The last few weeks have seen each of the main political parties hold their annual conferences across the UK with, it appears, the small advantage in the YouGov poll changing from a Conservative lead at the start to Labour by the end. Apart from the odd poor comments and badly delivered jokes by various of the speakers, there were no stunning outputs of note.

Meanwhile, back in the real world of business, the signs are that the UK economy may be picking up in some areas and that businesses that have made the painful adjustments to surviving in adverse times may start to reap benefits as growth and demand improves. There are however the same problems cited by small businesses in the difficulty to obtain funding, even though the “funding for lending scheme” has provided some respite, with many finding the lenders change the approval criteria periodically and the “credit teams” within their organisations appearing to be the arbiters of signing off on lending. It is also clear that the arm’s length approach, where the decision makers not having any “client relationship” fundamentally do not understand the businesses requesting support.

The appetite to start new businesses and grow them is there but there must be more positive support from those that control the supply of funds.