We need politicians who strive to make the digital age benefit all, not just the few

When I was a little boy we used to phone my grandma in Blackpool every Sunday evening. That was the cheap time to phone, yet even still we had a phone meter to make sure we knew exactly how much the call was costing.

In 1997, when I started my first business we needed to do a video conference call with a company in the United States. I don’t even want to think about how much that cost.

Today we can do video conference calls for free. My grandma wasn’t alive to see it but many other grandmas all over the world get to speak to and see their loved ones at no cost.

Remember the AtoZ? Now we have portable phones, and even better those phones will now give us precise directions to locations we wish to go to… for free. And when did you last use a phone book? Or order a taxi without using an app. I could go on…

The digital age has brought amazing innovations from which we have all benefited. In the developing world, technology is also having a profound impact, even on the most remote communities. On trips for my foundation I have witnessed the internet facilitating communication, information sharing, education, even medical care.

The digital revolution has also created huge cultural opportunities. Anyone now can make their own music, their own film. You can even stream your local school play over the internet or view art on display on the other side of the world.

And then there are the financial gains from all of this. Huge wealth has been created in just a few years. Reminiscent of the gold rush or of the invention of the railway, huge amounts of wealth seem to have been created out of thin air.

On first glance, it’s hard not to see the digital revolution as anything other than a great boon for mankind. But there is a darker side to this revolution.

The exponential growth in financial inequality we have seen in the past few decades has been further  exacerbated by the digital age. A single machine can replace hundreds of workers and high-speed networks allow jobs to be shifted overseas. As labour faces more competition and new technologies continue to arrive, the share of national income taken home by workers will continue to shrink.

The consequences of technology are not just felt at the bottom. They are also felt at the top. Many large publicly-owned companies are being usurped by fast-growing private companies, often majority owned by  just a few individuals.

Meanwhile parts of the internet are used by some in society for utterly nefarious purposes: the dissemination of illicit images, terrorist training manuals, paedophile networks and the broadcasting of messages of hate and intolerance.

With such great potential opportunities and dangers, the digital era needs careful navigating. If we are to have a vibrant, healthy and fair society in the future, those doing the navigating must be capable of balancing different agendas.

Only the Labour Party has a credible chance to achieve this: a party with balance and fairness at its core.

Without intervention there will be trouble ahead. There are huge vested interests in this arena. We need politicians in power whose first question is not what is best for business interests but what is best for the interests of society as a whole. And I say this as a business person.

We need politicians who strive to make the digital age benefit all, not just the few.

Labour’s agenda on skills and apprenticeships shows that we are already looking in the right direction. We have further to go. We know the country as a whole must embrace the digital age even more than it does today.  Every student finishing their schooling must be fully computer literate. Our education system must be more responsive to the needs of employers and instead of pushing so many into the university system we need to improve our technical colleges so that they present an exciting and relevant alternative.

We must make sure that the opportunities that the internet brings are open to all in society not just the wealthy or those who went to private schools. To do this entrepreneurialism must be engrained culturally across all of society. Our schools need to inspire our kids to push themselves, to believe, to work hard and to think outside the box.

There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur in the UK. One does not need much, or any, capital to start a digital business and if one does need capital there is plenty of start-up money around, thanks to the Enterprise Investment Scheme and other initiatives like it.

And how we are going to pay for such initiatives?  Well I think the answer to that is obvious and also conducive to a fairer society.

To fund an education system fit for the 21st century we need to make sure that those companies operating in the UK, even if not based in the UK, pay corporate tax on their real profits generated in the UK not the profits they declare after huge avoidance schemes have been set up.

We can’t allow the present situation to carry on any longer and it is the Labour Party that has the strength of conviction to make sure that it doesn’t.

Simon Franks is the founder of Redbus and the co-founder of Lovefilm