‘UK election bad for business regardless of result’

A senior British business leader says the upcoming UK general election is bad for business regardless of the outcome of the early May vote.

The head of Wire and Plastic Products plc (WPP), Martin Sorrell has described the UK general election as a no-win choice between Tory uncertainty over Europe and Labour “bashing business”.

Sorrell, a close ally of David Cameron, said: “It’s difficult. You’ve got the Europe referendum on one side [triggered by a Conservative election victory] and then Labour having a go at business or bashing business on the other.”

“It doesn’t matter who wins, both are going to have to deal with a big deficit,” the Guardian quoted him as saying on Monday.

Asked about the impact of multi-party politics amid the growing popularity of Ukip and the Greens, Sorrell said: “Obviously coalition governments are not strong governments by definition; that may nor may not be a bad thing.

“If we do have a referendum [on Europe] the best thing will be to get it over quickly rather than wait until 2017. That is a long time to wait, as we saw with the Scottish referendum it increases uncertainty.”

Sorrell (pictured below) said a Conservative win or coalition-led government would lead to an EU referendum causing “significant uncertainty”.

But he also warned against Labour’s “bashing business” manifesto, which he said “may resonate at the box office”, with an outright win for either the Conservatives or Labour deemed unlikely.

“Either way, the UK economy may slip into the political cycle again, with austerity in the early part of the five year cycle to deal with the continuing budget deficit and better times around the next election in five years’ time (or earlier?).”

Now Alan Hart, a London-based writer and journalist notes: “I have to say that I think that Martin Sorrel actually for all his big talk is missing the main point; Britain’s underlying economic problems are systemic.”

Asked about British government’s contribution to the country’s economy, Hart said: “Well I’d rather rephrase the question, and say which British government has done the most damage to Britain’s economy, and undoubtedly that was the Tory government of Mrs. Thatcher. You will recall that one of the things she did when she brought in the, what was called the big bang, she unregulated the banks…Yes Tories have made some slight impacts on the underlying problems at the moment, but we’re back to where we started; there’s a huge deficit to deal with that is going to entail major problems for whoever is in government.”

MTM/GHN

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