Business Growth Development Consultant

Right from the get go I’ve been a supporter of a hung parliament for this present time and especially a Tory and Lib Dem coalition.  In fact I changed my vote strategically to purposely balance votes on the Conservative and Lib Dem side and hopped that others would follow.

I feel there could not have been a better time than now for a hung parliament to give us the much needed focus on those important debates that will be the deciding factors in navigating our way out of this mess.

This is especially so when you consider the lowly view that the majority of people have of politicians and the helplessness many feel with their lack of governing ability and childish antics.

And for most businesses with a management team or board of directors this is now the time to put personal issues and individual campaigns to one side and to work together, taking rounded decisions in the best interests of everybody, not just a one sided view.

This is not the time for beliefs, it is the time for truths, so here are a few political truths as to why many fear a hung parliament based on what I see is misplaced belief.

With so much of the media and staunch party voters including political figures such as Ken Clarke and Roy Hatttersley warning of impending disaster and those that have lived through hung parliaments wishing they never had to do it again, it’s no surprise that things look bad.

Veterans blame the lack of a governing majority for the problems during the last hung parliament in the 70’s, but many forget that Ted Heath of the Conservatives had been prime minister for the first three and a half years and faced traumas as great as Wilson and Callaghan’s time.

The 70’s were doomed to be problematic because of much greater issues than those in the Commons at the time. In fact it was the minority Labour government that eventually managed to introduce some significant social reforms which saw things coming under control by the late 70’s.

Whenever there are landslide majorities or victories, all attention switches to the drama that ensues as party figures bravely battle to win votes.  It’s yet another gladiatorial set of high drama, much the same that football provides for many, diverting them away from the realities of what really needs to be done.

It creates hope and raises expectations, causes unhealthy alliances to be formed and takes peoples focus away from what’s going on right under their noses and the needs for change even when the party just seems like it will never end.  Eventually they start believing their own hype and stop doing what they promised, the end is insight.

If there had been a hung parliament in 1997 a revolution of sorts would have followed.  Blair would have been forced to introduce electoral reform which would have brought together the progressive forces in British politics at that time.

Now is the time to bring together the forces in your business, its people, its customers and suppliers and to work together for the best interests of everybody.  Listen and act objectively and don’t base what you do on beliefs composed of greed and fear.

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