The UK’s career politicians are hindering British business, according to a new poll of FTSE 100 firms’ bosses.

A staggering 89 per cent of those surveyed in the research, carried out by Korn/Ferry, one of the world’s largest recruitment and management consultancies, said that they believed that the current crop of MPs were holding back the country’s business potential due to “a lack of commercial experience.”

One of the polled FTSE 100 chairmen says: “The current crop of politicians has very limited experience of the world outside the corridors of power.”

Another said: “The standard of political assistance to businesses is truly appalling and the major parties should ‘sub-contract’ this element to tried and tested business professionals.”

Of the survey, a Korn/Ferry spokesman is quoted as saying: “It seems clear that something needs to be done to tap into the business expertise available in order to improve the political decision-making process around issues affecting the economy and the wider business world.”

There are signs that the UK economy is, at last, improving, which is of course great news.  But this now needs to be capitalised on, so the momentum is not lost – and, to my mind, the best way we can do this is for politicians to step aside.

In short, now the economy is looking like it is finally heading in the right direction, rather than meddling – and trying to political point-score by tinkering – they should unshackle Britain’s business environment by reducing government overreach, slashing endless, and often nonsensical, bureaucracy, and by letting the laws of supply-side economics take over.

As an aside, whilst most FTSE 100 chairmen and women think (according to the Korn/Ferry poll) that politicians in the House of Commons are a drag on British business, surely they must be happy that more prominent business people, including Dame Lucy Neville-Rolfe, will now be joining the House of Lords.

Hopefully, these new, commercially-savvy additions in the upper House will be able to help guide the career politicians with limited real-world business experience in the lower House when it comes to affairs of commerce and enterprise.

Nigel Green deVere group

Blog written 2nd August