Cher Chevalier, author, world-renowned spiritual adviser and film producer, and Judith Clegg, tech entrepreneur and innovation strategist, are co-authors of the book 'Compassion In Commerce'. In this article, they outline the seven key points that they believe the government desperately needs to address. In other words, how to create a 'Bold, Brave, Booming Britain' from a country currently embroiled in chaos.
1. The cost-of-living crisis
Our first point is on addressing the cost-of-living crisis that’s causing suffering and distress to so many.
To understand how we’ve ended up where we are, as a very insightful article in The Herald points out, a good source of reference is Norway, because the North Sea oil fields are geographically and equally divided between us. Norway’s oil and gas industry is state-owned; ours is privatised.
Back in 2008, the chief economist at PWC estimated that if we’d invested our oil profits in a sovereign fund like Norway, it would have then been worth £450 billion. Others have said it could even be double that. Norway is now in the top five most wealthy countries in the world per capita. Even using favourable measures, the UK might just make the top 20. The Norwegians have also transformed their home energy usage so that 98 per cent of it is now provided by renewables.
So whilst Norway invested their profits, ours were used to keep oil and non-oil taxes lower. In 2020 the UK’s total revenue from the North Sea was £0.2 billion; Norway’s was £9 billion. In 2015-16 we were the only country that they operated in to give Shell and BP tax rebates. In those two years, Shell paid Norway £4.6 billion; we gave them £179 million back!
How have governments got away with it? These things need to be in the public domain! Conservative and successive governments since Thatcher got us into this mess.
What should be done now?
A. We agree with green energy tycoon Dale Vince that we need to stop allowing the price of gas to set the price of electricity, and government money spent on assisting the public with their rocketing bills should be paid for by a windfall tax on the £170 billion the oil and gas industry will make over two years of the crisis. It’s worth mentioning that even the chief executive of Shell has said that oil and gas companies should be taxed to help the poorest in this regard!
B. We should ensure that all of our energy comes from renewable sources. It will save money and obviously help save the planet. Energy accounts for about 60 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
i) There should be a wide-ranging grant scheme to help the public install solar panels with government-accredited providers. Labour and the Conservatives have said they will do more on solar but neither has announced a scheme like this.
ii) We need to assess and invest in other renewable energy sources too, such as wind (for which there was some positive news in the mini-Budget), and geothermal. You can even generate energy from sewage and grass. Dale believes (and he’s had this independently verified) that all of the UK’s gas needs can be met by grass, and that such a scheme would provide up to 160,000 jobs across the country.
C. Our energy should be under national ownership - national resources belong to and should be used for the good of ALL. Labour’s plans for a Great British Energy Company, if properly implemented, could be a good step in the right direction.
D. Universal Basic Income merits consideration. There have been successful trials around the world that show it can improve health, life satisfaction and employment opportunities. It could be given, for example, as 33 per cent food vouchers, 33 per cent utility credits and 34 per cent as cash (with child maintenance payments obviously deducted).
Of course we should also be taking steps to conserve and use energy wisely, which brings us to point two. Fixing the mass waste crisis.
2. The mass waste crisis
We have become used to a throw-away society where precious resources are squandered and we don’t take care of or keep things for the long term. It wastes money and is terrible for the environment.
Here are some examples:
Globally, only 8.6 per cent of the economy is ‘circular’, that is where things are more durable, reused, repaired, and kept in circulation as long as possible.
In Britain we could save at least £100 billion if we stopped wasting so much energy, so it’s pretty obvious that the government must urgently start implementing energy-efficiency initiatives for businesses and homes.
The two million tonnes of good-to-eat food that’s wasted by the UK food industry annually, would feed seven million British people for half a year.
In the new fashion film SLAY, that Cher is associate producer on, they reveal that producing one pair of leather shoes uses as much water as one person drinking the daily recommended amount for 10 years.
We’ve got to stop this madness!
When it comes to fashion, the most sustainable garment is the one you’re wearing and it’s great that it’s becoming increasingly cool not to buy new clothing. The government should be encouraging manufacturers and retailers to help people look after their products, repair them, or buy second hand.
Another big waste issue is transitioning cars away from fossil fuels which we all know needs to be done. The waste involved in scrapping existing cars to switch to electric, which by the way are turning out to be more expensive to run and not as green as we perhaps thought, is completely unnecessary. Existing petrol and diesel cars can be converted to run on bioethanol and biodiesel.
We could easily grow biofuels in this country via hemp. Forbes even ran a headline saying ‘Industrial Hemp Is the Answer to Petrochemical Dependency’. A fun fact is that Henry Ford made the very first supercar out of hemp. The hemp plastic he used was tested to be even stronger than steel, and the car ran on hemp fuel too.
