In his eagerness to show how much Labour loves business, Ed Miliband somehow forgot to accept his invitation to talk at the British Chamber of Commerce’s annual conference. Small business is not Labour’s natural homeland and Ed Balls did not look entirely overjoyed to have been asked to step in at the last minute. His lack of enthusiasm was entirely reciprocated.
“Thank you for that introduction, Adam … Marshall,” the shadow chancellor said, trying to lighten the mood with a gag at his own expense about his Newsnight appearance. No one laughed.
The main hall of the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in central London could double as Stansted’s baggage reclaim area and the audience was determined to treat Balls like a minor airline official who had come to explain why their luggage had got lost.
Balls persevered, but the disengagement was proving contagious. His message – that Britain was living in dangerous times, that telling everyone they had never had it so good was inviting disaster and an early referendum might lead to Britain leaving the EU – was not what they had come to hear.
What they wanted was more the smooth, Magic FM style of Lord Mandelson, who had been on the radio in the morning to say Labour should be falling over itself to do whatever business wanted. In the absence of Typhoid Mandy on a trade mission to the UAE to secure some gold taps for his new apartment, the BCC was more than happy to make do with some light chatterama from the prime minister.
Except it wasn’t quite David Cameron PM who appeared. It was chameleon Dave. Dave the luxury car salesman (British of course). Dave the man who understood the pain of running a small business because he’d been there himself. In this, Dave’s world, everything would be tailored to the customer’s requirements. Leather seats? Comes as standard. GPS? The very latest model: one that could be programmed to leave Europe within a year.
“You asked for cuts to regulation and we have delivered,” he said. Either this bit of the speech had been written before he had remembered that he hadn’t actually remembered that HSBC had got away with making up its own rules on tax avoidance, or it was intended as some kind of incentive. Keep growing your business until it’s big enough for you to pay no tax at all.
Dave had shown business a way through the financial valley of death. Thanks to him, businesses were entering the promised land. Just take a ride and see what his little baby could do. But Dave wasn’t just there to talk the torque. Dave needed everyone in the room to walk the walk. The thing was, far too many people outside the room weren’t aware just how good the recovery really was. So what was needed was for everyone in the room to give their staff a bonus.
“It’s time for Britain to have a pay rise,” he declared triumphantly. Well not quite everyone. Obviously there was no need to give anyone in the public sector a pay rise because they were all fundamentally lazy and, worse still, more likely to vote Labour. But anyone who might conceivably vote Conservative was definitely worth a few more quid. So if everyone in the room could just dig a little deeper …
