How do you talk about faith in public life?

The majority of people in the UK said they were religious on the most recent Census (although the number reporting as non-religious is increasing). Christians make up 46% of the UK’s population. Being a leader - whether in politics or business - who has faith isn’t unusual.

Yet this week, Kate Forbes’ bid to become leader of the SNP is imploding because she talked about her beliefs. Forbes’ views are at the more traditional end of the spectrum - she opposes gay marriage, having children outside marriage and is pro-life - but these are views that are mainstream in the global Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths. She’s also not the first political leader to fall foul of criticism for the way she talked about her belief.

There are particular issues that made it so bad for Forbes. She is trying to lead a party that positions itself as socially liberal. She also committed what for many is the cardinal sin - saying how she’d vote about settled matters (i.e. gay marriage).

But you can walk a tightrope here. Look at the beliefs of UK Prime Minister’s in the last thirty years and you’ll notice that they are all religious. Well, not quite. The exception is Liz Truss who said she shared the values of the Christian faith but wasn’t a regular churchgoer (which is the definition of a politically workshopped line on this issue). It’s not just Prime Ministers who are religious either. Sadiq Khan has won consecutive elections - even though he faced direct and oblique criticism as a result of his Islamic faith.

These leaders didn’t keep their faith a secret. Alastair Cambell infamously said “We don’t do God” when Tony Blair wanted to talk about his faith. But Blair did. And plenty of other leaders - in politics and business - do too. So how can you do it well?

First, you’ve got to understand your audience. The majority of the population in the UK may be religious but is your audience? Even if they are, there’s a big difference in religious literacy between someone who ticks a box on a census and someone who attends church every week.

This is all the more complicated if you’re a leader working across different countries. In the US or plenty of Eastern European countries, putting your faith front and centre can be a boon for your leadership. If you’re an aspiring US leader, you can’t get much better messaging advice than: repeat ad nauseam “God bless America”.

Second, you’ve got to make sure you’re using language that believers and non-believers understand. Too many leaders fall into the trap of using religious language which means the opposite of what they intend. Words like “sin” and “wrong” are often used by the religious about actions ranging from jealousy to murder equally without applying the hierarchy of wickedness which societies judge the acts on. Similarly, the concept of prayer is alien to many non-believers (even if the non-believers may practice mindfulness, deep breathing, or meditation every day).

Third, you’ve got to think about how whatever you say about religion is going to be delivered. If you’ve got control of the method - through a speech or social channels - this is easier. If it’s in the media, you’re at their mercy. A Cambridge University report in 2019 found “There was a perceived lack of religion and belief literacy among media professionals.” Last year, a poll found that 57 per cent of those in the UK thought that the media perpetuated faith-based stereotypes and in 2019, a Muslim Council of Britain study found that the majority of coverage of muslims in Britain was negative. All this is to say - you’re not going to get an easy ride.

Fourth, what are you going to say? You could lie. But better to keep your comments short and measured. You need to communicate a couple of things. First, you respect the values of the country / constituency / company you are leading. Second, that you aren’t going to change the law / rules / company policy based on your faith. You can accept that faith is one factor that influences your decisions. But make it clear that it is only one factor. And whatever you do, in the UK don’t push your faith down people’s throats.

It’s time for a tougher windfall tax

Energy companies are making obscene profits. On Friday, EDF announced it made £1.12 billion in profits in its annual results, the latest in a slew of monster returns for major oil, gas, and electricity companies. Two weeks ago BP announced its profits more than doubled to £23 billion, and earlier this month Shell raked in a whopping £32.2 billion, the most in its 115-year history. Meanwhile, Centrica (the owner of British gas) took in £3.3 billion whilst simultaneously using agents to force prepayment metres on vulnerable customers struggling to cope with the cost of living crisis.

One would think that the windfall tax introduced by Jeremy Hunt in his Autumn Budget would prevent oil companies from profiting from the war in Ukraine. Hunt’s measures increased the windfall to 35%, up from 25%, and extended it to potentially as far as April 2028. Despite this, Shell only paid a measly £112 million to the UK government under the windfall tax introduced last year and despite making a record £26 billion in the first 9 months it did not pay a penny in windfall tax until October. In a similar measure, BP only paid £583m.

This begs the question, why have oil and gas companies been able to pay so little in tax, when millions are struggling?

There is an investment loophole in the current legislation which means oil and gas firms are able to claw back more than 91% of their capital investment in tax relief by investing in the North Sea. This means that oil and gas firms are getting a significant tax break to invest in non-renewable energy. BP has already cut its emissions pledge and plans greater oil and gas production over the next seven years compared with previous targets.

The Government should face the reality that in the face of these astronomically large profits, leaving this loophole open is an insult to the millions of households expecting a £500 hit to their monthly energy bills come April. Worse still, the Conservatives are leaving an estimated £22 billion on the table, which would be enough to pay for emergency insulation measures for 3.31 million households according to the NEF. The cost of expanding the scheme is not likely to have a significant impact on investment in the UK, following last year’s introduction of the windfall. BP’s chief executive, Bernard Looney admitted the levy would not prevent it from making any planned investments until at least after 2025.

Windfall taxes are popular, 68% of Brits backed the idea of a windfall tax in September 2022 and with a further 8.4 million people facing fuel poverty by April, the Government stepping up and strengthening the windfall tax could offer a win/win, raising money for our beleaguered public services, and generating some positive polling at a time when the Conservative Party could use it most.

How should private sector businesses respond to workers on strike?

As we face another month of public sector strikes, with politicians and trade union bosses trading blows over who is to blame for the disruption, we are also seeing a growing trend of private sector workers going on strike. What are the key differences with the strikes? And how should businesses respond to striking workers?

November 2022 saw 423 days of work lost due to strike action in the private sector, a miniscule number when compared to the 417,000 days of work being lost in the public sector in October 2022. But it’s still an increase - there were no private sector strike days recorded between February 2020 and May 2022. With news that Amazon workers have staged their first ever UK walkout, and inflation and cost of living pressures continue to hit workers, the trend could be here to stay.

So how should businesses in the private sector deal with workers on strike? One of the biggest differences is that the employer is going to have to wholly own the communications response. Unlike with nurses or rail workers, there is not a Minister that can be put up for a broadcast round and pointed to as responsible for the disruption.

The employer is also going to have to own how the business operates. In some of the highest profile private sector strikes, pay is often not the only or even predominant issue. Amazon workers are using this strike to highlight the “severe” conditions they are working in, with managers tracking staff’s ‘idle’ time and loo breaks, criticising workers for not being productive enough. Similarly, Royal Mail workers went on strike over management trying to turn the newly privatised company into a “gig economy-style parcel courier, reliant on casual labour.”

At the end of the day, pay rises are likely to solve much of the disgruntlement employees face, but a sufficient pay rise will not always be the silver bullet private sector bosses are hoping for. Significant operational and cultural shifts may be necessary in order to assure employees that they are not attempting to cut corners and put profit above employee welfare. Unfortunately, cultural and operational changes do not happen overnight. They’re often expensive and you have to bring people with you.

Looking beyond pay to how a business treats their workers needs to form a key element of any private sector response. Yes, a recession may be coming, but the battle for talent is still very much alive and striking workers isn’t going to attract prospective employees. Every business facing striking workers will have its own challenges but winning back workers’ goodwill is about more than just short term disruption.