THE POWER OF NETMUMS - 03:14 pm, Wed 27th Jan 2010
One of the features of our age is new organisations and networks working through the internet rather than traditional means. Perhaps this has been more prominent in the United States but here too we are seeing powerful new organisations emerge. One of the most significant is Netmums, a network who can give advice on anything from breastfeeding to swine flu jabs and who are also now a powerful voice in the debates over family and other areas in the political arena.
I am also conscious of the commercial power of the Netmums. Our baby had a bit of nappy rash and Marianna bought a new cream for his backside. I picked up the jar and asked why go for that one. “Netmums recommendation” she replied, in a tone which said that this was enough for her to be sure it was the best one to get. It got me thinking. Is there a more valuable endorsement for a baby product these days? And what if the Netmums said your product was no good? I reckon sales would take quite a hit. In politics as in the selling of nappy cream, be aware of the power of Netmums.
Still on the subject of mums, I recently met with Tesco who gave me a very interesting briefing on consumer behaviour during the recession. They have very high quality data on consumer spending habits through their Clubcard scheme. One of the interesting findings they reported was the growth in power within families of mothers during the recession. This, they believe, is driven by a greater emphasis on value and a stronger desire to cut back on waste than existed before the recession. In many cases this is giving mums a greater sense of power over the family budget than before. We also talked about the extent to which consumers were going green. Well, value has a lot to do with that too. And it’s pretty clear that anyone who wants to see greener consumption should be talking to mums.
Yesterday I went to the launch of the Federation of Small Businesses manifesto. There are 4.8 million small businesses in the country employing almost 14 million people. They make up half our national output and I meet many of the local small and medium sized business in the constituency week in and week out. Labour has tried to help small businesses through the recession by giving them more time to pay tax and VAT – a flexibility used by 160,000 small businesses and through the Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme which has lent some £700m to around 7000 small businesses. Small businesses have a crucial role to play in driving forward economic recovery and in innovation. We should never take them for granted.
This week we had new economic growth figures showing a very small return to growth. Non one should get carried away over one quarter’s figures. It’s a move in the right direction but the recovery is fragile and we still have to work to ensure it keeps going. That is all the more reason why it would be wrong to make drastic cuts in public expenditure now as the Opposition are calling for – this would cut orders for business which needs government to spend on schools, hospitals, housing and transport projects. A lot of government is about judgement. You don’t get them all right but you hope to get most of them right. The Government got the big calls right during the recession. Stop the banks from collapsing causing chaos in the economy, get more money into people’s pockets and don’t take our foot off the gas before the economy is really moving again. The Opposition were wrong on these judgement calls and it looks like those mistakes are being carried forward into their judgement about the recovery.
Finally, a bit of good news on East Park. I had a letter this week from the Heritage Lottery Fund telling me that the bid for funding from the lottery for East Park has had first stage approval. That is not the end of the road but it’s an important step. It is now for the council to work up the bid so that the money is finally delivered. This could mean around £900,000 for the park – money which could help restore this priceless green space to its former glory.
