Meet Allen Simpson, COO at London & Partners, a Business Growth and Destination agency for London who do inbound and outbound trade and investment, conferences and events, and tourism promotion amongst other things. Allen's role takes care of leading the organisation’s global strategic thinking, operational capacity and corporate reputation at a crucial time for London.

Allen's CV is an impressive read. Highlights include spending spent six years at Barclays Bank where he led the bank’s political strategy function, and acted as an adviser to the Chairman and wider senior leadership. He's also served in a number of government roles including within the UK Parliament and civil service.

Our chat with Allen unpacks two main topics leading his boardroom discussions - the future of London and the effects of Brexit on the UK. So strap in and get a taste of Allen's turbo-charged intellect. It's tasty.

Allen's recommended reading for us is Organisational Culture and Leaderhship by Edgar H. Schein

BWB is powered by Oury Clark.

I mean, I, I do feel being called Alan is like a aian line, but there's two Ls isn't there?

And yeah, there's two Ls.

You've tried like Ginsburg, but nonetheless nobody, there's never gonna be like an action hero called Alan.

Nobody follows General Alan into a battle.

Right.

What would be a good first name for you, Pierre?

Yeah, maybe French, a bit of French.

I'm not sure I could pull off.

Yeah.

But there's gotta be something better than Alan.

My wife actually, like she records on the tell you when she sees this like a, anytime a sitcom wants to instantly establish that somebody's wife is about to cheat on them.

Alan, there's a group of them.

Alan.

Nigel.

Nigel, Colin.

Barry.

Barry.

Trevor.

Barry.

Barry, Trevor.

Yeah.

Trevor, my builder.

Yeah.

Oh.

Anyway, we ready?

We ready.

Hello and welcome to Business With Without Shire.

I'm Andy Orian.

Alongside me as my co-host p stu.

Hi Andy.

And today we are joined by Alan Simpson.

Alan is a managing director of strategy and operations at London and Partners, uh, which is a fabulous organization, uh, where he leads the organization's financial operation, governments functions, strategy, research and corporate affairs.

Like lots of stuff you do, lots of.

Of stuff.

Lots of stuff.

Yeah.

Very important.

So we always like to start with this, Alan.

Um, what is keeping you up at night at the moment?

The future of cities is the big thing.

And not just for me, but for everyone.

Because you, we went into the pandemic and I've got this incredibly strong memory of the day when we had to send everybody home, right?

I remember standing on a table in the middle of the office and calling everybody around and saying, guys, gotta get your laptops.

We're gonna be going home at some point.

So, I dunno how long for two, three weeks, whatever.

But.

Get your laptops, people crying, the thought of being on their own at home for two, three weeks.

They've come out of the pandemic and everyone's like, I'm not leaving a house.

I'm gonna stay in my house.

I'm gonna, I'm not gonna involve myself in my local economy.

I'm not gonna involve myself in, I'm gonna stay where I am.

Seriously become an issue for a lot of people actually.

Yes, but there are a lot of people out there that won't leave the house.

But don't you feel it's a bit like exercise.

It's not something you wanna do, but once you start doing, you're like, how did I not do this?

It, it's such an important thing.

Totally.

But the other thing is there's a social contract to live in a city, right?

Because if you are sat in your townhouse in Clapham or wherever, and.

You are squatting in that house, but you are not involving yourself in the economy of the city that breaks the social contract.

The economy of London does not work if we're not in it every day, and I really feel strongly that if you live in a city and you wanna be a part of a city, you have a responsibility to really be part of the city.

And I feel like as we've come out in the pandemic, we've broken that social contract in a way.

It's incredibly, incredibly frightening.

Yeah.

That's such an interesting way of putting in it.

The, the, the, the reason I live in a city is I never wanna not live on a tube line.

But that's the contract you're talking about is that I go and see things.

I do things You don't just hide in your hole.

Yeah.

The, the, so the thing, if you want to have the cafe, you like, The, the restaurant, you and you and your partner, like going to the theaters, the whatever the thing that is.

London, if you want Soho to look like Soho, you've gotta go to Soho.

You can't sit in your house and once every three months think I'm gonna have a night owl go out to Soho and expect it to be there.

Yeah.

But there are two issues there.

Well, at least one issue, which is you need the distributable.

Profits if you like.

You need the money personally to be able to go and do that.

And if you went out in soho every night, it would take about a week and a half for you to be bankrupted.

