“Confederation of Fools,” sighed Crispin Oddi, sentencing lawmakers fighting to dethrone Boris Johnson and lead the Tories.
The hedge fund founder, once one of Johnson’s biggest supporters, had just finished a long lunch with an old contact and was in devastating shape.
“Who would you really like to run a Tory party?” Oddi said. “Each of them blew it up. For some of them it came too early. I have nothing to do with Boris. He never pursued any policy. He was my friend until Brexit was over, and then he just cut me.
The Brexitist, who made hundreds of millions of pounds by betting against sterling after the 2016 EU vote, is a growing chorus of leading business figures – across the political spectrum – who have lost patience with the prime minister and the Tories.
“I expect politicians to be horrified and misbehaving, but even by their standards he is misbehaving,” Oddi said, disappointed that Johnson had not implemented the unimpeded Brexit he wanted to see, adding that he agreed with anger. “Distributed by former Prime Minister’s adviser Dominic Cummings.
Sir Philip Hampton, former chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, drug giant GSK and Sainsbury’s, said traditional good relations between big business and conservatives were becoming increasingly fragmented.
Business leaders have clashed with the government over dealing with Brexit and Covid in recent years, and the relationship has failed to recover from Johnson’s reported remark about “e ** k business” in 2018 to bosses’ concerns about a hard Brexit.
Hampton said: “Since the financial crisis, the Tories have been less clearly on the business side. Contingency tax [on energy giants] just emphasizes this. “Boris has become an electoral responsibility. Do the Conservatives think it will help them or harm them in the next general election? Most of the signs are that he is not helping them. “
Under the leadership of Johnson and his chancellor Rishi Sunak, the Tories are working to raise taxes, in part to fund the huge pandemic bill. With the corporate tax, which will start rising to 25% next April, this will contribute to the largest tax burden in the UK since the 1950s.
Hampton was also unconvinced by many of Johnson’s business policies, such as the privatization of Channel 4. “Channel 4 is a success story, not a burden on the government. It’s a bit like the scars on the crown of pint cups, it doesn’t seem like a major issue to be pursued. “
Phones4U founder John Codwell, a billionaire Tory billionaire donor, said he was disappointed that his repeated calls for investment in major infrastructure projects, apprenticeship training and a tax-free zone to create a “renewable energy city” remained deaf. .
He believes the Tory struggles have hurt attempts to rebuild the economy after Covid, and said “more focus is needed on unity and economic recovery”.
“We are almost certainly facing a recession,” he said. “The government has two choices: one is to continue working with the economy. The other is a visionary with a bright future.
“Instead of prudence, we need to borrow on an unprecedented scale and invest wisely, productively and profitably.”
Sir Martin Sorel, advertising CEO and chairman of S4 Capital, said Johnson “has not tried to cultivate a business like previous holders, such as [David] Cameron and [Nick] Clegg. “It doesn’t bode well, does it?” said Sorel, who has been glued to news coverage in recent days. “Business wants decisive action to tackle the problem, so I think it just raised the level of uncertainty and probably made people more hesitant.”
However, Johnson found support from two familiar figures. Conservative colleague and JCB chairman Lord Bamford, whose family and business have donated around £ 14 million in cash and gifts to the Conservative Party since 2001, was one of several donors to sign a letter Monday night urging Tory MPs to they give him their “steadfastness.” supports “.
He said in a statement: “In a time of enormous geopolitical uncertainty with the war in Ukraine and inflationary pressures threatening to undermine economic recovery after Covid in the UK, our country needs leadership and Boris Johnson is the best man to do the job. right now.
“We must remember that the decisions taken on the big issues, especially around the pandemic and Ukraine, were the right decisions. Now the Prime Minister must receive the support he needs to provide our country with the economy, making the most of our Brexit freedoms.
Meanwhile, Gerard Lyons, a former political adviser to Johnson when he was mayor of London, was optimistic that the prime minister could survive despite the huge uprising. “He needs to pull some political levers to maintain the confidence of his fellow MPs,” Lions said. “If he pulls the right levers and they work, he can fight in the next election.
“Initially, housing must be central in order to turn ‘generational rent’ into ‘generational purchase’. But it also needs to cope with the oppressed environment and reduce the overall tax burden. Whether this is waiting for the budget remains to be seen. I think that should happen before that. “
Paul Dales, the UK’s chief economist at Capital Economics, said Johnson could “double Brexit” and “loosen fiscal policy further to try to boost his political stance”.
He added: “This could lead to a weaker pound, a stronger economy and higher inflation in the long run, which would support our view that the Bank of England will raise interest rates from 1% to 3% in next year.
As the Tories party is in turmoil, businesses are frustrated and the cost of living crisis undermines consumer confidence, time is not on Johnson’s side.
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