Open Road

Friday Nov 7th 2008

Change is here

I met up with friends on Wednesday and celebrated the amazing realization that Barack Obama was going to be the next President of USA. For the whole day we thought we were dreaming.

I am a mixed race Londoner and throughout the day I felt like I was having a wonderful dream. My fear was, that at any second my alarm clock was going to wake me up.

Yes, this is a victory for every black person dead and alive, but it is also a massive victory for every race. Let’s hope that from this point on different races can start to live their lives without hidden prejudices.

The people of America have shown that they can look up to, respect and trust a black man to run their country, so surely communities can also do the same amongst each other.

May 2010 Prediction: Labour to win the General Election

Place your bets now – William Hill are offering 9/4.

The economic crisis has not been good news for David Cameron and the Opposition. Logic suggests that they should now be out of sight in the polls given the almost miraculous scale of the Government’s failings. Instead, although already healthy, support has not budged. It may even be ebbing away. 

Thursday Nov 6th 2008

PODCAST - Open Road breakfast seminar with Shadow Minister Ed Vaizey

Ed Vaizey MP, Conservative spokesman on the arts and fully paid up member of the Cameron project spoke at an Open Road breakfast seminar on 5 November. 

Watch our video of Ed Vaizey talking about what a Conservative government would really be like.

US elections – some lessons for communications

What does the US elections tell us about communications?

Paradoxes – the business of communications is often full of paradoxes.  The recent financial crisis provided some.  Both in the UK and in Germany investors and savers only started pulling their money out of banks when they were told by their governments that their money was safe.  They reasoned that if the authorities were making a public statement that things were OK, then they really must be serious.

A personal reflection on history

The heady mist of Tuesday night has now faded as the reality of governing begins. One entry can’t possibly touch on all that is noteworthy about this election. I have many observations and thoughts about these past few weeks and this result, and over the next few days I will share them, but first, something personal.
My first political memories are all tragic. I can still remember the sudden crying filling the restaurant my parents and I were in on the 22nd of November 1963, the anti civil rights protests in the streets of my hometown when Lyndon Johnson arrived to be nominated for the Presidency, watching on tv as Bobby Kennedy lay spreadeagled on a hotel kitchen floor, the election of Richard Nixon – twice – and then the murder of Martin Luther King.