Spirits are rightly running high in the Labour Party. Victory in the Tamworth by-election, victory in the Mid Beds by-election, and most importantly of all, victory in our latest batch of opinion polling. Specifically, we asked entrepreneurs for their views on which politicians best understand what their businesses need to succeed – and by far and away, it was those with red rosettes pinned to their chests who came up on top.
Forty-three percent of founders agreed that Labour politicians know what they require, against 26% who disagreed (giving a ‘net approval’ score of +17%). To rub salt in the wounds of their Conservative counterparts, more entrepreneurs believed Tory politicians do not understand what their businesses need (37%) than do (35%), giving a net negative figure overall (-2%).
Before they get carried away, however, it’s perhaps worth pausing for a moment. Despite Labour’s impressive lead, still less than half of entrepreneurs believe that the party which looks set to lead the next government properly gets business. What’s more, we also found out that scepticism about all parties’ entrepreneurial acumen dwindles when we look specifically at responses from founders running smaller operations. If our polling tells us anything at all, it’s that entrepreneurs still feel there’s a disconnect between their world and Westminster – encouragement enough to us that we need to keep banging the drum for policy reforms to ensure Britain’s startup scene is as vibrant and successful as possible. (More on this later.)
The numbers above were the results of just one of many questions which we asked to underpin our latest publication. Alongside the leading law firm Mishcon de Reya, we launched our inaugural Risk Readiness Report – which will be an annual fixture, aiming to better understand entrepreneurs’ thoughts and feelings towards various aspects of risk. As well as the political stuff, we quizzed founders on AI, raising investment, regulators, future risk expectations, and more. You can read the report in full by clicking here, get the TL;DR on X, and I’ve written about it for CityA.M. if you’re still keen for more. (As ever, we’re eager to hear what you think about our work, and please do consider sharing among your own networks – it really does help us to get the message out.)
Smarten up
Regulation can make or break a startup. In extremis, if what you’re selling is prohibited, your business simply cannot operate (not legally, at least). Short of this, regulations can still fatally encumber entrepreneurs – by raising the costs of doing business and making otherwise viable ventures uneconomical.
Of course, plenty of regulations exist for a reason. Well-designed rules protect consumers, workers, the environment, and so on, and society as a whole is better off for them. But others have less logical origins. Decades of academic work from ‘public choice’ economists have, to my mind, convincingly explained why we tend to get the regulations we do, which serve special purposes rather than the collective interest. Less cynically, regulations often get introduced with the best intentions, but can quickly end up backfiring. (Our Adviser Sam Dumitriu wrote a great piece on this last year.)
Successive governments have long sought to bear down on red tape, and the current one is no different. This week, the Department for Business and Trade issued a call for evidence about delivering a smarter regulatory landscape. They “are particularly interested in success stories and areas for improvement on regulatory agility; proportionality; and consistency of approach,” and want “to understand any further steps we can take to reform the existing stock of regulation on the UK statute book.”
As followers of our work will know, recommending regulatory tweaks to enable easy win-wins is something we pride ourselves on, so we’re looking forward to feeding into the consultation. But we can’t do it alone – many of our best ideas come from the entrepreneurs we work with, who are at the coal face of abiding by rules which hold them back for no apparent reason.
So, if there’s a regulation that’s stifling your success, do let us know. Readers will also remember last week’s call for ideas to go into our manifesto for entrepreneurs – consider this a reminder to drop us an email with your thoughts.
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