Britain business held back by politicians who have 'never run anything'

Wookster

Britain business held back by politicians who have 'never run anything', says British Chambers of Commerce

British business is being held back by “amateur” politicians who have “generally never run anything”, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce has warned.

John Longworth opened the BCC annual conference this morning with a demand for action from politicians he said were so inexperienced that running the country was often left to Civil Service instead.
Holding up the example of South Korea as an economy “not blessed with natural resources... not part of a major political bloc like the EU” but growing fast because of “successive governments who have put business front and centre stage in national policy.”

This is absolutely true, almost entirely so of the Labour party mostly of the Lib Dems and mostly of the conservatives, of course it includes DC & GO.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/9929364/Britain-business-held-back-by-politicians-who-have-never-run-anything-says-British-Chambers-of-Commerce.html

Conrad

The most influencial book I ever read was 'The Puritan Gift', 2006, which not only predicted 'the comming credit crunch' but also was at great pains to explain the British disease of putting people in charge without sufificent domain knowledge both in business and Government.
It predicted banks would fail because the wrong people were running them, typically with limited domain experience, afterall they had an MBA so they could apparantly run anything. In effect good after dinner speakers were all too often the favoured Directors rather than say someone that started in the post room 40 years ago.

We still have not learned the lessons from World War One where out of touch far away Generals had not a clue what needed doing on the front line.

This simply remedied catastrophe frustrates me daily.

Mid staffs is symptomatic of this growing problem - putting the wrong people in charge all the way up to countless health secs, that had ZERO domain knowledge.

WHY DO WE APPOINT MINISTERS THAT HAVE NO EXPERIENCE OF THE THING THEY RUN?

Overnight if FSA regs were tamed, people would use thier equity to borrow for business just as they always did (this was hidden as such finance was always for 'home improvments') and the property market could get motoring and thus have a knock - on effect on other sectors.

No one in charge is remotely aware of this.

Thrugelmir

I do wonder if the current crop of professional career politicians may be the last. As hardly covering themselves in glory whenever they open their mouths. So plainly have no understanding of finance at the most basic of levels. Merely regurgitating pre written spin. So when pushed off track in interviews struggle to string together any coherent sentences of value.

spacey2012

What financial qualifications does the Chancellor hold ?

Thrugelmir

spacey2012 wrote: »

What financial qualifications does the Chancellor hold ?

Has the Treasury and BOE and FSA to call on.

Gordon Brown was a journalist. That sums up 13 years of financial mismanagement pretty well in my book. As was based on ideology with his Robin, Ed Balls. .

ILW

spacey2012 wrote: »

What financial qualifications does the Chancellor hold ?

I doubt financial qualifications would make much difference. Highly qualified economists cannot agree on anything.

Conrad

An interesting analogy; I've just read afirst hand account of life as a 2nd WW POW in Burma. The author explained how most of the higher ranks dissolved in that pressure cooker and then REAL leaders emmerged that the men naturally turned to, often from the lowest of ranks.

I mean can you imagine say turning to Milliband or Osbourne as 'rocks' of stability and competance in sucg conditions, yet here we are expecting these wimpish school boys to somehow lead us.

Bizzare.

dryhat

Politics should be first and foremost about people, not business.

And experience in any field outside politics should be a requirement, not necessarily in business.

Wookster

ILW wrote: »

I doubt financial qualifications would make much difference. Highly qualified economists cannot agree on anything.

GO has a degree in history. This explains why we have no economic policy other than continuing that of the last government, albeit with different rhetoric.

IronWolf

I think no matter who you support, Labour, Tories, Lib Dems UKIP, most would agree with this!

Let's have more politicians that have experience in the real world. I say ban everyone under 50 from becoming a politician.

Wookster

IronWolf wrote: »

I think no matter who you support, Labour, Tories, Lib Dems UKIP, most would agree with this!

Let's have more politicians that have experience in the real world. I say ban everyone under 50 from becoming a politician.

There are a few Conservative MPs who have managed businesses and worked as wealth creators, not many but there are hardly Labour folks and similarly very few Lib Dems.

A few conservatives that come to mind are Andrea Leadsom, Nadhim Zahawi and Philip Hammond but there aren't many at all.