Culture Is King
Friday, 31 May 2019

Dear <<First Name>>​,​​

According to the latest YouGov survey, the Lib Dems would win a General Election if it was held tomorrow. The Brexit Party are a close second. This lends more weight to the idea that politics is undergoing a realignment away from the familiar left/right divide – something I've written about previously.

In the UK, that dividing line is dominated by Brexit. As Professor Chris Grey writes on interpreting the UK's European Election results: "A few days before the elections Jeremy Corbyn tweeted that “the real divide in our country is not between those who voted Leave and Remain three years ago”. That is a profound misreading: it is precisely the divide. To ignore it is as mistaken as the claim from May (when calling the 2017 General Election) that the country was coming together about Brexit, even if politicians were not."

The divide goes beyond Brexit though. The way you voted in the Referendum is highly predictive of your views on things like the environment, immigration and feminism. Forget class warfare – we're now in a culture war.

Come What May 
So far there are twelve candidates to replace Theresa May. A few have a business background – all are vying to position themselves as the pro-business candidate. Here's a snapshot of what we know so far:

– Jeremy Hunt has vowed to cut Corporation Tax to Irish Levels (12.5%).
– Raise EIS relief to 50% and let entrepreneurs in accelerators like Entrepreneur First access maintenance loans, says Dominic Raab.
– Tory Leadership candidate Matt Hancock doesn’t beat around the bush: ”To the people who say ‘f**k business’, I say ‘f**k, f**k business”.
– Leadership longshot Kit Malthouse says: “We must revolutionise our economy, freeing a new generation of entrepreneurs to take risks and build businesses, creating jobs and wealth.”

Grand Idea
As part of nationwide efforts to drive up small business productivity, our friends at Enterprise Nation are delivering free training to small businesses in Birmingham, London, Oxford and Lancashire. Heads Up is worth £1,000 and will be delivered at no cost to the business owner. The focus will be on accounting and finance, sales and marketing, collaboration, and time management. Find out more here.

At The Entrepreneurs Network we're broadly supportive of these sorts interventions as there is plenty of evidence of they work (and Heads Up will help provide more data on what works). This is detailed in our Management Matters report, which is part of our ongoing Business Stay-Up campaign we run with ABE. 

Think of the Children
Today our friends at the Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) have sent a public letter with Allied for Startups to the Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham. Coadec thinks the ICO’s proposed Age Appropriate Design Code poses a direct threat to the startup ecosystem in the UK.

"What started as a well-meaning attempt to treat children’s data more carefully has instead resulted in proposals that could cause age-verification to be enforced for vast swathes of the internet, lead to a huge increase in data collection, and create an internet for kids designed by tech giants." Find out more here.
 

Friends of the Network
  
Competition


SmallBiz100
Applications open: 1 June 2019
Find out more
The successful 100 businesses are profiled on Small Business Saturday's social media channels and their selection is shared with local and national press.


YDF Den
Deadline: 27 September 2019
Find out more
For the fourth year running the IoD YDF Committee will be hosting the YDF Den. This dragons den style event with a live audience, gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch to a panel of well-known investors.

Events


The Makers Conversation
4 June 2019
6.30pm onwards
Holborn, London
£10 
Find out more
How they screwed-up with Aaron Simpson (Quintessentially) & Graham Hobson (PhotoBox)


Lord John Browne at Second Home
5 June 2019
6.30pm to 9pm
Second Home Clerkenwell Green, London
Free
Find out more
Drawing on his own experiences as the former CEO of BP, as an engineer and as an author, Lord John Browne present an impassioned vision for why it is crucial we do not put the brakes on innovation.


How to protect your IP abroad
6 June 2019
10am to 12.30pm
British Library’s Business & IP Centre, London
Free
Find out more
This workshop will explore the world of IP both at home and abroad and go through some of the key benefits and pitfalls of IP when exporting.


Funding for Innovation
12 June 2019
5.30pm to 9pm
Newable, London
£30 (+VAT)
Find out more
For businesses developing new products that represent a scientific or technological advance in their field.