They interviewed the Director General, John Cridland in what came across as a big Tory love-in. He couldn't have come across more pro-Tory if he'd been personally shoving cash into their pockets whilst his lackeys fed them caviar and champagne.
But he is completely deluded. What the Tories have been doing to this country is massively anti-business and the subsidies, privatisation, tax cuts and protection against the EU don't make up for it. So let's look at what businesses want/need for them, their workers and their customers (in no particular order):
- To pay cheap wages to maximise profit
- Healthy, fit workers
- Roads
- Public Transport
- Affordable housing
- Policing
- Waste services
- Customers with disposable income
- In order for workers to survive on poverty pay, they need in-work benefits, which the Tories are cutting.
- The NHS is being starved of the resources it needs to keep us fit and healthy for work and in-work benefit cuts also makes low income workers unhealthier, with people more stressed, having to live further away from work where they can afford to live and choosing cheaper, less healthy lifestyle choices.
- Councils pay for existing roads to be repaired and for new roads to be built. Their budgets have been crushed.
- Ever-more expensive trains and cancellations to planned improvements only serve to make our public transport worse.
- Since 2010, fewer houses have been built than at any time since the 1920s. Prices are still rising and most people cannot afford to live somewhere convenient for work. That means longer commuting times, more working time lost in traffic, more stressed workers and generally, a lower quality of life which affects morale.
- Businesses need security and yet cuts have also forced front-line police numbers to be reduced.
- Councils have had to cut waste and recycling services, meaning that some businesses in some areas may have to pay extra for private contractors to deal with their requirements.
- The UK is experiencing the longest real-terms fall in living standards since Queen Victoria was on the throne. That means that fewer people have less disposable income and who suffers most from that? Businesses who sell products and provide services that people don't really need but like to spend their money on if and when they have it.
John Cridland spoke of some kind of boom in Britain. But are the employees and potential customers of the businesses he represents seeing that?
It never ceases to amaze me how the dangled carrot of a little tax break can blind highly-paid and supposedly very successful businesspeople to the reality of what economically-illiterate Tory governments mean for productivity and profit.
