Boris Johnson’s disjointed keynote speech, which descended into the delights of Peppa Pig and failed to impress Confederation of British Industry members may not have impressed them.
Although the Prime Minister may not have spoken as clearly yesterday, he had something very important for the UK’s future prosperity.
Britain’s creative industries represent some of Britain’s greatest economic achievements. Unlike sales of manufactured goods – and such businesses are heavily represented by the CBI – they largely fall outside of most trade deals.
But freed from the narrow focus of physical trade with the European Union, the UK now has a real opportunity to take the creative and imaginative sector – covering every aspect of entertainment and design, advertising, marketing, IT, publishing etc – to the next level.
The PM was effectively tapping into the UK’s most successful export story by citing Peppapig.
Boris Johnson did not impress the Confederation of British Industry by his keynote speech
He visited Peppa Pig World in the morning with his son Wilfred, just before his speech to CBI
In 2004, Peppa the anthropomorphic porcine made her cartoon debut in a British series. Peppa (and her family, and friends) were an instant hit with pre-school audiences. They continue to be a delight for children in 180 countries.
There are theme parks – a weekend visit inspired the PM apparently – cinema ‘experiences’, video games and every conceivable type of merchandise.
Boris Johnson wanted to revive his image as an advocate of private enterprise when he invoked Peppa as a British export.
Evidently, he was not impressed by Tony Danker’s assertion that Britain had gone through five decades without a free market, which he made in an interview to the Daily Mail yesterday.
Johnson, on the other hand, sees Peppa Pig to be a symbol for the creativity and energy of the private sector.
What Mr Danker fails to recognise is that as older industries such as steel-making and shipbuilding have declined, the UK has become a world-beating provider of services, technology and science In Peppa Pig, we see superior animation and video editing – and a dazzling display of technological skills symbolic of our future in an increasingly digital world.
“Mr Johnson regards Peppa Pig’s symbolism as the vitality, creativity and innovation of the private sectors.”
These parallel the excellence of our life sciences – not least the development of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine – and of course the explosion here of fintech (financial technology).
Worldpay, an outgrowth of Royal Bank of Scotland has revolutionized the world’s payments system.
The world is also led by British architecture. This includes Norman Foster’s Bundestag dome, Berlin, and David Adjaye’s Museum of African History Washington DC.
Peppa Pig’s story has a negative side. The brand and its ownership have fallen to foreign buyers.
Entrainment One, the company that owned Peppa Pig, was sold off to US toy giant Hasbro for £3.3billion in 2019.
Peppa Pig World in Hampshire suffered the same fate when the UK theme park behemoth, Merlin Entertainments, owner of Madame Tussauds in London, was sold to a private equity consortium (which included a Canadian pensions investment company and the family behind the Danish brand Lego) for £5.6billion.
This is not to be discouraged. We have a vast British creative sector that makes up almost 10 per cent of the economy when all components are taken into account – almost the same size as the City of London’s world-beating financial services industry.
Creative Britain has a wide range of expertise, including the James Bond movie franchise and the songwriting and vocal geniuses Adele and Ed Sheeran. They also have computer gaming and JK rowling. The Harry Potter author, in fact, is an entire export industry.
As for UK broadcasting skills, these have converted Premier League football, F1 motor racing and international rugby into lucrative commercial assets fought over by traditional broadcasters such as America’s NBC, and newcomer Amazon Prime.
And animation – let’s not forget the Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit – represents a vital slice of UK broadcast and film.
Comcast has made Elstree’s Sky Studios the centre for innovation in technology and production.
It is ploughing £3billion into turning the studios into Europe’s mini-Hollywood, deploying cutting-edge tech and creating 2,000 jobs.
Many of the films will be edited in post-production studios located in Soho, London and Media City in Manchester.
As for video gaming, at a time when much of the UK economy struggled during Covid, our gaming industry had a record year, accumulating a remarkable £7billion in sales.
It is clear that Britain’s creative industry are deeply rooted in the private sector. That is why the Government’s £1.57billion Culture Recovery Fund was a lifeline during the pandemic.
As we make our way out of crisis hell, however, it is essential that the private sector and the creative sectors are rooted in recovery.
Labour calls for higher taxes on capital and entrepreneurship must be rejected by Rishi, the Chancellor. Potential investors will move to creative Britain if there are higher taxes for enterprise.
Although his critics will continue to laugh, Boris Johnson delivered a timely reminder to yesterday’s CBI that future prosperity is dependent on vision, creativity, and innovation.