No, totally.

But if we, if we as a city all go out enough, all of us, this is the social contract.

Like not every night, cuz I mean, you know, it's expensive, buy a drink, but you know, you go out enough.

Then between us, we keep it wronging.

Like the, the thing that is London is built on the economic assumption that people who live in London go out and enjoy London.

And if you don't, it will not be there.

Do you not think it's come back a bit?

Yeah, it has a, yeah, it definitely has a bit.

We've bounced back.

We're a, I mean, depends, there are days of the week we're at over a hundred percent the 2019 level.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Yeah.

But yesterday I went, I had to get something from Nike and I went up Oxford Street at like.

Six, seven o'clock yesterday evening.

Yeah.

And I had to fight my way.

That's the little lizabeth line there, ox.

Oxford Street is off the hook.

Suddenly it's packed again, but only on certain days.

Yeah.

And here's the thing, so there are some days where you get there and it's really busy.

Definitely.

But across a week, really, it's still not.

There's, there's so many layers though.

There's one layer, which is that people are sort of eating at home more.

You know, you, you go to other cities and sometimes they don't have kitchens, like places like, um, if you go to Malaysia, you know, they all eat out all the time.

Yeah.

In Hong Kong.

And it's like London.

It's almost, we've, we've become this like so good at the king.

So we've started eating, eat.

Eating in.

The other thing is that I feel we, we almost need to get better at.

I'm really torn on it As a big hip hop fan, I find it tastes the way America presents money and it's like, ah, just spend money in, it's about spending money in materialism.

So we really play it down here.

It's like, for whatever, our culture came to the conclusion that if you've got it, hide it, you know, and don't show it off to people cuz it doesn't make anyone happy.

But in a weird way, we need to get a bit more joyous about spending money and going for it because the trickle down effect doesn't exist.

If.

Fucking people with money are like tight ass and just investing.

Is that part of what I think lockdown did?

And I, I do think it's a problem for restaurants and bots is that certainly for, if you just take me before lockdown, I would probably eat out about five to seven times a week, like never cooked.

Probably didn't ever eat at home or very rarely ate at home and then lockdown happened and we all had to suddenly learn how to cook and start cooking stuff at home.

And part of that has been really nice cuz now I'll go out to dinner maybe once a week.

And think, oh, this is a bit exciting and a bit unusual.

And yeah, you like you've got the thrill back of going out and doing stuff.

And I think lots of people have, have, have started to go out again, but just not quite as much as they did.

Yeah.

And, and of course that what that means cuz if you just take restaurants as an example, then the margins are so thin in the restaurant it's terrible.

Like actually just.

Running a restaurant is hard.

They, and you have to pay a premium before you get the site.

Yeah.

Then you've gotta pay huge amounts of money to fit out the site.

They're, they're paying pre pandemic rents.

Pretty much.

So even if you go out five times a month, not six times a month, if we all do that, it goes wrong.

So this, this, this is the thing, you know, this is the paradox of thrift, isn't it?

You know, if you save money, Because you are being thrifty, that means they're not spending it in my business.

I have less money, therefore I'm thrifty with what I spend in your business.

Yes.

And where fucked money in an economy doesn't behave like money.

Your bank account.

Right?

So if we, if we all save money, and actually of course, you know that's slight slightly, um, Artificial way of looking at it because demands come back, head of supply, hence inflation.

But we are in a situation where people are spending money differently and not as much so.

Some of that's in obvious ways, right?

So we are going to the cinema less.

We're watching Netflix more.

We're ordering in, we're not going out as much.

This changes the dynamic of the city.

Now, one of the things that that means is that if you order and deliver rule all the time, you don't go out.

Two restaurants as much.

Well, why does that restaurant bother having a site on the high street?

They just have a dark kitchen.

But yeah, it doesn't, I've, I've got loads of clients that have switched to dark kitchens, but something, something naturally normally happens, which is.

The, what happens is loads of businesses guard a business that's terrible.

Then we get these spare plots, the rents to send, and then what happens is the musicians move in because there's warehouses and spaces.

They complain.

Then the cool kids come.

Then it's just a massive cycle.

It could be, sadly, that's not what happens though.

What happens is you get an empty plot on say, Oxford Street who moves in an American sweet shop.

Yeah.

That's the, the soul of that.

And then we'll just end up with like huge rows of American sweet.

