AN ILLUMINATING BIG SWITCH-ON
Blackpool got an injection of Girl Power as Spice Girl Mel B pulled the switch to trigger four months of its world-famous Illuminations.
Tens of thousands of people packed on to the Tower Festival Headland to watch her step on to the stage to carry out the switch-on and join a star-studded list of national and international celebrities who have turned on the lights down the years.
As a million lights lit up the six-mile display, a burst of fireworks exploded above Blackpool Tower, accompanied by lasers and a projection show.
Blackpool Illuminations will shine every night until January 5. The extension to the Illuminations season has had a major impact on visitor numbers and the local economy during the winter months.
Frankly Speaking
A DECADE OF LABOUR RULE?
DON’T BANK ON IT By Frank McKenna
Downtown Lancashire in Business
When Boris Johnson led the Conservative Party to a landslide victory in 2019, helped by the ‘Get Brexit Done’ slogan, commentators across the political spectrum assumed that the Tories would be in government for at least another decade.
A combination of cock-ups, scandals and splits resulted in a crushing defeat for the Conservatives in July.
Just five-years after a tumultuous triumph, Rishi Sunak’s Tories were swept aside by an even greater landslide than his party had enjoyed at the previous General Election – and now commentators from across the political spectrum are assuming that Labour will be in power for at least 10 years.
That is to ignore a number of crucial factors. First, Keir Starmer has inherited a litany of major, mammoth challenges including a £22bn black hole in the UKs finances.
Second, voters are way more transient now than ever before. Unlike many of my generation who offer tribal support for a political party, most electors nowadays have as much patience with their political leaders as the owners of Chelsea Football
Club have with their managers. If Labour doesn’t start to find solutions to the country’s problems quickly, there is no guarantee that they will get the benefit of the doubt in 2028 or 2029.
Third, events, dear boy, events. The government may have handled its first crisis well. However, nobody could have predicted the shocking scenes that we have witnessed across the country during early August – and there will be other unforeseen crises ahead for sure.
Finally, the big challenge, and one that broke the last government - holding together the broad coalition that Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Jonny Reynolds and others have built – stretching from those who felt let down from the lack of levelling-up, through to business leaders who were frustrated with economic stagnation.
You can make a case for ending strikes that have dragged on for far too long with generous pay awards. But rushing through changes in employment law that will greatly damage an already fragile SME sector is absolutely the sort of thing that could bite the new government on the bum.
A guaranteed 10 years for Labour? Don’t bank on it.
LANCASHIREBUSINES SV
IEW.CO.UK
Stephanie Wilding, Business centre manager, Verat Space
IS A HEARTSINK SPACE CRUSHING
YOUR MEETINGS? You’ve almost certainly been in a heartsink space.
They’re often windowless. They’re usually airless. They feel like a beige cell with the company’s last fluorescent light flickering overhead.
Often, there’s a printer or CNC machine chugging away in the corner, which means there’s always someone popping in to feed it, service it or collect something. And then someone suggests adding a table and a few chairs and voila! Now it’s a meeting room too. Hardly seems the best space to inspire creativity, does it?
New space. New ideas.
Moods are contagious. Hold your meeting in a gloomy, uninspired environment and guess what the likely outcome will be?
That’s why, when it comes to the big discussions that will shape strategy and your business’ future, you need to choose a space that reflects the nature of the conversation.
Bright. Airy. Uncluttered. Energised. A space free from interruption. A space with room to stretch your legs. A space that helps everyone think more freely, more creatively and more productively.
There’s serious evidence behind this. When the CIPD looked into the factors that influence meeting effectiveness, the meeting space and facilities were the third most important factor (behind only the meeting leader’s behaviour and goal clarity).
If you want your meetings to generate insights that are truly insightful and ideas that are genuinely fresh, escape to a meeting space that will act as a catalyst, not a dragon creativity.
Or, to put it another way, if you want your meetings to soar, don’t hold them in a heartsink space
For more information call 01257 240099 or visit
veratspace.com
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