Corporate chiefs will be asking Labour to refund them for a £3,000-a-head business day at the party’s conference which they said was “bleak” and a “waste of money”.
Labour boasted it had hundreds of paying executives attending its largest-ever business day, where top corporate figures got to hear from the prime minister, chancellor and other cabinet ministers.
But at least three firms told The Times they would be asking for their money back after they got “minimal time” with ministers and were “talked [at] from the stage for four hours”.
They’re really not very competent, are they? This Labour lot. Not even able to shake down business for the price of access….
I generally feel this about politicians of all parties, perhaps even globally. Whether you agreed with their politics or not, they seemed like more serious people with a basic level of competence. Like David Lammy would never have been Foreign Secretary in the Wilson or Blair years.
I think the power declined, and the people with it. Like we’ve got a whole lot of women and gays in politics. Rather than men who can attract mistresses. It’s not because women could beat those men, the men stopped doing it, went into business.
Any business leader/owner who expects to get anything useful out of a Labour government deserves to be fleeced.
This reminds me of the time when my then boss, a Further Education college Principal, was lured to a Labour conference with the promise of hearing about Labour’s exciting plans for F.E. from Sion Simon, their new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the sector. I don’t know whether he had to pay for the privilege, but he did have to get up at stupid o’clock and travel a long way.
He came back fuming, saying it was a complete waste of time and that Simon had zero new ideas, no plans for change, and spent most of the time telling the audience how Welsh he was.
I’d say Labour are exhibiting what is, these days, a very common mindset. They want the money so they feel they’re entitled to it. That they didn’t deliver what they promised in return for the money is irrelevant. “The agreement was, we get the money.” So good luck those hoping for refunds.
You saw the same mindset with the Tories. “We want your votes so we we expect you to vote for us. But don’t expect us to deliver the government you want.” Then they’re surprised they don’t get repeat customers.
Simon Neale
Sion used to write for the Evening Standard. You seem to have rather aptly described one of his columns.
@WB
I’ve met Lammy. I got the impression he went into law & then politics because couldn’t hack it as a drug dealer. Hasn’t got the smarts.
BiS – yeah, I would never buy drugs from David Lammy.
You want a drug dealer you can trust.
Wester Bloke…….The last three Chinese presidents have had Engineering backgrounds, Maybe not a bad idea for our Western politicians, seeing as how they are usually Lawyers or similar, used to dealing in words and dreams, not ever building something concrete such as a business .
Having met Reeves on more than one occasion I was struck by how driven she is by ideology over and above critically assessing data/facts and reaching a considered conclusion. At the time (and this was nearly two decades ago) she was clearly extremely ambitious but also intensely distrustful of any commercial/private entity or market consensus as opposed to ensuring strict government control.
At the time I wrote her off as a typical civil service graduate viewing the civil service/government as being the centre of the world. I dont think she has grown out of this.
It’s the trade union party so of course they want maximum money for minimum work. Maybe modern corporate bosses are just too young to remember the bad old days.
“talked [at] from the stage for four hours”.
What? That doesn’t sound like Labour at all…
Marius wrote Any business leader/owner who expects to get anything useful out of a Labour government deserves to be fleeced.
This^
Any business leader/owner who expects to get anything useful out of a Labour government deserves to be fleeced.
What about a £ billion bung for my ‘green’ business? Cheque made payable to “Lord Deben”.
I recently listened to a podcast about Xi, he may have obtained an engineering degree along the way but his career is one of straightforward apparatchik.
https://engelsbergideas.com/podcast/ei-talks/ei-talks-the-making-of-xi-jinping-with-michael-sheridan/
I went to university (same college, same year) with Sion Simon. He played a loud mouthed Brummie at the time.
@Aa
There seem to be quite a lot of us Withered Lilies on here 🙂