But I guess the question I'm trying to ask is, do you think.

This thing will fix itself out of natural, like London's London.

It's, it is fucking not going anywhere.

There's a, there's a kind of shish creative destruction where the old model breaks and the new one comes in.

What's Shive?

So, uh, Shumer, the Economist who talks about this idea, creative destruction, that let, let's say you've got a high street, you've got two fish and chip shops on, we've got a fish and chip shop on the high street is fine.

Somebody else opens another fish and chip shop.

You haven't doubled the market for fish and chips.

Right.

So what will happen is the better fish and chip shop will win.

Yeah.

And that competition is the cheaper fish and chip shop will win.

But that's a version of better.

Mm-hmm.

Because if it's the same standard cheaper, that's still better.

So you, you end up over time with the market replacing incumbents with better options.

Right.

This is true.

But it's only economically better.

It's not socially better.

It's not culturally better.

So if you can make more money, or is it economically better to run a dark kitchen in a warehouse around the back of town and deliver it to people than it is to run the shop on the high street?

You don't run the shop on the high street.

What happens is that shuts.

Now maybe you get what you are talking about, which is a bit like, um, You know, in Japan, when they break a a vase, they don't chuck it away.

The break is the beauty.

So the fix is the beauty.

So culture can be like that.

Yeah.

And you go to stars, you gotta Budapest Beautifulest and those ruin bars in, in the hometown in Budapest, where this incredible culture has spread up around the room, arguably blitz in the holes it put in the city.

And what's grown up out of that?

But if, if the replacement is things delivered to your house while you squat in your house, that's economically efficient.

I'm not sure it's culturally good.

I don't wanna be at my house.

Sometimes I feel like we, uh, we watched the matrix, saw everyone in their little pods and thought, let's do that.

Yeah, that looks fun.

It's rubbish.

Um, I had a good, interesting guy talk about it, about anti-fragile, some clever guy.

He's written a book and, and the whole, his whole thing is that if you look at analyze stuff, he's very clever, man.

What you need is anti-fragility, so that is, don't be in a warm environment all the time.

It's quite a hard concept to said, but it's the opposite.

It's like what humans really need is stress, but not stress that kills them.

Yeah.

A bit of it all the time anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, but let, let's talk about this in, in its most fundamental form, which is work and place.

So in the middle of the 20th century, for the first time, we had a situation where, We were outsourcing blue collar jobs.

So, uh, you know, the, the great fabric factories in Lester, those jobs went to Bangladesh elsewhere, right?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And we saw a situation where there's the fam famous elephant curve of how much people's income across the world have.

Um, I improved.

Yeah, everyone got got richer.

So, well, so, so what happened really interestingly is that the very.

Bottom of the income distribution across the world didn't really, cuz they weren't connected to globalization, places like Bangladesh, which managed to connect into that, um, globalization process became richer, the industrialized.

Areas in the developed economy didn't get richer.

The middle classes did get richer, and then you had this big trunk, which is rich people in the west getting a lot richer.

Oh.

So it looks like an elephant.

It's the elephant curve.

So that's what happened in, in, in the middle of 20th century and you can, you know, I'm sure we'll come onto Brexit later, that sort of is felt to account for some of that sort of idea of the left behind groups in the West.

Right.

The Rust Belt and the US equivalence in, in the uk.

We are now in a situation where it is likely to be possible to outsource white collar jobs and why It hasn't been because previously the job and the place for white collar jobs have been intricately linked.

But here's the thing, if you are working from home, And you say to your boss, I don't need to come into the office.

I can do my job perfectly adequately from home.

Fine.

Well, in the first instance, if you can do, if you can do your job in Brighton and it's a London based job, well, why don't I pay you Brighton?

Yeah.

Wages, right?

But the bigger thing is, Why doesn't your boss here, okay fine, I can employ you or your equivalent in Shenzhen, in Singapore or anywhere else, and suddenly you are, you are opening yourself up to wage arbitrage across the world.

No, this is what happened in conversation.

Is because, you know, he was kind of my old man.

But you know, we believe we're a team.

We've gotta be to be the best team we have.

We've got, we, we went through a rationale, but exactly that point when suddenly someone proposes you the point, even when you like him, you go through exactly that.

Mentally you're like, okay, so wait, you wanna live in a really cheap area of this country and I have this downside cuz now you're not part of my community.

And that has a, has a cost to be.

Yeah.

