Why has no one in the Cabinet run a business?
It is in all our interests that politics remains an attractive proposition for people who have worked in business writes Kiki McDonough.
Four decades ago, I sat down with a pencil and a blank piece of paper thinking about my first jewellery design. The mood in the country in the mid-1980s was a hugely dynamic one. Margaret Thatcher was in Number Ten encouraging entrepreneurs to take risks and go for it – it felt like the sky was the limit.
Sadly, somewhere along the way we seem to have lost some of that entrepreneurial spirit. I wonder whether I would be able to build a successful global brand from scratch in the way that I did if I was starting out today.
I know six young people who have already packed up and gone. Four of them ran businesses: one has gone to the US, one to Portugal, one to France and one to Italy. These young people are our future and we need them here. It would help if we had a government that had the first clue about business, or at least listened to those that do.
Loading firms with more costs with a National Insurance hike and hundreds of pages of new regulation with the Employment Rights Bill is not working out well.
To add to that, we’ve had damaging tax announcements affecting family businesses and a fiasco over business rates.
The government has been forced into a U-turn over rates for pubs, but what about high streets, which are braced for sharp increases in bills? Many employers are paying more in rates than they are in rent.
Rather than temporary sticking plaster solutions aimed at individual sectors, we need real rates reform of the sort Labour promised before the last election.
All this is a symptom of something that concerns me greatly: the fact that no-one around the Cabinet table appears to have any experience of running or building a successful business.
It is in all our interests to make sure that politics remains an attractive proposition for people who have worked in the real world.
Young people need our support
The 21 per cent economic inactivity rate in the UK – the proportion of people aged 16 to 64 who are not in work and not looking for a job – represents over 9m people. For the younger generation, prolonged worklessness will lead to more poverty, poorer mental health and reduced social mobility. Helping to reintegrate this generation into work is a social and economic imperative.
Every school should have a room set aside as an office, where pupils can understand how a workplace runs and learn about entrepreneurship. I believe we need an effective ‘traineeships’ programme for 18- to 24-year-olds and to reintroduce the pandemic Kickstart scheme that offered employers a financial incentive to give young people at risk of unemployment work placements that will often lead to jobs. I’m pleased to see ministers offering a new Youth Guarantee of paid work – but waiting for 18 months before intervening is too long.
Over-egg the pudding?
I don’t normally eat puddings, with one exception. I cannot resist Christmas pudding and I buy enough so that I can eat it throughout January and February. Sometimes I have two or three on the go at once. There is something about the heady mix of dried fruit, spices and brandy that is totally irresistible, and I love the ritual of lighting it and enjoying the blue fire dancing on its surface. The only other person I’ve met who shares my foible and eats Christmas pudding all year round is Richard E Grant.
Shadowlands on stage
Shadowlands, the story of C.S. Lewis’s unexpected love with American poet Joy Davidman, is my favourite film of all time. I cannot wait to see Hugh Bonneville take on the role at the Aldwych Theatre alongside Maggie Siff as Joy. I met Hugh through Rick Stein, who is a great friend of my partner, the food writer Matthew Fort. Anthony Hopkins is the hardest of acts to follow, but I know Hugh can pull it off.
Pirouettes and peridot
I’m finalising a new collection and ballet is inspiring me as it always does. When I started the business, no-one was mixing coloured gemstones together until I went to see Sleeping Beauty and the Spring Fairy was in a pale blue and green tutu. I thought it was such a beautiful combination that I came back and made a pair of blue topaz and peridot earrings. It’s still one of our best-selling colour combinations 25 years later.
Kiki McDonough is the founder and creative director of jewellery brand Kiki McDonough