One of the many upsides to today’s political pigsty (aside from it being hilarious to watch) is that the MPs are making corporate Britain look like a model of good governance.
I don’t think it necessarily is and I don’t like the idea that Westminster should be run like a business. It’s supposed to be messy.
We are supposed to disagree, leaders are supposed to be held to account every day, whereas we let chief executives have at least three months in between trading statements to sort stuff out.
But for the moment, business lobby groups get to put out unusually colourful statements using words they normally shun like “shambles” and phrases such as “tearing their hair out”.
The big favour from the political class is to make such a hash of handling Brexit that we aren’t presently looking that closely at how businesses are coping with it (not many seem that on top of it, and it’s, erm, been happening for two years…).
For the flak trade, there’s a good opportunity to brag to clients that you’d never allow them to come across as this disorganised.
For now, business gets to be the adult in the room, rolling its eyes at the bickering children in government.
They should enjoy it while it lasts. Once the politics is resolved, businesses have to show that they’ve prepared for the outcome, whatever it is.
If it turns out they haven’t, no amount of PR will save them from a pasting.
