General Election 2015: Better Capital founder Jon Moulton wants simplified legislation and free trade with Europe
ELECTION COUNTDOWN: 22 DAYS TO GO
Every day until the final week of the election campaign, we ask a business leader to say what policies would entice them to vote for a particular party.
JON MOULTON: FOUNDER OF BETTER CAPITAL
This is to the party of my upbringing and closest to my beliefs – the Conservative and Unionist Party as were.
■ I would definitely vote for you in the General Election – if I had a vote, but the Channel Islands are treated like colonial America and have neither votes nor representation at Westminster so this is from the heart – and I would love your policies to feature the following nuggets.
■ Please simplify things, have at your core a few strong principles and follow them.
■ Destroy incomprehensible legislation – especially on welfare and on taxation. The corporate tax code in the UK has grown enormously in the last five years. The main beneficiaries are high intellects (who could be doing something more useful) who get paid a fortune to advise on the immense complexities of UK tax.
■ Do the same with the bloated annual company accounts now being pointlessly produced and not read. Explain to the Financial Reporting Council that drowning is not a good remedy for thirst.
■ Be quick and decisive on Europe. Free trade is the thing we want most out of Europe and we really don’t want much else. Business and the country will do better with regulations matching our needs not those of a moribund Eurozone. Say so. Have a clearer policy on whether power should spread widely or not. Do you really think Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland should have different government structures from each other and from England? We seem to be drifting into pieces.
■ Finally undertake to hire fewer “mates”; there have been too many dud hires into positions of power for you not to have noticed that merit might be a better way of choosing people. Commit to at least halve the number of political special advisers in government and then you can spend more time governing and less time spinning.
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