CEOs will moan about Government behind closed doors — so why won't they tell it like it is in public?

Today Rob Perrins, the boss of Berkeley, one of our biggest housebuilders, tells it as he sees it. And good for him.

In blunt language he warns that a minefield of planning, tax and regulatory obstacles threatens to “drive investment away from urban areas, restricting growth and preventing homes and other tangible benefits being delivered.” 

We need more of that from the leaders of the wealth generating sector who for too long has been happy to moan behind closed doors about how much they feel betrayed by the Government but rarely have the courage to speak out in clear simple terms in public. 

A symptom of that are the now barely readable results announcements from the majority of quoted companies.

Too often they are an impenetrable soup of numbers, industry jargon and financial acronyms - topped by that dread phrase “in line with guidance” - with barely a hint of the broader social, economic and human context in which these major employer organisations operate.

Lord Wolfson at Next is a rare exception and his company’s financial statements are a treasure trove of insights into “what is really going on out there.”

But the majority of CEOs who run UK plc have become too risk averse, persuaded by a protective phalanx of advisers that it is better not to speak out for fear of upsetting the ministers and regulators of their sector.

They are happy to sub-contract their fears and concerns to trade bodies and business organisations that, with rare exceptions, do not carry the weight of the C-suite individuals actually running the show. 

Britain faces a chronic growth crisis that, ultimately, only the private sector can liberate the country from.

The boss class needs to find its voice and forcefully engage with the debate about the multiple long-term challenges facing the UK. Otherwise, the powers that be will continue to believe, in the famous words of one previous Prime Minister, that it can F*** business.