So, so at the moment, the, the discussion is always the boss wants you in the office, the employee kind of doesn't want to come back.

Right.

That that's.

The, that's the basic dynamic.

It's entirely intuitive that we get to a point in two years time where big firms like kpmg, whoever realize that there are lots of qualified accountants in India.

Mm-hmm.

And if they're not gonna be in Canary Wharf, Why do you care whether they're in Hove or in Bangalore?

There is one really important reason why you care, and that is culture and language, being able to communicate.

Yeah, deeper than language.

Real, like, you know, India's a fantastic example.

British and Indians get on well.

We've got good sense of humor, but.

They have a very different approach into yes and no as us.

Yes and no.

And, uh, we have a, we are actually ruthless in our contract.

If I, you know, I cannot think of it if, if, if today we've met for the first time and I said to you I was gonna do something that was something you needed to be done.

And I said I was gonna get it done and then I didn't do it.

It's like, that's it.

That's the end of the relationship.

It's like either fucking have a good reason, but you know.

So what would you tell the businesses?

What do they need to do or, you know, this is a good point.

What I'd say is this place matters, right?

There are advantages to being in the office.

In the Bank of England, people used to measure how far their office was from the governor's office in feet, and they wanted to be as close as possible.

What are your advantages, really, do you think?

So the advantage, the, the advantage of being in a, in a place is of business.

We're talking about, of, of business is let, let's imagine you're a, you are a company.

What do you get by having people together?

You get what a sociologists would call the strength of weak ties.

So, because your immediate team.

You probably interact with over teams or Zoom or whatever really well is fine because you're working together, but your chance of meeting people outside of your immediate team plummets.

Oh, this is the water cooler thing.

Yeah, exactly.

Hate this is a reference cuz I've never seen anyone talk at a water cooler gossip in the, the gossip in the, in the cafe, wherever.

Right.

And the thing that, the thing about those weak ties is that they encourage innovation.

Because you learn from each other and it reduces conflict.

And that's culture.

That is culture.

So that strength of weak ties is the key to being in the office together.

And I think one of the things we will find is that organizations who caste themselves as high performance will expect people to be there.

So the Goldman Sachses of the world will say, no, you're coming back because the marginal gain of you being there.

Is worth it.

That's kind of where we are.

My question is, is it gonna become a badge of honor?

And it may be for different businesses or some circumstances remote only cuz people promote that.

Ha has some advantages too.

I, we interviewed a very clever guy who runs the big remote, biggest remote conference and he made a fascinating point.

He said, charisma wins in an office.

He says what's not fair is he says, I'm a very, actually a very analytical person.

And I, and, and by getting asynchronous communication, so we're not communi at the same time, but there's slack chat rooms with all the information and where's the discussion group got to and why are the conclusions being made, you know, I'm able to exert my influence far more effectively.

And he was saying, you know, I'm sure you are great, Andy chatting away in a meeting.

And that is real truth.

So underneath that, Your point was not that we need to have meetings together.

And I would argue actually in a way, zoom meetings in a way that, it depends what you're meeting about, but it's more, there's that barrier, particularly if you are a junior.

I think there's that barrier to, you are sitting at home on Zoom or whatever, and you think, I need to ask my boss a question.

And you have to take that extra step of phoning them when they might be in the middle of something else.

Or you might be studying them and think, that's interesting.

Oh shit, it's not that big a deal.

I'll just.

Disciples.

People come see me all the time when I'm in the office, say, oh, I haven't wanted disturb you, but this is really important thing that happens when somebody's sitting opposite you.

They just look up and make eye contact and ask the question.

It's inefficient.

The thing is, Haiti actually, I wish people wouldn't do say, hello, how are you, Verna?

I just wish they've ringed me and start talking.

Yeah.

And that's what I do them.

Yeah, I know.

And that's because it's inefficient to the fact that they haven't disturbed me is they would have to disturb me if they're in the office.

They can just walk up to me.

Well, they, they can judge whether or not you can be disturbed.

This is it.

Very good point.

So, and so this is the thing when, when people first started coming back, there was this idea that we would use the office for beanbag based whatever.

And actually what people like doing is parallel working.

They like working on their thing, but with the ability to say, oh, what's that thing?

Plus, it's the, you know, for your in groups, that's sort of weird quasi domestic relationship you have with the people you know, whose term is it for?

A cup of coffee?

Wine, yeah.

