How do businesses operate?

I often wonder if it should be a rule that an MP must have worked in a business before they can become an MP.  Why do I say that?  Well, at the end of the day an MP is voting to spend money created by businesses.  And shouldn’t they understand how the productive sector of the economy actually works before they spend the money it generates for spending on worthy things like treating the sick, caring for the elderly and infirm, and yes, helping those overseas who live in such dire poverty no one on these islands could ever imagine befalling them.

You do wonder some times when you have Labour’s new policy chief, Andrew Fisher (who supported the Class War party at the last election),  saying “If a company isn’t paying its staff £10 per hour...” you should “ban them from paying dividends to shareholders".

Never let it be said the Labour party doesn't have a sense of humour. However, people who mortgage their houses to set up business didn’t quite see the funny side.   Simon Walker of the IoD described Mr Corbyn’s proposed assault on the relationship between a private company and its shareholders as “bizarre and damaging”, adding “paying a dividend is not an immoral act".

Don’t get me wrong, a labourer is worth of their hire.  But the problem is Mr Corbyn’s concern for the low paid, while worthy, doesn’t take into account, (or horror of horrors, is unaware), that dividend payments are a vital contribution to pensions or that the prospect of such a payment ensures continued investment in British companies. It is, in short, the kind of policy idea that could only have come from someone who has never once had cause to consider how businesses operate.

Clearly none of the Labour front bench do.  So it looks like, fail to pay the £10 rate under a Corbyn-led government, the heavy hand of the state will essentially seize your company.

The idea that such an environment would be conducive to job creation is so insane it could only have come from someone who doesn’t understand how businesses function.