This is why business is not excited about this election

IN MY chats with chief executives over the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to gauge the mood of the business community ahead of the general election.

- Simon Hunt

It has been difficult, frankly, to eke out even a scintilla of emotion from them: no excitement, no optimism, no fear, no concern. They feel there is virtually nothing to get exercised about. Not one of the chief executives I spoke to could point to a policy announcement that they could get behind - mainly because there have hardly been any.

The boss of one high street chain put the problem to me succinctly. There will be a wider range of policy changes to come after, rather than before this election, he said, but no one quite knows what they are.

There is a growing sense that our main political parties are not being straight with us about the fiscal constraints and trade-offs we face at this election. Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has promised more investment, but at the same time vows not to put up income tax rates and to stick to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's fiscal rules - something which seems hard to pull off all at once.