Real Business

Enterprise is on the tip of everyone’s tongues this week and credit to Peter Jones, Tom Bewick and the Enterprise UK team for doing an amazing job in creating a huge buzz.

I agree with David Cameron that the compensation culture is getting out of hand, so I applaud Lord Young’s recent report, which advocates huge simplifications of burdensome and often absurd legislation.

You can barely move for all the networking events taking place for entrepreneurs and business owners. But most functions are missing one essential ingredient.

Fairness. What can we do to become a fairer society? Can business every be "fair"?

Legislation needs to change. And it needs to change in a way that is business friendly – are not so costly and onerous to businesses that the “reductions” become the problem in themselves.

Running this country is just like running one big business.

I saw that Lord Sugar has been quoted as saying of his new Apprentice contestants: “On paper you all look very good but then so does fish and chips”. I start recruiting this week and I have to say my fish and chips look pretty stale and my newspaper soggy.

Here’s a frightening statistic: violence among women aged 15-44 causes more death and disability worldwide than war, cancer, malaria or traffic accidents.

I'm going to stick my neck out here and proclaim this week that women bosses have it rough. And female leaders in the manufacturing sector have it rougher than most.

It's all very well telling people to stop working 60-hour weeks. But when do workaholic entrepreneurs realise it's time to get off the treadmill?

When furniture entrepreneur Jan Cavelle had to let several members of staff go over the summer, she was hit by a tidal wave of verbal abuse. Employment law meant she couldn't fight back.

Just how far has our obsession with style and image gone?

The heavily publicised picture of family businesses being strong on ethics, quality, filial love and long-term principles is, sadly, very rare. Believe me, I would know.

The public sector purse is shrinking. Unemployment’s rising. Are we missing something?

Come on Britain! Come on British government! Above all, come on British manufacturers. Our country needs us.