Yeah.

What is this piece of Jam on the desk?

How did that, it makes you work harder in a way.

You, I actually, once you, once you really into your job, like, I'm sure actually all three of us are professionals.

Like I've got so much done on my own, you know?

Cuz it was like finally I was like, and I come in the office, I get disturbed and interrupted and stuff.

But, you know, prior, prior to that, I think it, when everyone's working in a room, there's a real sense of like, Yeah, we're doing something here.

And also you are, you are, we, we tend, as humans to be good at deep work on our own when there's a defined thing to do and we're in Excel or whatever, right?

We're we, you know, you put a towel over your head and that's fine, but actually deciding what to do that's harder.

So after it's finding kind of peace work.

But if you work on your own over time, you reduce yourself to a freelancer being handed tasks.

You are not, it's not good for strategy.

It's not good for conflict resolution.

It's not good for innovation.

And now a quick word from our sponsor,

RI Clark.

Got it.

Start back in 1935.

And while the world has changed a bit, it's more than just survived from complying with the F C A and all things financing.

They could also speak fluently in the language of legalese.

Ari Clark was born and raised right here in the uk and now for 20 years they've been held.

Pin numbers get set up and on their way.

Ari Clark's Doors always open and happy to provide straight talking financial and legal advice since 1935.

Big shout out to Sean ve Singh for a stellar jingle.

You can find him at Sean ver sing music on Instagram.

And at this point, let me quickly remind you to give us a nice review, please on Apple Podcast or follow us on Spotify so you'll never miss an episode.

Now back to the chat.

Let's move on to, um, a topic I think close to all of our hearts.

So, you know, the one London's great, we love London and I, and I'm sure there's other cities in the world I like, but nothing's like London.

I'm sorry.

You know, London has the British Museum, the whole world is here.

It's just he's got it and you know, an unarmed police.

But anyway, what the fuck are we gonna do about Brexit?

Do you think?

Do you think where, where, where you're on this subject, do you think we can rejoin the customs union just.

Move on.

Yeah.

No, I don't, I don't think we will.

I think it is what it is, at least for the time being, because the, you know, the, the thing is on day one you're aligned, but over time we in Europe move away from one another and our ability to, to, to retap slot back in where we wouldn't be joining on the same terms.

There's a really interesting point to make about Brexit and the debates that led to it.

So in 20 15, 16, I was kind of going around the southeast doing these debates for the sort of leave remain.

Thing.

Right, right.

I remember those.

The way that those debates shaped themselves and tended to be the same everywhere you went, but the core of both arguments, I think we would all recognize and fundamentally, and this is important, they're both true.

So you had one camp saying Europe is fundamentally undemocratic.

Mm-hmm.

And it is right.

So I spent a lot of time in, that's one of the best things in the end.

It, well, I spent a lot of time in Brussels, uh, when I was in banking, and I'll tell you this.

If you ask a senior banker pick somebody in Brussels to have a meeting with on regulation, they don't take somebody elected.

They'll tell you.

The president of the commission.

Yeah, right.

Absolutely, they will.

That's, that's who they'll say.

So the argument that that Europe is, is.

Undemocratic is valid equally.

The other argument was that's fine, but the effect of leaving will be economic damage that's been true.

So where we are is a situation where both sides feel vindicated because they were both right.

The problem is that neither side has come to terms with that fact.

So the, the people who supported Brexit will point at the fact that Europe is absolutely moving towards more statehood.

It absolutely is.

It is absolutely undemocratic in the sense that we would recognize it.

It's also, by the way, a far higher quality policy debate, but it is.

It is undemocratic.

On the other hand, we can see the economic impact.

We can, but the point is, this is Fraxel, so the UK didn't like Brussels.

Fine.

If you poll people in Manchester, Big, global, fantastic city.

They have a similar view of London as the UK did of Brussels.

Paul Soley.

In Burnley, they think of Manchester the way Mancunians.

Think of London.

Yeah.

Town outside of Burnley thinks of Bernie the same way.

Village outside of Bernie thinks like that.

The little fella in the farm thinks that the village outside of Burnley, outside of Manchester, outside of London, outside Brussels are snobs.

It's fractal.

This is about, there's about lots of things, but one of the things is perception that power rests elsewhere.

There's a really good book on this by David Goodhart who wrote about anywheres and somewhere his fantastic book and his point is that you can crudely think of society as splitting into two halves.

