

Starmer could face his own challenges if he attempts to counter criticism that he’s too cautious by detailing how he would handle controversial issues. He got of taste of that this week as right-leaning newspapers criticized Starmer’s plans to cut migration across the English Channel.

Still, some of Sunak’s own planned policy moves — such as potentially scaling back the planned HS2 high-speed railway to Manchester — risk further alienating voters. And it’s difficult to tell voters to not look back when long-festering problems keep interrupting their daily lives.

John McTernan, a political strategist and former adviser to ex-Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Premier Julia Gillard, said the prime minister had his chance to make a clean break with his predecessors’ policies.

“Sunak’s problem is that you only get one chance to make a first impression,” McTernan said.

--With assistance from Kitty Donaldson, Ellen Milligan and Philip Aldrick.