Liam Black, founder of Wavelength
Absolutely fabulous – a New Avenger for social entrepreneurs, says Liam Black
Joanna Lumley must be made a Social Enterprise Ambassador! She has a clear social purpose. She gets ministers groveling in front of her to change policies. She uses the media brilliantly. And she's better looking than Nigel Kershaw.
What do the political elites really think about ‘social enterprise'? We know what they say. There were lots of encouraging noises at the social enterprise summit and Mandy led a group hug. You know, His Unelected Lordship Peter ‘Third Time Lucky' Mandelson, one of the key architects of New Labour under whom inequality is worse than at the height of Thatcherism.
But what do they do when confronted with big issues of business with immense social consequences? When the cretins who run the big banks begged for our money to save their arses did ministers seize this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to force real change in the interests of the millions who are excluded from financial services and are forced into the hands of scum lenders? Did Brown fix the chairman of RBS with a steely stare and say: ‘Listen mate, you get the moolah when you have shown us a coherent plan about how you will get affordable ethical products to the poorest. And we're appointing Fair Finance MD Faisel Rahman to advise you.' I'm sure it never entered his head.
And the Post Offi ce. What an opportunity to combine entrepreneurialism with community-based solutions. Again, the instinct is to reach for old model solutions and fail to connect different strands of policy. Maybe they were too busy filling in their expense claims? And the Eton Rifles? Their binary view of the world - there is business and there is charity - runs very deep.
Keep ‘social enterprise' in the Office of the Third Sector, they say, away from ‘real' business. The dominant model is Duncan Smith's local, volunteer-led, shoestring charity serving the deserving poor and not asking any nasty questions about re-distribution of wealth.
The struggle is on to create business models that create wealth, but not inequality, and give our earth at least the chance of overcoming the damage we've caused. If you are chasing public sector contracts then I guess you must deal with politicians. If you are into transforming business, you're wasting your time.
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