You've got people who are somewheres.

Right.

These are people for whom place really matters.

They live near their mum.

If they went to university at all, they went to a local uni and they stayed at home while they studied.

They married somebody from their high school, one place really, really matters.

Then you got anywheres who happen to live in London.

It could be New York, it could be, it doesn't matter really.

They could live anywhere that at the age of 18, they went off to university.

They never came back.

And there's a fundamental value difference there between people who think of community and place as mattering and people who don't.

Wow.

Mm-hmm.

And it's fascinating that.

One of the highest correlations of Brexit vote is do you live more or less than 30 miles from the town you grew up in?

And if you live more than 30 miles, you, London is a different, but if you live more than 30 miles from where you were born, you voted remain.

If you live less than 30 miles, you voted leave.

The irony with Europe, I always thought it's exact.

The beauty of it is, Ashley, you realize.

It's undemocratic, i e and it's not short term politics.

There's a whole bunch of people in Europe trying to make sensible decisions and they're coming up with probably okay stuff.

But are we are islanders?

I mean, don't you sort of underneath it?

It's like, I don't know, but we're back at the point that you keep making, which is we shouldn't be thinking about the next two years.

We should be thinking about the next 10 years and planning for that.

We have a plan.

But if you have short-term government doesn't, that just doesn't work.

Don't you think a party could win?

You were in politics.

You could just come along and say, right, you are gonna fucking like it for 10 years, but this is where we're gonna get to in 10 years.

And then another, if you planned over 10 years.

Yeah, but you get voted out.

I mean, but, but in this is an interesting, you know, If you're a free marketer and you believe that the ef ef, the efficiency of the market, weeding out crappy businesses and supporting good businesses means that over time, the, the, the general quality of the economy gets better.

Well, the same thing does apply to politics, that actually there is something about the rough and tumble of it.

That means that crappy policies kind of get weed out.

Now the problem is that that's imperfect.

How is that working for you?

Well, I mean, Not very well.

But, but, but in the same way that the market doesn't just deliver good things, it delivers economically efficient things.

And sometimes they're the same thing and often they are.

But it's not necessarily the case that the best McDonald's, uh, I will not have anything said against McDonald's.

That is a very fine burger.

Let's move on, but we'll just conclude on Brexit, so we're stuck with it.

You think, uh, there's these two people who need to kind of make friends, but here's the thing.

I don't think it matters that profoundly.

Brexit underneath it.

Yeah.

So it's not to London.

London and give a fuck.

But what are the rest of the country?

So look, we've got offices around the world and we use those offices to bring investment to London, right?

And there's been an interesting post pandemic trend that before the pandemic, you knock on the door.

Hello.

Have you considered bringing your big tech company to London?

Bloody hell.

What have you done?

No.

Now.

That is a second, third, fourth order problem because the pandemics reset the geopolitics very profoundly.

Ukraine as well.

So Brexit is not at the top of the agenda, and there's this really, really interesting thing.

So back in 2008, I remember during the pandemic.

Sorry.

During the, um, financial crisis, I was at the London Stock Exchange, and we saw huge fundraising on the, on the stock, massive fundraising on the stock exchange, despite the fact that London had one of the worst financial crises of anywhere in the world.

Why Flight to Safety in 2018?

We were seeing exciting tech companies.

When we went and talked to 'em, said, John, I come to London, say, no, I'm gonna go to s.

Stock home.

I'm gonna go to Helsinki, I'm gonna go to Tel Aviv because they were the frontier places.

And these people see themselves as cool.

Now those same people are saying, I'm gonna go to London cuz there's enough risk in the global economy that I'm not, I'm not taking a risk on my expansion.

I'm gonna go blue chip and London is blue chip.

What do you mean?

London is blue chip That underpinning the, the London is, London has your, let's say you're a FinTech, London has.

If your b2b, they've got banks to sell to.

We've got the regulatory sandbox, we've got early adopting customers.

Everything about the UK is blue chip, so people are de-risking and they're coming here for safety.

In the same way that in 2008, despite the fact that we were ground zero for the financial crisis, people still came here to raise money.

So the difference between the UK and US is between the UK and the smaller.

What, what I'm gonna call peripheral countries around the EU is the scale of our market means that the Europe is not gonna give us the same deal as they've given the others.

So, so the, the, the assumption, the underlying assumption if you are a kind of libertarian of Brexit, was not the same one as those.

