Weekend Box: Sudan Ceasefires, Biden 2024 & more
Welcome to The Weekend Box, Audley’s weekly round-up of interesting or obscure political, business and cultural news from around the world.
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SUDAN CEASEFIRES: AGAINST THE CLOCK
As the 72-hour ceasefire agreed by the warring rival factions of Sudan’s military was due to expire at midnight on Thursday, and with many fearing that the small window of opportunity for evacuations would close too soon, an extension of a further three days was agreed in the nick of time. In response, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has redoubled his call for UK nationals who wish to evacuate Sudan to move as quickly as possible.
Late Monday night, the US brokered the initial ceasefire between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, whose relationship following the coup of former-Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in 2021 soured and collapsed into fighting this year. It would take the UK, UN, and other neighbouring countries working with America in a combined diplomatic effort to secure Thursday’s ceasefire, as anxiety runs high around the number of foreign nationals still in Sudan in spite of successful evacuations since Monday. Over 2000 British nationals have reportedly registered under the government’s evacuation plans so far, which were launched overnight on Monday following cross-party criticism of the Foreign Office for prioritising British diplomats and their families in evacuations on Sunday.
The UK has reportedly evacuated 897 people so far on eight flights, with the first flight carrying 250 evacuees landing in Stansted Airport on Wednesday. In spite of the fraught circumstances under which evacuations are taking place, which have so far included a strained transition between Germany and Britain for use of an airfield, Britain will have to make every second count to transport more people to safety in these 72 hours. With an estimated 4000 British passport holders in Sudan, in the midst of a conflict which has injured more than that number and killed 512 people (according to Sudan’s health ministry; the actual death toll may be higher), time is of the essence.
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BIDEN: 4 MORE IN ’24?
The US Presidential Election in 2024 might just end up being a rematch of 2020, as this week President Biden announced his re-election campaign.
While speculation had been dragging on a Biden announcement for months, perhaps we should have known all along that Tuesday would have been the day. The President is known to have a fondness for nostalgia and superstition, and Tuesday marks the four year anniversary, to the day, of Biden’s 2020 Election campaign launch.
The Democrats can’t afford to turn off voters on account of Biden’s age, so it was somewhat unsurprising that Vice President Kamala Harris was a significant feature of his announcement video. For all the talk of his age, however, the President has notched up some impressive legislative wins in his term of office so far, not least the Infrastructure Bill and Inflation Reduction Act - effectively a huge stimulus - and the Chips and Science Act which will seek to spur on investment in domestic semiconductor production.
Meanwhile, in the Republican race, the frontrunner remains President Trump, despite his numerous legal troubles, that show no sign of ending. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, so often talked up as the next generation of Republican candidates and a future President, seems to have lost momentum, even before he officially announces his run. DeSantis has been visiting Japan and South Korea on a tour billed as improving his foreign policy credentials and next up on DeSantis's tour is Israel and then a stop here in Britain. However, the traveling press has focused their questions on his poll performance, given he consistently trails Donald Trump in theoretical head-to-head polling.
Nonetheless, DeSantis's Republican colleagues in the Florida Senate have started to make preparations to make it easier for him to run, if he wants to. They are proposing to repeal the act that would force DeSantis to resign as Florida Governor if he stood for President and lost. Come November 2024, it may not be worth it; America will decide.
PM TALKS SHOP - AND FLOPS
This week Prime Minister Rishi Sunak aimed to woo corporate Britain with his new ‘Business Connect’ forum, which brought together 200 senior business figures at a venue in London. Sunak described it as a ‘new platform’ for businesses to engage and could fill the vacuum left by the CBI, which businesses are leaving in their droves after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced. With Labour mounting its own charm offensive to business, this is no doubt an effort from the Conservatives to repair the damage done by Boris Johnson’s “f**k business” comments and the impact of the Brexit years on investment.
Amid some softball questions from business leaders, one policy that garnered significant attention at the forum was the scrapping of VAT refunds for tourists, which Sunak did in 2020 as Chancellor. Gerry Murphy, the Chairman of Burberry, challenged Sunak, stating it was a "spectacular own goal" that had made Britain the "least attractive" shopping destination in Europe.
