Despite all this effort the overwhelming majority of the establishment have really no idea. (Image: PA)
The remarkable Elon Musk has conquered entrepreneurship and rocket science.
By contrast, while they may be forgiven on rocket science, the vast majority of our political class, mandarins, quangocrats, media bods and even corporates don’t get entrepreneurship, they find the idea of enterprise harder than rocket science.
For years the Independent Business Network (IBN) of family businesses, of which I am Chairman, have been producing papers, reports, newspaper pieces and media interviews explaining what creates economic growth and why growth is so important.
For decades before that I had various roles: DG of the British Chambers of Commerce, economic spokesperson of the CBI , Director of the British Retail Consortium, Chairman of the Vote Leave Business Council, all which were concerned with promoting the building blocks of economic growth.
I have created wealth in many corporate roles, doing business on every continent and as a founder entrepreneur of a science tech business, essentially a family business, always lobbying governments on enterprise.
And yet, despite all this effort the overwhelming majority of the establishment have really no idea.
Neither does , Rachel Reeves nor the front bench. And His Majesty’s Treasury department is not much better, which is why the economy has crashed and growth is nowhere to be seen.
The country is in such a parlous state I feel obliged to spell it out once again in the hopes that the establishment can overcome their vested interests and embrace a learning curve that they seem to find unpalatable or unfathomable, of which they are wilfully ignorant or just plain ignorant.
Listen up, it is not the government that creates growth, government overwhelmingly consumes only. It can help to facilitate growth but growth comes from the private sector.
This is true because growth stems from innovation and enterprise , hard work and risk taking.
Only those who have put their entire worldly goods on the line to invest in themselves know what it feels like to pursue enterprise and generate wealth.
The roller-coaster ride of fighting for sales, investment and staying afloat amongst an ocean of bureaucracy that characterises new business and that is for successful businesses. Failure should be a lesson but in Britain is often crushing and terminal.
Those who do not turn a penny without inventing the new way, the new product, the new service. Who do not earn a crust without working all hours to produce, to close the deal, make the sale.
Not for them is there a pay package at the end of the month while working from home. No gold-plated, public sector pension. It is a case of: be enterprising, or starve.
In order to stimulate this wealth and job creation, which are growth-generating activities, it is necessary to have access to finance for investment and an incentive to take risks and work hard. For this there must be profit.
Profit is good, profit is essential for enterprise. It is the primary purpose of business and other demands placed upon business, on entrepreneurs, is a distraction and a barrier to profit. All government can do is to remove the barriers as much as possible.
Governments, of course, want taxes in order to fund the things they wish to do to get re-elected and to maintain power, the motivational drug of politicians and mandarins.
But in order to keep up with these demands economic growth is essential and therein lies the conundrum, particularly for governments, of how to maximise revenues and growth.
It isn’t rocket science. The most successful economies have been those that have reduced their tax burdens to below 30% of GDP. Reduce taxes, especially on business and on work, is the first lesson. Then there will be profit and profit will facilitate investment, enterprise and hard work.
Remove the burden of red tape by deregulation as much as possible. This is not just better regulation or stemming the flow of new regulation, but actually cutting existing regulation to free up business from the distraction, constraints and cost that it creates.
The cumulative effect of the multiple minutia of regulatory burden is “treacle”, dragging down innovation and growth.
In order to cut tax and cut regulation it is necessary to reduce the size of the state, a state sector which in the UK has grown in the last 20 years. Cut departments, quangos, regulators and take some risks in doing so.
Unless we are able to grow our GDP per capita, the people of Britain will become relatively poorer year on year and will fall even further behind the rest of the world.
It must be recognised that this is currently exacerbated by migration which is adding 1.5% to the population each year. That means economic growth needs to be at least 1.5% per annum just to standstill in terms of GDP per capita, all the more reason why it is essential that migrants add more than the average wealth creation to the economy.
It is quite useless aiming to tie ourselves to the even more anaemic economic performance of the EU, when the rest of the world is growing at in excess of 3.5% per annum.
Long-term decline will be very unpleasant, perhaps even ultimately affecting national security, freedom and independence for ourselves and future generations.
It is unacceptable that any government is prepared to be declinist. That we should be expected to accept the cosy version of reality.
Government must act to generate growth but that means recognising what works; tax cuts, reducing the size of the state and deregulation, however unpalatable these things might be to groups of vested interests.
John Longworth is Chairman of the Independent Business Network of family businesses, an entrepreneur, businessman and former an MEP