Yards from where W.G. Grace once thwacked willow against leather, the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership (‘LEP’) today held its annual conference at Somerset County Cricket Ground. Mercifully shorter than a Test Match, the LEP meeting provided an opportunity for businesses, local authorities, academic institutions and civil society to come together and review the state of the economic pitch on which we play.
These are curious times for those of us captaining businesses rather than sports teams. The post-Thatcherite consensus saw a reliably level field under Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron: fiscal, monetary and trade conditions were remarkably consistent, companies could plan their game confident that they knew the rules by which it would be played. Now, those previously on the outfield – both right and left – are proposing radical changes which could queer the pitch for home players and visiting sides alike. Could their proposals make for a better game? It must be possible, though it would be good to know what game that is before we take to the field.
Does this matter? Well, the latest update from the Bank of England showed that business investment is 20% below the level of their May 2016 forecast. It’s hard to plan ahead, to take the risk of spending heavily on new development, equipment or infrastructure, if you don’t know whether in a few years’ time we may be facing collectivisation of robots or highly adverse terms of trade with our major markets. Of the four-hundred attendees at the LEP conference, 73% felt that the downsides of Brexit outweighed the benefits. Those people could all be wrong, of course, but if that’s what businesses believe, they’re unlikely to commit to increased spending.
In any challenging environment - the late 1970s, wars, the Great Depression – however, business goes on. Those of us playing the game don’t make the weather, nor do we roll the pitch; but we must pad-up, stand to the crease and face down whatever googlies the hand of fate or the vagaries of politics may bowl our way.