Economics focus: Business gets impatient for growth

Sooner or later all governments have to endure the impatience even anger of the business community. Margaret Thatcher now thought of as the patron saint of enterprise faced it in the early 1980s when she was accused – with some justification – of destroying manufacturing.

Sir Michael Edwardes who ran British Leyland the troubled car-maker blamed the government for allowing the pound to rise too high saying memorably that if North Sea oil was to blame as ministers claimed it would be better to ‘leave the bloody stuff in the ground’. And so it has gone on even when the economy has been growing...