Tim Hames

Changes in Prime Minister in the UK are not uncommon (especially in 2022). Yet, changes in party control of the UK government are much rarer. In the past forty years, they have only happened three times in 1979, 1997 and 2010. When they do occur, they have been highly consequential. The first of these elections led to an entirely new stance on the economy. The second triggered very widescale constitutional and social change. The third (by accident rather than design) created Brexit. The 2024 election could witness another change of party control in Whitehall. What will it mean for business?

Much of the outside coverage of China (even in elite publications) is unduly simplistic. President Xi Jinping is portrayed as the reincarnation of Chairman Mao. The leading figures of the Standing Committee of the Politburo are dismissed as inconsequential Yes Men. The country as a whole is deemed to be an entirely closed society. None of this is accurate. It is critical to understand what modern China is, how it works, and want it wants. It is vital to appreciate why its ambitions have changed over the past decade and what those aspirations will be in the ten years and more to come.

The arrival of Donald Trump on the political scene has been the cause for utter bemusement in the wider world (and indeed for many Americans). Yet “Trumpism” as an outlook has deep routes in the Republican Party’s history from its foundation in the 1850s. The notion of the outsider businessman figure as potential national saviour is also long established on the American Right and dates back to the 1920s. Furthermore, the severe intellectual upheaval within the Republican Party created by the combination of the global financial crisis and the quagmire left by the intervention in Iraq left a void in both economic and foreign policy for Mr Trump to exploit. That is why the ex-President (despite his legal woes) still has a shot at being the next President and why Trumpism will outlive Trump.

There is no more important economic and political relationship in the world than that between the US and China. This is only destined to become more true as this decade develop. Yet in the past five years, the two nations have become increasingly antagonistic on issues ranging from access to key technologies to the status of Taiwan. The implications of this for the international business sector (in particular) are enormous. What is driving this divide? Where will it go next? What will be the wider impact? Can the risk of competition between the two escalating into actual conflict be contained?

A few years ago, the prospect of a global pandemic appeared to be a distinctly abstract prospect. We now know that the possibility is real and that the costs in human and economic terms are staggering. What are the aftershocks of COVID-19 and how long will they last? What are the prospects of a new pandemic in the next few years? Do we have the right strategy to deal with a completely novel form of outbreak? How should business and society assess the odds and make the optimal preparations?