Odds are that there will be an election in May this year. With the treasury struggling, all the parties are discussing cuts to public services. There has been criticism of the poor payback from publicly funded venture investments, as the media decides to apply 3 and 5 year timescales to funds that were both specifically intended to operate on longer timescales than commercial venture capital operations and to look at "impact" beyond pure financial payback. It looks as though companies fighting to start the businesses that will drag us from recession are going to be hindered, not helped, by whichever party comes to power - or holds the reins of power, if there is a hung parliament.
It is understandable, of course, that each interest group wants its interests catered for, and feels others should bear the pain of the cuts. However, manufacturing, and especially high value added manufacturing, actually has the capability to end the need for cuts longer term if it can be fostered in the right way. The devil is in the detail, of course - what exactly is the right way?
Whilst none of the parties has issued a coherent set of policies on this, and the current government has a patchwork quilt approach to the whole issue, at least the Tories have commissioned someone else to consider the problem. Buried under a host of other news items deemed of greater worth (footballing infidelity? who knows) Sir James Dyson of vacuum cleaner fame released a report he'd been asked to write by David Cameron. Much of what he says is unlikely to be adopted by any government that wants to retain favour with backers who do not share Dyson's convert zeal for engineering, and his disdain for its detractors. Ironically the Tory party has more than its fair share of those. For the rest of us it offers a tantalising glimpse of what could be, and should be, adopted, or at least considered, by those who lead the country, whatever the colour of their political ribbons.
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