Stephen Bush: Thanks. What I find funny about it is he and his inner circle love to talk about how things work “in business”, well, I don’t know of a single business where the top team is as detached from what happens on the shop floor as Rishi is from the services *he runs*!

Today’s newsletter: some thoughts on Rishi Sunak’s election campaign, and the decisions, in the last six weeks, but also the last two years that made it so:

Why has Rishi Sunak’s campaign been such a disaster?www.ft.com The PM’s blunders worsened his chances amid a backdrop of crumbling public services and party fundraising struggles

You make a good point about simply not using any of the deteriorating services the rest of us have to deal with.

Thanks. What I find funny about it is he and his inner circle love to talk about how things work “in business”, well, I don’t know of a single business where the top team is as detached from what happens on the shop floor as Rishi is from the services *he runs*!

watching my kids’ end of term concert the other week, the phrase “he wants to be conductor but can’t be bothered to learn an instrument” popped into my head, and immediately it fitted for Sunak. No willingness to learn any ropes, just a determination that he should be in charge.

I keep thinking about the interviews where he keeps trying to make schools a dividing line: visibly has no grip of the cross-party history of that policy, just an unthinking “Tories good, Labour bad” view of how policy “must” work.

Not the first Tory PM to fit that mold, either.

I really think that the Tories detachment from actually existing business is a huge part of their problem. Big ticket items like Brexit, obvs, but also on so many culture issues - flexible working, bullying - try consistently sound deranged to anybody with experience of a modern workplace.

Like, I think if I was a CEO, naturally inclined to vote Tory, and I heard them attacking Starmer for blocking out *one night a week* for family time, I think my response would just be "these people are fucking clowns"

All of the Tories' business stuff since Brexit has been LARPing. None of them would know an actual business decision if it smacked them in the face.

Oh god, 100% this. Whenever I hear any Tory MP talking about business, all I can hear is the Fry And Laurie sketches about business. I just need someone to shout “Dammit, Marjory!” and the illusion will be complete… youtu.be/nHuR5eslKhQ?...

Fry Laurie --- MARGORYyoutu.be Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie - boardroom shenanigans.

A lot of it is like the rest of their politics, stuck in a past that sort-of existed when their voters were 20-somethings (but even then wasn't universal).

Lots of people who talk about “business” are straight up fantasists. It’s a sort of code.

"Fuck Business" summed it all up nicely

Close all MBA courses

It seems fairly common in the tech industry, I would say? Which is also, these days, an industry built on bullshit.

you can distrupt from anywhere, if anything the more informed you are the less disruptive your ideas and leadership will be

Heard a story that when Maude ran the cabinet office he tried to get every minister to do an Agile training course so they understood how tech sector projects worked. It didn't happen. Some of his channel shift etc work with GDS was flawed but he was at least interested in how things could be done.

Actually, it's going to be interesting to see how many Tory ex-MPs end up in tech. I feel like it's going to be quite a few.

Investment banks

No, I think, as with “tech”, there can be a misalignment about what people feel the shop floor is or should he and what the executives perceive it to be (Google being the ur example: everyone bar Google thinks it is a discovery engine, they think it’s about selling you).

*cough* The Post Office *cough*

Absolutely not (having worked at a couple).