Somewhere, as I've described it was that you reclaim your regulator, your sovereignty, and they don't mean sovereignty in a kind of flagwaving way.

They mean the ability to reregulate and we make ourselves Singapore on tens.

Yeah.

Well, one Singapore is actually not what people think it is.

You know, they have more social housing than anywhere in the world is actually, it's quite conventionalist Two, you could only say spent sovereignty once.

Right.

So if we want to do a trade, do as someone, and we set our regulation against them, we can't then set it somewhere else.

It's like trying to cover a double bed with a single duvet.

You know, if we pull our regulation off towards the us, we lose access to the eu.

If we pull it towards the eu, we are less competitive against the us.

So the idea that you can pull out the EU and then just randomly, no, that's not how it works.

You know, sovereignty is a finite resource.

You spend it well.

Okay, so have you got anything that you think, uh, is bullshit in business?

Yeah.

It, it's, it's back to home working.

You think it's in your interest to work from home.

It really isn't, and it's gonna buy you on the ass.

I believe that's so profound.

How much home working is okay.

You, you, you think it sounds, well, half and half is fine, but if you are, if you are not in the office a lot and you're not learning and you are not, Building relationships with the people whose job it is to promote you and give you opportunities, that is going to put you a disadvantage.

Now you can choose that, that's fine.

A bit like some people choose freelancing because they like doing the work and they just wanna go home and they don't want the stress.

Fine, but it is nine.

If you are at the start of your career, the best place you can be is wherever your boss is.

What do you think of this whole thing about four day weeks?

Yeah, I mean it makes, I mean the evidence is very strong about it, that actually you can, you can, cause we, we, let's face it, we all spend a certain amount of our day arguing about an efficient four days and a, and an inefficient five days look a lot like the saving terms of output.

Yeah.

So I, yeah, I don't, I don't object.

I don't object.

I think it's fine, you know, moving for a four day week, three day weekend, there's on a lot of evidence that, that makes sense.

This week I'm gonna have to do it cuz I was on holiday yesterday, so I've gotta do a five day week in four.

Don't you have the same amount of work to do each week?

It's just, yeah, but you will, it's so stressful.

But that, that's the thing.

So a lot of people, I mean, it's hard if you are in, if you are like say my wife's a nurse, she's actually gotta be there.

But there is a certain amount of evidence if you say to somebody, you've got four days to do something versus you've got five days, they, they do it, you'll get it done just the same.

We progressed, split it up.

So there was this study, which where they asked a group of this is what was on the radio, right?

Yeah.

So they've done a test.

Like a pilot scheme with a load of different types of businesses from like software companies to fish and chip shops to all sorts of different ones and every, pretty much all of them are sticking.

Having done the pilot scheme have decided to stay on four day weeks.

There was a guy saying productivity has gone up 22%.

In the four days.

Do you remember where it was?

Is this in the UK or in Norway?

Yeah, in the uk.

In the uk.

UK.

It's like a little, they've taken like a little island Lauder area.

It's like island white or something.

No, but that's not, no, cuz everybody's weird in the island white.

No, it's just, you know, I just, I'd love it to be true.

It just sounds too good to be true.

But the, you know, because the flip side of it as well is not only do people.

Tend to get the work done in the time allotted to them is they're happier because you are giving them three days off.

Okay, so this quick fire questions, we're gonna ask you a list of questions, know you a little better, five to 10 seconds each.

Keep it.

Keep it pacey.

Be the music.

Andy will not interrupt.

We're not allowed to interrupt.

What was your first job?

I was 11.

I was laying shingle outside an old people's home in Kent.

And after that I worked in a cafe for many years and then McDonald's more on that later.

I'm sure.

Very.

Uh, what, what's your worst job?

Yeah, so I work, this is like, takes slightly longer.

I worked in the, um, the distribution warehouse of game, the game shop, and it was my job to put the fishing games on the shelf.

Now there's loads of them.

Sabic, Sega Bass fishing, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

It's, it's in Roman numerals and they, they put them all on the shelf according to X X I V.

I explained that, no, those are numbers.

Put them all under S for Sega bass fishing.

It was like I was magic.

And if you ever want to feel low about yourself, tell somebody that, and then watch the rest of the warehouse team stare at you for the rest of the day.

Great answer.

Uh, favorite subject at school?

Uh, at school.

English and history.

Now Maths.

Love maths.