Hemp is actually one of the oldest and fastest-growing crops on the planet. It absorbs four times more CO2 than trees, can help in the fight against deforestation, and regenerates soil. It’s one of the least wasteful crops on the planet, as it doesn’t need much water, can be grown without pesticides, and almost all of the plant can be used to make over 25,000 types of products, including milk, food, fabric, paper, biodegradable plastic and hempcrete. So it is a win-win crop for the economy and the environment.
Back in 1533, hemp was in such high demand to produce rope, nets and sails that Henry VIII made it compulsory to be grown on all farms. The government needs to start championing hemp and end the ridiculous regulation that makes it financially unviable for many producers to grow.
3. The climate crisis
Our third point is the climate crisis. As many people know, we have less than a decade to prevent the earth from reaching the crucial 1.5C warming limit.
What has the government committed to do to stop this? Not nearly enough!
A key area where they have done next to nothing is animal agriculture, which is a leading cause of climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss and water pollution. Their inaction is absolutely absurd, given that an Oxford University study showed that eliminating meat and dairy is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on the planet.
They need to act immediately to encourage whole-food, plant-based diets:
A. We need to encourage the British public and companies in this regard. Most supermarkets have their own brand of plant-based foods, and many of them are committed to selling them at very affordable prices, but there is so much more that could be done.
B. We need a new generation of organic growers of British fruit and vegetables.
C. We need to serve only plant-based meals in all government-funded organisations and schools. If not, they will negligently be spending our money to make the climate crisis and our health worse!
D. Those who have been making great profits from taking and mis-using the planet’s resources need to pay. They haven’t been paying for the true cost of their impact on the planet and have left the costs for the public to pick up. That needs to stop now. These companies need to give an annual percentage of their income to pay to correct the damage they are responsible for. In our book, ‘Compassion In Commerce’, we call this the ‘Planet Protection’ percentage.
This leads us to our fourth point and another where government inaction has been in the headlines - the water crisis.
4. The water crisis
All life on Earth requires water to thrive and survive. We must treasure and preserve it for the good of ALL. Yet, we are facing a man-made water scarcity crisis stemming from climate change, pollution and egregious waste. Experts, including the CEO of the Environment Agency, say that London and the southeast of England could run out of water within 25 years, and British rivers could lose more than half their water by 2050.
The crisis has been made even worse through some extremely poor policy choices.
English water companies are more than 90 per cent owned by shareholders abroad, which is outrageous.
Water companies are pumping raw sewage into our rivers and seas, wreaking devastation on animals, the environment and human health and if that isn’t enough, there are huge leakage problems. Thames Water, for example, loses almost a quarter of its water this way. The average income for a water company CEO is £1.7 million a year.
The public aren’t even able to choose which firm supplies us!
Scientists estimate that 50-80 per cent of the oxygen production on Earth comes from the ocean, so in killing and polluting our waters we are killing ourselves. It couldn’t be more serious.
Selling off our water should have been put to a referendum. The country would never have agreed. Was it even legal? How did that happen under the radar without a referendum?
What needs to be done now:
A. First there needs to be much more stringent regulation - why are companies allowed to act in this irresponsible way?
B. Proper enforcement of regulation. It is absolutely farcical that members of the public are having to voluntarily monitor river and beach pollution.
C. We also should consider re-nationalisation. This is something that up to 69 per cent of the British public are calling for. Whether that’s even possible now that so much is in foreign ownership is going to be tricky to work out. But there may be lessons to learn from the recent Great British Energy Company proposals in that new climate-friendly, publicly-owned companies could be created.
Of course this leads us to our next point, the UK’s self-sufficiency crisis.
5. The self-sufficiency crisis
We, the public, don’t own our water. We don’t own our electricity or our gas or even our renewable wind energy. We don’t own our broadband infrastructure, our rail services, our buses, children’s services, our postal service. The list goes on...a great many of the shareholders of these companies are not British.
International trade deals are one thing. Selling our fundamental resources is something else entirely. How have successive governments got away with this without putting it to a public referendum, and how can we prevent this from happening in the future?
We are also too dependent on imports.
Up to 80 per cent of our food is imported, it’s predicted that we will need to import 70 per cent of our gas by 2030, and we are dependent on China for critical goods.
Here’s what needs to happen:
A. It should be law that our national resources and key infrastructure be owned by the public, and any fundamental decisions regarding national resources should be put to a referendum.
B. The government needs to support ethical, pioneering British companies to help provide the essential goods we need.
C. We need to adopt new modern models to recognise and enable talent in a broad range of categories. Schools should be one of the first sectors to keep up with the times but parts of our schooling system are still based on Victorian policies!
