{"id":878457,"date":"2025-12-17T23:28:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T05:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/17\/labour-accused-of-shocking-lack-of-understanding-of-business-by-cbi-boss\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T23:28:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T05:28:18","slug":"labour-accused-of-shocking-lack-of-understanding-of-business-by-cbi-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/17\/labour-accused-of-shocking-lack-of-understanding-of-business-by-cbi-boss\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour accused of ‘shocking’ lack of understanding of business, by CBI boss"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By JOHN-PAUL FORD ROJAS, DEPUTY BUSINESS EDITOR<\/a> <\/span><\/a> <\/p>\n

Updated:<\/span>

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The head of the CBI has accused Labour of a \u2018shocking\u2019 lack of understanding of business.<\/p>\n

Rupert Soames said members of the government found it hard to put themselves \u2018into the shoes\u2019 of running companies.<\/p>\n

And he said he had never been taken in by Labour\u2019s so-called prawn cocktail offensive when the party wooed bosses ahead of the election.<\/p>\n

The comments come days after official figures showed the economy shrank in October in the latest blow to the government\u2019s faltering growth hopes.<\/p>\n

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Soames said Labour failed to understand the difficulties involved in employing people<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Keir Starmer has claimed that growth is Labour\u2019s number one mission but business leaders have become increasingly alarmed as the party piles on tax hikes and prepares to impose new workers\u2019 rights on employers.<\/p>\n

Soames, who is outgoing chairman of the Confederation of British Industry, told the BBC: \u2018When I go and meet MPs and ministers I find it really, really shocking how little understanding they have of the world of business.\u2019<\/p>\n

He suggested that Labour politicians often descended into a cynical \u2018they would say that wouldn\u2019t they\u2019 view of business leaders\u2019 opinions who they believe are \u2018incapable of being anything other than rampant capitalists\u2019.<\/p>\n

Soames added: \u2018I do sense that this government is one that finds it hard to put itself into the shoes of large and medium size and small businesses.\u2019<\/p>\n

He said ministers failed to understand the difficulties involved in employing people.<\/p>\n

\u2018It does disappoint me that on one hand the government has very few people who have worked in business in a way that has involved them employing people and understanding that and on the other hand they translate that into saying, we won\u2019t listen to the people who have.\u2019<\/p>\n

Soames said that he \u2018never believed\u2019 in Labour\u2019s pre-election charm offensive unlike other \u2018business people who were seduced by the prawn cocktail circuit\u2019.<\/p>\n

He added: \u2018I sat in countless meetings where shadow ministers were sitting there with their notebooks and dutifully taking down on the pearls of wisdom that were coming from business people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I don\u2019t think they were really listening at all. A lot of that was in my view quite performative.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JOHN-PAUL FORD ROJAS, DEPUTY BUSINESS EDITOR Updated: 09:13 EST, 15 December 2025 The head of the CBI has accused Labour of a \u2018shocking\u2019 lack of understanding of business. Rupert Soames said members of the government found it hard to put themselves \u2018into the shoes\u2019 of running companies. And he said he had never been<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":878458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[549,26816],"tags":[6247,43102],"class_list":{"0":"post-878457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-accused","8":"category-labour","9":"tag-accused","10":"tag-labour"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}