Big math guy.

Love it.

Freak.

It's strange.

Um, hey, English is, sorry.

Uh, what's your special skill?

I am good at seeing the big picture, so talking to people who are clever than me, who do different things, figure out the relationships and pointing them out.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to write comedy.

That has not happened.

Noise.

Um, who knows?

But as of yet, no.

What did your parents want you to do?

I dunno.

Most of my, uh, family are, you know, plumbers, electricians, plasters, that sort of thing.

So something with a point to it would be nice.

Something where the noun and the verb are the same.

Yeah, and you can call yourself Barry or Alan or Alan.

Alan would've worked nicely, Alan, the plumber.

Now it makes sense.

Is you, you say you come from a family in that trade.

Yes.

So they were giving you a good family name for, you know Alan?

He sounds like a reliable, reliable, reliable guy.

A lawyer.

Lawyering.

Same thing.

My wife's a nurse.

Noun and verb.

Same noun and verb.

What do you do, daddy?

I don't know.

What's your go-to karaoke song?

Suspicious Minds Elvis.

Whoa.

That used to be, there's so many just moved on.

There's got three notes in it, so you're fine.

Uh, office, dogs, business or bullshit?

Well, I would say bullshit, but I can see a dog.

No, you can say bullshit.

Okay.

He doesn't speak that much English.

Have you ever been fired?

Yes.

From McDonald's.

Can I tell this story?

Yes.

Yes.

So you, you cook a McDonald's, your frozen burgers and 46 seconds.

12 of them in 46 seconds is big time shop.

So long at a McDonald's cook, a frozen, it's very efficient.

Again, I'll hear nothing gets a golden artist.

I and you.

You have to dress the buns with this kind of gum thing for ketchup.

You fill that from a dispenser on the wall.

Right, the dispenser on the wall inside, it has a kind of five liter, um, silver foil bag of ketchup, like the inside of a wine box.

I, I had one lunchtime to fill it and I was only 16.

I wasn't very strong and I got it to about here.

I realized I was never gonna get it into the wall, nor back.

Down and I dropped it, smashed on the floor, splatted five liters of a ketchup goes ev.

Everybody where five liters and they had to shut it.

It was about one o'clock on a Saturday.

I'm in flats of Tears cuz I'm a 16 year old kid and the shift manager takes me upstairs and sort of politely suggests my future.

May not lie in fast food.

Gives me very kindly a Big Mac meal and a milkshake to see me on my way and sends me home to my mom.

Was it full of Ta tomato sauce?

No, I mean, it'd already been made.

It's the one surviving piece of things.

It's, it's one of those things you really don't wanna drop, isn't it?

They sell all the stuff, Coca-Cola and that mixed together.

That must be dynamite.

Yes.

But ye years later I went back doing some politics stuff and I told the public affairs, Donald.

Yeah, I told the public affairs kid, oh, I've been sack from this branch.

And the panic on the guy's face is, anyway, there you go.

Yes, I've.

Uh, what's your vice politics?

Obsessive on politics, history of practice, of polling of Love it.

So this week give you 36.

Pitch, I guess some London and partners, uh, to any businesses out there or to London.

Maybe we'll do the London pitch, whatever you want.

Can I pitch London?

Yeah.

Pitch London.

The world is changing fundamentally, right?

And we've all made the mistake of thinking place doesn't matter, but it really does.

And in the next 10 years you've got to bet on quality and the place in the world with the.

Biggest history of responding to change coming out stronger?

Is London good?

So if you wanna move your, if you wanna move your business internationally and you wanna do business with America, go to New York.

If you wanna do business with New with Europe, go to Berlin.

I don't care if you wanna do business with the world, come to London.

Whoa.

Boom.

Shaer Lacker, 27 seconds.

Back at the net, Alan.

So Alan, if our listeners want to find out more about you, Online or wherever.

Yeah.

How can they do that?

Well, they can Google, London and Partners or Alan Simpson per spell, a W l E n.

Otherwise, you'll get an American Senator or one of the authors of step tone sons.

Okay.

Okay.

That's, you've Googled his.

A lot, haven't you?

I have a Googler letter set up.

I'm not embarrassed to say that was this week's episode of Business Without Bullshit.

Thank you, Alanson.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely smashed it.

Thank you to, uh, lovely pip.

Thank you to our audience.

Thank you today.

And we'll be back with PW V Extras first day.