Every French Cloud has a Silver Lining - for Britain

If you live for a very long time, Governments and wars come and go, and skirts go up, or down, or disappear altogether, and you tend to believe you've seen everything, and that nothing that anyone can do can come as any kind of a surprise.

I can't say that anything that M. Hollande has done has caused me any great surprise - but he has certainly proved to me that I have not yet seen everything, because I have never before seen any Government alienate so large and so vital a part of its electorate quite so rapidly and so effectively.

Businesses in the UK, and SMEs in particular, certainly have a great deal to complain of, but I think I have to point out that businesses have to be allowed to exist and trade in the first place if they are to have anything to complain about.

There is no Federation of Small Businesses in France. There is no Forum of Private Business either. In fact small business in France has no voice, no help, and no encouragement - and I suspect that Lakshmi Mittal is presently feeling that business in general is not encouraged in France, and that his investment in people might be better appreciated elsewhere. And I don't suppose that he is alone with his thoughts.

We do not have a perfect Government in Britain. We never have had one. We probably never will have one. But we've never had a Government (however awful) that has failed, at bottom, to understand that business is what makes the wheels go round - or has been at all reluctant to grease the wheels.

It wouldn't surprise me were Britain not to benefit from the policies of M. Hollande. Not what he intended, I'm sure - but no bad thing for Britain.