On the house: we’re enrolling the UK government in The Business of Creativity.

Ministers and investors are assembling today for the UK Government’s Global Investment Summit. The brief for our leaders? Ahead of a painful Autumn Budget, position Britain as an attractive place to deploy capital and do business. This ought to be an easy sell. There are myriad reasons why operating and trading here is a good idea.

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For instance, we could talk up our capacity to innovate: the UK is fourth in the Global Innovation Index. Or our great academic and research institutions: of the top ten ranked universities, three of them are here. Then there’s the country’s fathomless talent pool, its sensible IP laws, and its thrumming technology ecosystem. These attributes were articulated well by Michael Bloomberg last Friday in The Times. The entrepreneur has never been “more bullish on the UK’s future.” There is no shortage of great angles. But the Government appears to be taking a tack so sensible, so sober, that it’s at risk of sounding silly. The key thrust of statements ahead of the event is this: “Britain is a stable place to do business”.

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This emphasis is a mistake. When leaders crow on about how stable things are, we tend to believe the opposite. Beleaguered former prime minister Theresa May claimed to be ‘Strong and Stable’. The amber-faced former US president Donald Trump professed to be a very ‘stable genius’ (he is neither). If you boarded an aeroplane and the attendant said: “good news, the pilot is feeling very stable today,” would you feel at ease?

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Words matter. Stability should be a given. The greatest lure for investors is a quality that is unnervingly absent from those who occupy the highest offices of state. I’m talking about creativity. The most profitable companies in the world are those that understand how to turn imagination into commercial advantage. A glance at the shifting order of the top ten most valuable businesses proves the point. In 2012, brands like Shell, IBM, Chevron and ExxonMobil dominated the list. Today, those names have vanished, and been replaced by the likes of Tesla, Tencent, Alphabet and Amazon. Only Apple and Microsoft – two constant innovators – have endured.

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The same applies to nations. In recent decades we have witnessed countries punch above their economic weight through creative exports. Consider the wave of South Korean culture, the flourishing of innovation from the Nordics, or the start-up boom in progress in Latin America. Places that invest in culture, creativity and soft power reap the benefits of growth and prosperity.

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It's my belief that the UK government needs reminding of this. Our leaders should start talking the country up, rather than down. And furthermore, those in charge of state departments could sharpen their own thinking where creativity is concerned. In the wake of the last fourteen years, the country needs competent administrators, but it needs fresh ideas in equal measure. And leaders that employ creativity are significantly more effective than those who don’t. A landmark study by IBM, which polled over 1500 CEOs globally, was conclusive: around 60% cited creativity as the most important leadership quality. In straightened times – like now, as we steel ourselves for the budget – this matters all the more.

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That’s why I am offering free places on the upcoming cohort of The Business of Creativity course to members of the Prime Minister, and members of his cabinet. We realise that the subject of freebies is a delicate one, but our hope is that this can fall under the bracket of training and education, rather than entertainment or hospitality. Cabinet ministers will at 2pm today receive an invite to the course into their inboxes. All they have to do is hit reply and accept the invitation and we'll enrol them onto our Autumn cohort which launches next week.

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In over fifty years of helping drive revenue for the greatest businesses in the world, my work has been powered by a single belief: that creativity is oxygen for business growth.

It’s time the UK came up for air.

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Sir John Hegarty