Chancellor: stick up for business
COMPANIES need to fight back against the “anti-business sentiment” that dominates current political discourse in the UK, chancellor George Osborne said yesterday.
Osborne urged business leaders to get their voices heard and counter the “politics of envy” that he feels has worsened since the coalition came to power in May 2010.
“If you are not out there, engaged in those arguments, then you are going to leave the field open to those people who want to fill that space, and who argue that companies… have got to pay more tax,” Osborne said.
The chancellor called upon the audience at the Times’ CEO summit to retaliate against “the politics that says it’s perfectly acceptable for the state to take half of all national income”.
Cutting the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p in the pound was unpopular but economically sensible, Osborne said, arguing that he has made “difficult decisions” to help business.