While Sunak said there were good reasons for ending the shopping perk, he left the door ajar and said he look into the data to “see if things are panning out as we expected or not.” The comment on the policy has been by no means a one-off, with pressure from businesses beginning to mount in November, with the release of a report from Oxford Economics which concluded that the Treasury had overestimated how much the policy would save. At the time, it had been predicted that scrapping tax-free shopping would save nearly £2bn, but a report concluded that incomplete information had been used and the policy would actually add £350m a year to the government’s coffers.
Alongside comments at the event, a coalition of 90 business leaders have added their names to a letter to the Chancellor to urge him to rethink and the Mail has also launched a 'Scrap The Tourist Tax' campaign. While business leaders are pleased with the Conservative’s new pro-business posture, Sunak’s exchange with Burberry’s Chair also shows that business leaders are hungry for action.
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PAST IMPERFECT
As recently as the 1970s, Europe had fascist dictators. Francisco Franco, Spain’s Head of State from 1936 to 1975, ran a brutally repressive regime, the horrors of which remain in living memory.
Numerous European democracies have all struggled to come to terms with 20th-century dictatorships, Spain included. After Franco’s death, all political parties abided by the “Pact of Forgetting,” a conscious decision to avoid confronting Spain’s recent past and focus on establishing a stable, democratic future.
It was only in 2007, with the passing of the “Historical Memory Law” that state-sponsored recognition of the victims of the Civil War and Francoist repression began in earnest. Even then, many of the law’s provisions, including state help in the tracing, identification, and eventual exhumation of victims of the dictatorship, were ignored by subsequent governments.
One part of the 2007 law which has been acted upon is addressing the Valley of the Fallen, a huge mausoleum constructed under Franco containing graves of those who died on both sides during the Civil War. It is largely seen as a fascist monument, given Franco himself was buried there.
The move to make the Valley “a memory centre that dignifies and rehabilitates the victims of the Civil War” has been plagued by controversies, including one this week.
A few days ago, the remains of fascist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera were exhumed from the Valley and moved to a less-prominent cemetery in Madrid. During the process, violent protests against the exhumation by Prime de Rivera’s supporters broke out, resulting in clashes with police and numerous arrests.
Nearly 50 years after the end of fascist Spain, the country’s past continues to raise the temperature of its citizens. The hope is that by confronting Spain’s history rather than repressing it, Spaniards can begin to understand, accept, and move on peacefully.
LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO BANK HOLS?
For as long as anyone can remember, the productivity challenge has plagued Britain’s economy. Since the financial crash of 2008, UK productivity grew at an average of just 0.5% a year – far lower than most competitors. In January, economists at the International Monetary Fund predicted the UK’s economy would be the only of the major industrialised nations to shrink in the year ahead.
There are a number of reasons for this. But it’s unlikely to be helped by the onset of three bank holidays in a single month. Yes, businesses in the UK will shut up shop on the 1st, 8th, and 29th of May, leaving just two Mondays out of five when people might actually go to work.
The additional bank holiday on the 8th marks His Majesty the King’s coronation (which, bafflingly, is on Saturday 6th) and campaigners are now lobbying to make this extra day off a permanent affair. It is not a new argument. There have long been those who argue in favour of more bank holidays to bring the UK into line with its European neighbours. Indeed, the Labour Party went into the last election promising four additional days off at a projected cost to the economy of £10 billion.
There may be some sense to distributing bank holidays more evenly but it’s hard to see what would be gained by yet more of them. Campaigners argue bank holidays are good for mental health and boost the hospitality and retail sectors – seemingly forgetting that those sectors rely on people to work in them. Bank holidays are not a day off for everyone, and in fact in a flexible, gig-style economy such as the UK’s they can often exacerbate inequalities.
Arguably in such a modern flexible economy the whole concept of the bank holiday – a throwback to the late 19th century – is out of date. Perhaps we need less of them, not more. But that’s probably not a winning political message.
And that’s it for this week. I hope you found something of interest that you might want to delve into further. If so, please get in touch at cwilkins@audleyadvisors.com.
For now, that’s The Weekend Box officially closed.