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politics, sport and religion

Used to be that you were best advised to avoid politics, sport and religion as topics of conversation in polite society (sex was never mentioned). Received wisdom was that they had the potential to turn the civilised conversation at your soiree from nice to nasty in the time it takes to say ‘David Icke’ (good of him to match his tracksuit to AGCC corporate colours). Oh how times have changed.

We could do with more of us talking about politics – it matters – even though too many of us don’t care, don’t vote, and don’t believe politicians. Democracy is a fragile flower, and if cynicism is allowed to turn us away from politics, we lose control over those whom we elect, and we end up with the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ world of massaged MPs expenses; a world with too few politicians who have business experience in the real world; and a world of too much posturing and too little substance. If you are affected by the economic downturn; if your business is saddled with a growing outpouring of red tape; if you are concerned that too many school leavers are not job-ready; if you want to see the public sector deficit managed, then you have a duty to vote for whomsoever you think has the best plan to let commerce flourish in the UK – because it’s business that generates wealth. If you don’t vote, you have no right to whinge later. We’ll all be winners if the numbers voting increases after years of decline in turnout.

Sport continues to grow in economic importance, and there are commercial opportunities for business. There are also performance lessons that business can learn from 11 grown men kicking a piece of leather around. This summer, the world will be reminded of the economic potential of sport, when the World Cup opens in South Africa. 2012 is the London Olympics, and 2014, the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. You had the opportunity to learn more about sport and business at last months Business Breakfast, when speakers from Aberdeen FC, The Glasgow Commonwealth Games and Aberdeenshire Council brought us up to date with their plans.

You could argue that religion doesn’t matter that much any more in our secular world, but you’d be mistaken. That might be the case in Western Europe where we are now officially too cool to believe in a higher authority, but that’s not the case in most of the rest of the world, and if you’re exporting that fact matters. It’s well known that cultural sensitivity is one of the main things to consider to export effectively overseas. So why are the number of students taking foreign languages falling? Over three quarters of US citizens state that they are ‘religious’ in a way that impacts on their lives, and religion is a way of life in many other cultures – as we can see from what we’ve learnt of Islam over the last decade.

So how do these three things – politics, sport and religion - impact on business in 2010?

Economists have long observed that certain events have market effects – and the bad news (good for some – including TV sales, beer off-sales and take-away meals) is that general elections and world cups are the most noticeable of these impacts on the economy, which goes noticeably slack – the economy stops driving and goes in to neutral – not good news in a year of fragile recovery. So while we’re obsessing about quantitative easing, interest rates and unemployment figures during recovery, a May election, quickly followed by a July World cup, could have the biggest effect on recovery trends. From the little I know, religion doesn’t seem to affect the UK economy to the same extent – not to the same extent as Ramadan in the Muslim world for instance – but I’ll be watching the planned visit of the Pope to Britain during the year to see if we end up with an unholy trinity of politics, sport and religion impacting on our commercial activities. (Cue: lightning bolt.)

Points and penalties

The stock market gain for the winning nation averaged over three World Cups was 10% according to ABN Amro. The stock market loss for the losing finalist on the same basis was 25%

UK grocery sales in the month before the last World Cup quarter-finals were up 5% because of beer and snacks sales

The 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea cost Europe £8.7billion through absenteeism because the games were played during working hours. The UK economy last £1.2 billion.