This year’s election campaign has seen plenty of mudslinging but little discussion of the issues that matter.  Here are seven key points for business which we should have heard more about.

Bang. It’s nearly over. That was, pretty much, the election we had. Much talk on who’s telling the truth about taxes. Lots of household names missing from the media rounds (Lammy, Rayner, Nandy, Cameron, Cleverly, Mordant). Bet you can’t guess why?

Much punditry on the polls and pundits, too. Just when does a big majority become a super majority? What, really, is an extinction-level event? And what about Canada, and 1997?

But, effectively, a policy desert in the national discussion on who we should trust to take the country forward.

Perhaps Labour’s “Ming vase” strategy, saying little so nothing breaks, has meant it best to keep schtum. Don’t rock the boat. Meanwhile, the Conservative “Dunkirk” strategy, trying to rescue who they can, may have dictated that it’s best not to talk about what they should have done when they had the chance.

The election we didn’t get

“It’s the economy, stupid,” as President Clinton’s advisor said. Everyone agrees that the economy is important. It is inseparable from the cost-of-living crisis. But there’s been little discussion on how to make it succeed.

Our economy hasn’t grown much since the Labour Party was last in charge, and not even for the last few years of that administration.

Jeremey Corbyn put forward an alternative economic policy and led Labour to an historic defeat.

Liz Truss picked up on the need for growth, but she did not last long,

Fortune, it seems likely, will favour Starmer and Reeves who, ironically, picked up on Truss’s “need for growth” rhetoric. It has been Labour that is being most vocal about economic growth. Though despite being “for” it, they haven’t said much about what they will do to deliver it.

Tony Blair was famously warned not to “do God” as the risks were too high. Today’s political leaders can’t even do money. Perhaps they’re running scared.

Before the pandemic, the burning issue for the real economy was how to restore business productivity. The pandemic derailed the discussion, and we’ve not got back on track.

This election would have been a wonderful opportunity for a healthy discussion on how best to help the economy grow. Growth generates jobs and creates wealth (and the tax receipts needed to pay for the ever-larger state that we are in).

Here are seven discussions we might have had

  1. Investment: how to encourage investment in the UK, from home and abroad, and whether, for instance, hiking corporation tax is the best way to do that
  2. Skills and workforce participation: how to bridge the skills gap, whether through mobilising the 9.4 million adults in the UK who are economically inactive, or to help people develop the skills to prepare the economy for the challenges ahead
  3. Inflexible working: the challenges that IR35 throws up to workforce mobility, potentially driving business (and jobs) overseas and incentivising UK workers to remain inactive
  4. Business rate reform: the major parties have tried to reassure working people that their taxes won’t get steeper. But it is businesses that create the jobs that enable people to pay the taxes that they do, and there’s been little about how to make business easier for them
  5. Birth rates: the British population is no longer replenishing itself. It may be popular to sound alarm bells about immigration but without growing our own workers, importing them may remain the only option. But where was the discussion?
  6. Prompt payments: ending the late payment scandal in which big businesses can get away with not paying their suppliers when their bills fall due. In other walks of life, not paying is a crime. In this case, it drives businesses and jobs to the wall
  7. Freeports and Enterprise zones: if Labour are serious about re-aligning with EU rules, freeports have no future. Yet the Conservatives don’t seem to be fighting for them, despite springing into life as a pet project of Rishi Sunak.

Some of these issues cropped up along the way on the campaign trail, in response to questions, or in low-profile discussions. But the big question for the UK, “how do we fix the economy?” was not addressed.

As the new administration settles in, the approach will become clearer, and it will remain the role of UK businesses to make the case for what will help them grow. We’d love to help.