Yahoo Finance Don't pick 'wrong' leader in rushed contest, M&S chief tells Tories
The Conservative Party risks choosing the “wrong” leader if it rushes the process, the chairman of M&S has warned, amid hopes of a reversal of Boris Johnson’s anti-business tax raids.
Archie Norman, M&S chairman and former Tory MP, said candidates to replace Mr Johnson should be given time to set out their stalls in full, cautioning that the “front runner is rarely the winner”.
The intervention by top business leaders came as the leadership contest started to heat up after former Chancellor Rishi Sunak joined the race. A friend of business during the pandemic, Mr Sunak's more recent tax policies have not found favour.
Mr Norman, who was the MP for Tunbridge Wells from 1997 to 2005, said the risk of picking the wrong prime minister was “high” amid pressure from within the Tory Party for a swift resolution to the leadership question.
“Of course people want clarity and businesses want certainty, but rushing into solutions prematurely in the heat of the moment isn't necessarily the best idea when you're facing a much more profound problem than that,” he told The Telegraph.
“It's a bad look if it's a sense of a cabal, rather discredited MPs getting together hugger-mugger and appointing a mate.”
Business leaders urged Tory challengers to put forward a plan to spur growth and cut business taxes.
JD Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin said he wanted to see a “coherent medium-term strategy with fewer gun-slinger initiatives” in an attack on the Government’s economic record.
The president of the British Chambers of Commerce urged the next Prime Minister to reduce the business tax burden and develop an economic strategy.
Baroness McGregor-Smith said: “This is the best way to bring money back into the Exchequer, to pay for our NHS, our schools, the UK’s defence and to build resilient communities.”
Business leaders are pushing for a change of direction on taxes as they brace for the end of the “super deduction” and a huge increase in corporation tax to 25pc next year.
The Confederation of British Industry is already speaking to Conservative leadership candidates about the need for a “compelling growth plan that isn't ideologically driven”.
Tony Danker, director-general of the CBI, urged the Conservatives to back “business investment stimulus”, warning that the planned jump in corporation tax “doesn’t look right now at all”.
“Business investments is the thing you need to keep going because that's the thing that needs to start humming as inflation starts to fall,” he said.
Mr Danker warned that business confidence would take a dive if the Tory leadership contest took an “anti business or an anti-economy turn”.
“If this Government starts to become dysfunctional or the Tory party looks so divisive, then I think that will have a direct impact on confidence,” he said.
Boris Johnson has had a difficult relationship with corporate Britain, famously exclaiming “f--- business” in response to their concerns about Brexit. Relations with the Tory party have also been strained by the increase in corporation tax and windfall tax on oil and gas firms.
Mr Martin, the boss of pub giant JD Wetherspoon, attacked the Government’s economic record as Mr Sunak launched his campaign.
“If you have an economically incompetent government, paralysis can be a good thing,” he said. “Lack of paralysis meant a rollercoaster of government activity from Eat Out to Help Out to curfews, circuit breakers, moonshots and lockdowns, in concert with net zero and tax rises. A coherent medium-term strategy with fewer gun-slinger initiatives would be preferred.”
Brian Bickell, boss of FTSE 250 West End landlord Shaftesbury, said the wait for a leader is “frustrating” but “better in the long run” if it means installing a government “with some direction and purpose”.
He added: “Businesses felt very alienated from this Government.”
