Cautious Optimism and Challenges Ahead: Sir William Sargent on the UK’s New Government

As a former civil servant who worked in the Cabinet Office and Treasury under the previous UK Labour government, and the co-founder of one of creative UK’s biggest success stories, Framestore Company 3 Group, Sir William Sargent has a unique perspective on the country’s shiny new government and prime minister and how the changing of the guard might impact the creative advertising business.

With his business hat on, he’s looking forward to an end of what he describes as ‘all the political shenanigans going on’ with the Conservative government, which has seen five prime ministers in eight years and a revolving door of ministers.

“I think the first thing is that the ability to look forward to a period of political stability in terms of the government itself, is very helpful. I think the market’s already showing that… I think that’s the first good news and that certainly affects advertisers, brands and consumers,” says Sir William. “Touch wood, we have inflation back in the right place and that affects consumers. It feels cautiously positive in terms of a stable economy, and there’s all of the evidence in there that we will get some growth. Labour’s number one priority, as they’ve said, of the five priorities is growth.”

On Labour’s support for the creative industries and advertising specifically, Sir William says that he believes the new government has a natural inclination to back it up. Sir Keir Starmer has been vocal about his desire to widen access to the creative industries and to boost creative education (particularly at the Labour Creatives Conference where they launched a creative industries sector plan), which has long been neglected and underfunded. Sir William believes that will ultimately be a net positive business – though he cautions that there will not be the economic resources to do everything that the industry might want to see.

“There is very strong support for the business of culture in the Labour party, and LBB members now do things in the cultural sector, museums and advertising in support of the arts, so again there will be coherent support for that,” he says.

“There's a natural inclunation for and support for all things education, including the humanities side of education, is important business-wise. I think we’ll get an increase in support... Now, that doesn’t mean the funding is going to be there… I think there will be a community who will be aligned with the creative industries of all sizes and shapes. But I’m worried that the expectations of their ability to support will be too much. In other words, if you’ve got ideas that don’t cost money, you’ll get support. If you’ve got ideas that require funding, then you may not be a priority. Like I say, the priorities have been stated in terms of the health sector and growth etc.”

Stability and support for the ‘business of culture’ might provide an immediate boost, but beneath the landslide headlines, the data reveals some complicated dynamics that the industry would do well to keep an eye on. While Labour won a majority which, at the time of publication had hit 421 seats in the House of Commons, its vote share of 35% is less than that won by the unsuccessful Jeremy Corbyn in 2019. Rather, parties outside of Labour and the Conservatives saw a significant boost. The far right Reform party took four seats but, more notably, 15% of the vote share, while the Liberal Democrats took a record 71 seats on just 13%, and the Green Party four seats on 7%.

For one thing, this reveals the disconnect between the UK’s two party, first-past-the-post electoral system, and the public’s voting behaviours. Significantly, it also reveals rumblings of discontent and disenfranchisement – loud echoes of Brexit.

From Sir William’s perspective, it represents a major challenge for the incoming prime minister, particularly as Europe’s rightward shift looms over the Channel.

“I’m an Irishman who believes in proportional representation and I’ve lived with coalition governments. At some point, the UK is going to have to address the two party system, because it leads to the situation in which it has to swing from one end to another. There is no variation on a theme,” he says. “We got Brexit because the people north of London felt disenfranchised by Whitehall and Westminster. A lot of that was a reaction to feeling excluded if you lived up north. The important thing, if you look at the political side of things for the next five years, is someone has to take leadership in how it is that you make the third of voters that voted no for the two leading parties feel included and have a voice.

“What normally happened last century is, those people fall in behind one of the two parties because they realise that their vote won’t have an impact unless they do that, whereas this election, they had no problem significantly voting for other parties, even though they knew those parties weren’t going to be in power. For the Greens and Reform to have a number of seats, and for the Liberals to have the highest number of seats in the past century, means that those people want someone who will represent their voice. So how do you do that? Do you just exclude them because they’re not the majority? That’s fine, but one day it’ll come home to roost, just like Brexit came home to roost. That’s partially why, in Europe, we have the movement to the right.”

Drawing on his own experience working in the Treasury Office, under the previous Labour government, Sir William suggests that there’s a massive communications challenge underpinning the rising prominence of immigration as a topic of concern for voters both in the UK and across Europe. 

“Politics is all about perception. I know from my time in Treasury that the perception of immigrants was that we had three and a half million people from the European Union in the UK who were consuming all of the schools and the health service,” says Sir William, who is himself an immigrant who moved to the UK 40 years ago. “The actual facts were that most people who were immigrants are below the age of 50. Most people do not use the public services, and most people pay taxes. So if the amount of tax that would be paid by immigrants was, say, £10 and they were consuming £1 worth of public sector services, if you do away with an immigrant, you do away with the £10. They were basically contributing £9 for the rest of the society to use. And those are the facts. But of course, that obviously wasn’t how the public chose to believe it or did believe it because of the way it was presented. I think people need to pay attention to the underlying data that’s going on and decide, how do you address that?”

As Sir Keir Starmer and his new cohort of MPs get down to what Sir William refers to as ‘the business of delivery’, Sir William looks ahead with ‘cautious optimism’, keenly aware of the dual challenge ahead for the government: fostering the stability and confidence to deliver growth and including those who feel left out by making them feel heard and making life a bit better.

“So that’s the big thing Keir’s being charged with in the next five years. One, delivering what you’ve got the mandate for: give people a certainty of stability and the business community and people who create the wealthy a feeling of confidence and the economy therefore grows. And then, how do you create a situation where the people who didn’t vote for you feel that you’re actually looking after them?” he says. “That’s, for me, the big challenge of the next five years for a political leader. Ministers have to get along with delivering their services, but the prime minister has to work out how he leads the nation.”