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UK entrepreneurs head for parliament

Hundreds of UK entrepreneurs are planning a mass assault on parliament by running for office themselves, it has been reported.

According to the Financial Times, there has been a mobilisation consisting of nearly 3,000 new applications to the Conservative party, and a third have come from business owners. This figure is usually only around one fifth, the paper claims.

One of the parliamentary hopefuls includes former dragon Rachel Elnaugh, who made headlines after the collapse of her gift package business Red Letter Days. Elnaugh told the FT she had applied to the Conservative party after meeting David Cameron at a meeting for female entrepreneurs.

She said: “We need the visionary leadership of entrepreneurs, not that old-style politics.”

Another entrepreneur considering running is James Hibbert, founder of tailoring service Dress2Kill. He told the FT he would only consider running if he could use the skills he had learned in business.

However, there were also concerns expressed from the UK’s entrepreneurial camp on the merits of business owners getting into politics.

Duncan Cheatle, who started business networking group The Supper Club said politics was the ‘antithesis of everything’ his members were about.

He added: “Once you get into parliament, you have to compromise your ideals in order to achieve a consensus. For most entrepreneurs this is their worst nightmare.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .