For over a decade, our tagline has been “to make Britain the best place in the world to start and grow a business.” We’re not alone. In their manifestos released this week, both the Conservatives and Labour claim verbatim to want the same thing. And yet, in truth, none offer enough in themselves to really deliver on that. You can read them for yourself: Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats, Green.

Maybe we should be thankful that none of the mainstream manifestos are too radical though. As the excellent Dan Neidle shows, there is plenty to criticise, but ultimately most – though by no means all – of the promises are reasonable. No party was going to commit to more than they felt was necessary – they will want some room for manoeuvre. After all, a lot of what is announced doesn’t actually make it through to law anyway.

Just ahead of the last election, we hosted a roundtable on the topic of immigration with a crossbench peer. Based on the discussion, I asked him who should get the ‘entrepreneurs’ vote’. He gave the very reasonable reply that people shouldn’t just vote based on immigration; nor should they just vote based on what is best for their business. There are other considerations such as education, health and crime.

Fixing these are just as important. They’ll shape the extent to which people want to live, work and raise a family in the UK. Get them right and we can ensure that the country becomes a more attractive place to remain, as well as to attract others from around the world who would like to live the ‘British dream’.

On this point, most politicians are currently missing a trick. Whether they like it or not, entrepreneurs are essential to delivering on nearly every area of policy: ed-tech entrepreneurs will deliver personalised learning, freeing up teachers’ time to mentor the next generation; health-tech entrepreneurs will increasingly create personalised medicine so that we can all live longer and healthier lives; and crime-tech entrepreneurs will ensure that the crime can be better predicted and combatted.

It’s not just about innovation though. More broadly, business owners of all sectors and sizes are the backbone of their communities. Their success reflects on all of us.

This is what’s missing from all manifestos. Yes, let’s make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a business – but to what end?

We can tell you. Making Britain the best place to start and grow a business is really about making the UK the best place in the world to live. That’s what entrepreneurs can deliver. If only we would let them.

AI Impact
Now for a bit of policy. We recently hosted an event at the House of Lords in collaboration with MDRx, a technology consultancy, on what a future Labour government’s potential approach to artificial intelligence (AI) might look like, and what its implications for productivity in both the private and public sectors could be. Attendees included top entrepreneurs innovating in AI, venture capital investors and policy experts.

In a blog post, our Derin Kocer says that “one of the key takeaways from the event was that neither Labour nor the Conservatives have a clear and coherent agenda on AI yet. This is largely because AI is a novel technology with still-unclear potential. However, overall, AI is an opportunity to enhance public services without significant increases in spending – an opportunity yet to be harnessed.”

Here’s MDRx’s write-up of the event.