6. The health crisis
Moving on to point six, the health crisis. With global pandemics, the NHS in serious peril, poor diets, soaring air, water and soil pollution, we must act now to preserve the health of our nation.
Alongside supporting our vital NHS with proper investment and management, one of the biggest priorities needs to be encouraging people to keep healthy. Many diseases are preventable and cost the NHS billions (up to 40 per cent of its costs) per year.
400 people are diagnosed with preventable cancer every day. 64 per cent of adults are obese or overweight. The use of pesticides (which are implicated in many serious health conditions) is rising. The chemicals applied to the UK’s three major crops (which are wheat, onions and potatoes) increased between 600 per cent and 1,800 per cent from the 1970s to 2014, and according to the government’s own data, air pollution is the largest environmental risk to public health.
Many of the measures we’ve mentioned earlier will help public health but the government also need to make it much easier for people to be fit and healthy.
A. That starts with eating well. Numerous studies show that a whole-food, plant-based diet free from processed foods has massive health benefits. We need to make it easier and cheaper for people to eat this way. New York City, for example, has plant-based meals in schools and has made plant-based meals the default in all of their 11 hospitals. We need to tax companies who provide unhealthy food for the burden they are placing on the NHS.
B. We must also tackle air pollution as a top priority. Renewable energy, biofuels, planting trees and hemp will help, as well as the desperate need to clean up the oceans.
C. We need to encourage more exercise, whether that’s walking, swimming, yoga, or team sports. Martial arts should be available in schools, to assist in fitness levels and self confidence. Daily meditation in schools has been shown to have positive impacts on mental and physical health too.
As a final point, let’s come to the violence crisis.
7. The violence crisis
Violence, verbal or physical, is the lowest form of communication. Here in the UK, a supposedly advanced nation, we’re facing unprecedented levels:
When it comes to the people who are supposed to be protecting us, at least 15 serving or former police officers have killed a woman since 2009, and one woman per week reports domestic abuse by a police officer.
On average, one woman is killed by a man every three days. There has been a 46 per cent increase in knife crime in the past ten years. There were over a 0.25 million child abuse offences recorded by the police in the year to March 2019, and the RSPCA receives one call every 30 seconds reporting animal cruelty.
We co-created two anti-violence campaigns: The #HANDSOFF Campaign and PAWS - Policy for Animal Welfare Scheme. Both were launched with the help of MPs in the House of Commons.
Here’s what needs to happen to help end violence immediately:
A. Ban the sale of more types of dangerous knives. For example, hunting knives, pocket knives, and Swiss Army knives. Block loopholes around already-banned weapons, such as zombie knives. Restrict the online sale of non-cutlery knives. Our gun laws became some of the strictest in the world after the Dunblane tragedy and we now have one of the lowest gun crime rates in the world. We must do the same for knife crime.
Most people have absolutely no need for many of the knives that are currently on sale. Some have suggested selling only round-ended knives, while some supermarkets like Asda have restricted the sale of individual knives, but we need to go much further. The law must also be properly enforced. A recent study by Which? found illegal weapons easily available via online retailers for as little as 49 pence.
B. The police and criminal justice systems need serious reform.
i) A challenge indeed, when multiple police officers themselves have been accused or convicted of murder, rape, or child abuse. Baroness Casey’s interim report on standards of behaviour and the misconduct process of the Metropolitan Police has confirmed that officers suspected of serious criminal offences, including sexual assault and domestic abuse, have been allowed to escape justice and that radical and wholesale reform of the system is needed. Met Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has admitted hundreds of officers should be sacked for criminality and misconduct.
ii) Dame Vera Baird, the former Victims’ Commissioner, called for police forces to be compelled to deal with violence against women and girls with the same level of resources, expertise and urgency as terrorism or organised crime.
C. We need to create a society where violence is completely unacceptable; part of that requires a culture shift. The level of gratuitous violence in film, TV, gaming and the like is so out of control it needs urgent regulation. We all know that multiple studies show strong links between violent content and violent behaviour. One US study found that the amount of gun violence in top-grossing PG-13 films has more than tripled since 1985. The issues behind the recent case where the coroner ruled that harmful online content contributed to the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell must also be addressed.
The British public has been served appallingly by successive governments. We deserve better! We’re praying that happens now. Let’s start by implementing the solutions we’ve outlined, so that we as a nation can forge ahead and become 'Bold, Brave, Booming Britain' for the good of ALL!
Images by Chelsea, FitNish Media, Luke Jones, Matthew Brodeur, Surfing Croyde Bay and Thomas Reaubourg on Unsplash
Copyright © Cher Chevalier & Judith Clegg 2016-2022
Listen to Judith Clegg's interview on The Leaders Council Podcast below, in which she discusses the seven ways that government can build 'Bold, Brave, Booming Britain'.
