Stability is what businesses are crying out for – but can the Tories be trusted to deliver it?

Politics is falling apart somewhat. Let me set out why it matters,” wrote the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) director general, Tony Danker, atop a short Twitter thread.

And how. A couple of hours later – less than that in fact – prime minister Liz Truss was gone. Danker’s thread didn’t need changing. In fact, it looks all the more relevant.

The CBI chief noted that in 10 days, the country is looking at the unpalatable choice of cutting public services and/or raising everyone’s taxes to restore stability and credibility with lenders. What will Jeremy Hunt do? Will he still be chancellor? He has said he is not standing for PM this time around. Whoever is handed that job may have ideas of their own.

Danker rightly points out that the most important principle should be protecting those in our society who need it most: “That is fundamental.”

Hear, hear. Fancy a job in government, sir? There was more. Danker – again correctly – identified the way out of the horrible dilemma the nation faces: more growth. The “growth, growth, growth” the outgoing PM said she wanted before the disastrous mini-Budget. Danker didn’t say that last bit. It comes from me.

To deliver, the CBI boss opines, Britain desperately needs investment. Yes! Yes! Trouble is, while lots of businesses have the money ready, and the plans on the board, “by my estimates, about half of them won’t press the button until this political mess clears up and we have a clear government plan and market stability”.

Of course they need that. Why would anyone put money on the line if those in Westminster are going to go and screw it up for everyone based on some ideological crusade/their obscene personal vanity/the desire to get a good write-up from some areas of the press?

It’s worth noting that the CBI hasn’t asked for any of the measures which were supposed to help business in the Truss/Kwarteng mini-Budget. There aren’t loud calls for corporation tax cuts, or an end to the cap on banker bonuses, given the country’s fiscal situation.

Businesses had been quite keen on at least some of the “supply side” reforms floated by Truss. Facilitating a little more immigration – one of her vanishingly small number of good ideas – would certainly help with the labour shortages Britain is suffering from. And could help to ease the problems created by a national skills gap.

Planning reform is another idea in favour with the business lobby, although it’s probably tilting at windmills there. Even Tory MPs who recognise the value of reform in principle tend to recoil at the prospect if it threatens to have an impact on their leafy constituencies.

The sense Danker has tweeted makes it very clear that the government would more effectively serve the British people, and the economy, if it were to pay rather closer attention to people like him and rather less to some of the think tanks favoured by Truss and too many of her colleagues.

This should not be read as a suggestion that the CBI should have things all its own way. Clearly it shouldn’t. It is an important voice, but it is just one of many. Look at Britain’s labour force. Its organisations – so unions – also have ideas which ought to be given more of a hearing as opposed to being dismissed as the “militant” outpourings of Truss’s notional anti-growth coalition. Sticking up for members? What heinous crime is this?

They too would likely welcome some stability, a commodity that has been in short supply, as well as a government with the intent to provide it. This cause would be greatly assisted by securing a better relationship with Britain’s biggest trading partner. That would be the EU, of course. Danker did not mention that, but its importance cannot be overstated.

It is a cause that certainly would not be served by the return of one Boris Johnson, with reports that he may be contemplating bulldozing his way back into No 10 with the wreckage he left still all over the floor. Johnson 2.0 would be the recipe for more chaos, more division, more stupidity. What he certainly wouldn’t do is deliver the credibility, and thus the investment, Britain desperately needs. This should go without saying. But that is the time we live in.

The markets, whose understandably horrified reaction to that mini-Budget will live long in the memory, took the resignation of Truss in their stride. The pound strengthened a bit, which was nice. But there won’t be any major moves just yet. They’re watching and waiting, just as the rest of us are. The next leader of the UK will again be chosen through an undemocratic decision by a vanishingly small number of people.

UK plc’s success – or lack of it – very much depends on that decision. The stability Danker calls for? Given the Tories’ dismal record, it might not be achievable until such time as the British people are granted a say through a general election.