Motherhood and Apple Pie
November 12, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Tags: Alan Sugar, Business world, governance, Motherhood and apple pie, sarahnet Ltd, Sunday Times
I am a bit worried about Alan Sugar this week; I know he will be touched by my concern. There was a fairly unpleasant article on the Sunday Times Review last weekend. A female journalist found she disliked him very much; he was very rude and horrid. Well, he is very rude and, dear reader, as you know what an advocate of good manners I am, you may be surprised at my intervening on his behalf.
But honestly! The Sunday Times saw fit to send a non-business journalist to interview a supremely successful entrepreneur and Mr. Sugar kicked off soundly because she relied on press cuttings for her background and questions.
Press cuttings are all very well but they do tend to focus on ‘I’m an apprentice get me out of here’ or something and Sugar’s famous soundbites. ‘Don’t employ women, don’t employ pregnant women. WOMEN!!!! Who’s looking after the babies? ARGGGGH!’
But the nitty gritty of it: as a very small business, I don’t employ women (apart from me ). In fact – I don’t employ anyone on the grounds that it’s all too complicated. I hire my expertise in from the outside when I need it – but don’t want to run a payroll or HR systems that are essentially a drain on my business resources. Neither, thank you, do I want to outsource it all either. I think some credit should be given to Suralan (as he is known) that he chooses to employ anyone at all in these mad days.
Last year, I sat in on an interview where a large corporation is unable to sign off a compliance procedure that will guard against a high risk governance scenario as one of the team is unable or unwilling to remember to comply with the regulations. Trust me; they are not difficult regulations either. This is now an HR issue and as HR advises it’s a ‘Performance’ issue and not a ‘Disciplinary’ issue it will take a while to resolve – eternity probably or a disaster strikes.
But the story that I think the ST journalist missed was Alan Sugar’s statement that he saw the opposition as ‘Old Tory’ and that worried him. This was not developed by the journalist as she moved onto Women’s Issues that clearly interested her more and irritated Suralan profoundly.
The Old Tory label is one that I can’t help pinning to the Cameron crowd either. They are immensely privileged class of people and the recession is hurting them far less than anyone as they rightly manage their money very well and across generations. What concerns me is that the Old Tory (pre Thatcher) will forget about small businesses (who don’t make a great deal of money in the scheme of things) and that land and property is once again going to be thing to see people through in the new and difficult economic climate.
Whether you agreed with her or not, Mrs. Thatcher made a profound social change by enabling people to buy their houses. Regardless of whether they were council tenants or no, this allowed many more people other than the professional middle and upper classes, to live very well. The State nowadays, laments the lack of social mobility, but this is a reflection, I believe, that many people had enough to live comfortably where they were, even if they didn’t have vast estates or access to private education at their disposal. They no longer needed to leave back-to-back terrace house and their families in order to get on. By giving us access to money Mrs. Thatcher lessened (she hoped) the need of the State to support us.
But the economic health that underpinned that idea has vanished – almost overnight. We were not governed as we thought, by well thought out institutions who paid more than lip service to good governance; but by fantasists, optimists and dreamers who failed to understand the first rule of business and economics:
• Money is extremely valuable and is never that easy to acquire.
In the midst of these financial governors were extremely cynical and or corrupt people who certainly did understand the value of money and ensure it was directed into their accounts (off-shore).
The old Tory guard sneered at Thatcher – not because she was female (to be fair) but because she was TRADE and run the National Budget like a post-war household budget.
Anyone who has seen the late Mr. Heath’s house nestled comfortably next to Salisbury Cathedral will have no need to wonder about the cultural gulf that divided him from Grantham.
Nevertheless it was the female Thatcher that created the economic climate that allowed Alan Sugar to thrive, move from the market street and employ people – as he acknowledged in the interview.
Mr. Brown always struck me as a man from the seventies and bless him, he has created the economy to match. His very talented and able wife stays at home and nobly supports him while wearing very pretty frocks in a non sexy way. She puts brave little twitters on Twitter to say what a good man he is.
Cameron looks more Heath like with each passing day. I don’t know that he understands the complexities of small business and what they need to survive. I am sure he will sort out Inheritance Tax, repeal the anti-hunting laws and concentrate on the countryside and the needs of farmers. None of this is a bad thing. In fact the wilful neglect of our countryside under this government is shocking.
But both Brown and Cameron believe they know what’s best for me. I beg to differ. I know what’s best for me and I want get on and do it (in the way I suspect Alan Sugar does) without being interrupted by intrusive social policies and councils writing to ask how I now use my loft conversion. – and yes, they have. I plead again for governance, law, sound financial institutions and free trade. I fear we are being led astray by phantoms, the wars against ‘terror’, Swine Flu and old class battle lines will raise their heads again as the unions fight – not so much against poor, unlucky Brown, but the looming figures of the old Tory guard.
But what is interesting on both sides of the party is how the figure of the small businessman has rather mysteriously vanished from the political rhetoric and I wonder now in this changed climate if politicians on all sides would like us to be corporate employees where we are easily tracked, monitored and taxed.
I fear that we are moving into an era that believes we are facing BIG problems that governments think will require BIG solutions: rather as the 70s did. When corporate architects designed massive, concrete solutions and large institutions were going to solve the world’s problems. Oh yes, I remember now: nuclear power stations.
I can’t see a Tory government thinking any differently to be honest. The Old Tory view of a set world order with people in their place seems deeply engrained in the Cameron philosophy.
Reading between the lines of that interview last Sunday, I understand why Mr. Sugar might think there are other things to worry about than motherhood and apple pie. I worry too.
