IQ-Magazine-Issue-14

IQ business overview
BUSINESS
OVERVIEW
IQ Magazine discusses the effect that the
new government has had on businesses in
the months following the election…and
how this will change in the coming years
Now that we have fixed terms for Parliaments in the
UK, the notion of a ‘snap’ election could well be
a thing of the past. No longer are we likely to see
a three-week scramble for votes, with all the issues
glossed over quickly, leaving little room for debate.
But not everyone is happy. Many say the general
election campaign began with the party conferences
held in the Autumn and continued, unabated
almost, for going on eight months. And that, they
felt, was too much.
There was a lot to think about, though. People were
expected to make a judgement on the first coalition
government for more than 70 years. They had to
make a judgement on a relatively untested leader of
the opposition and decide whether he would make
a competent Prime Minister. They had to decide
whether they’d had enough of the present Prime
Minister or whether they wanted him to keep the
keys to Number 10.
So that long campaign was enough, surely, to
examine every minute detail of every policy that
could possibly be suggested. Right? Well, not exactly.
The economic indicators were all pointing in the
right direction. Under the coalition, unemployment
was falling and inflation had dropped to zero, even
going into negative territory just before people
headed for the ballot boxes. The economy was
growing quite healthily and was regularly topping
international comparison tables. If ever there was a
reason to vote according to what’s in your wallet or
your purse, this was the election which would prove
that.
Few pundits would have predicted a Conservative
majority. Even fewer would have predicted the
Labour Party’s rout. And nobody would have
expected quite such a collapse of the Liberal
Democrats to the point that they could arrive at
issue 14 | page 8