A meeting between the inventor and industrialist who is one of Britain’s richest men and the government ended in acrimony, with the finance minister inviting Dyson to try entering politics himself if he thinks he can do better. But the leader of the Nigel Farage-founded Reform UK party Richard Tice says the billionaire should get in touch if he’s interested in working with a low tax, pro-business party.
Sir James Dyson, who invented the bagless vacuum cleaner in the 1980s and turned it into a multi-billion dollar business met with Chancellor (finance minister) at Downing Street last week and, according to a report on the meeting by The Times newspaper the talk soon got side-tracked from its intended purpose to a dust up about the government’s failures. Per the report, Dyson is said to have told the government it should cut taxes and reduce the size of the state, giving the flourishing industry of ‘diversity managers’ within government bodies as an example of waste to cut.
The Financial Times reports a source who said of the meeting: “It was an awful meeting, to the extent that Hunt told Dyson: ‘If you think you could do a better job, why don’t you just stand for election?’.”
In a statement given to Breitbart London, leader of the Reform UK party Richard Tice — formerly Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party — said Dyson could help change the course of the country.
Tice said of Reform, which latest polls show is now snapping at the heels of the Conservatives: “We would welcome the support of Mr Dyson. He is a world beating entrepreneur, that faced at first hand how the EU was designed as a protectionist racket. His understanding of the economy and business are clear assets to the nation. He should get in touch”.
All told, it probably isn’t a good sign if the Conservatives — for a long time the party of industry and entrepreneurs — are telling one of Britain’s most prominent self-made billionaires — who already has political form, having been a prominent voice in the pro-Brexit campaign — their only recourse if they want better government is if they do it themselves. The Tories are presently suffering polling at historic lows, with YouGov saying today they are a colossal 25 points behind left-wing Labour, and just four ahead of Reform.