The business of politics

David Young

16 May 2009

As London’s mayor, Sir Alan, you’d be a mere apprentice

A recent poll placed Sir Alan Sugar as the leading independent candidate to be the next mayor of London. His statement that ‘...observing the past mayor, Livingstone, and Boris, the current one, I’m confident that it would be a walk in the park for me’, tempted me, just for a moment, to wish him success — until I realised the likely effect on London. Why is it that so many successful businessmen think government is a part-time job and something they can handle with ease? Is that why so few have succeeded?

It is for others to say whether or not I succeeded in government: at least I was able to choose the time of my own departure without the press hounding me out. I did not go straight from business to government but became a civil servant first, on what turned out to be a training programme for Cabinet that lasted a full five and a half years. At the beginning I was quite lost. The Civil Service was a very different place, quite unlike anything I had known in the private sector, where I had worked in companies large and small and thought I knew what I was doing.

Management in business is comparatively simple. You think of an idea. You persuade those above you to let you put it into effect. If it succeeds, well and good, the credit is yours; but if it fails, you carry the can. You judge those reporting to you on the same basis. You can pick someone out of the pack, give him or her a chance, and if your choice does well they are on their way. If they fail they might be on the way out, but they had their chance. Everyone can judge how well you and they have done by the effect on the bottom line.

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