It's election time… get ready to swing

Only hours after Tony Blair called the General Election, broadcaster Peter Snow was already hopping about on his latest revamped swingometer.

It is a familiar election sight and it's reassuring that Snow will be there on 5 May to guide us through the twists and turns of polling day as the country decides which party will govern it for the next parliament.

Over the next four weeks, the electioneering may at times become irksome as the three main parties trade insults and try to destabilise each party's campaign with political banana skins. But one thing is for sure: there will be even more coverage on our TVs, radios and newspapers than ever before.

In the past 12 months, the hospitality sector has also become ever more politicised. Smoking, binge-drinking, gambling, obesity and school meals have all dominated the front pages of the national papers and the headlines of TV news.

During that time, Caterer has striven to give you the best and most up-to-date information on each issue and in some cases, such as smoking, to lead opinion with our own campaigning.

Whichever party wins the election - and early predictions show that it could be far closer than many expected - the sector is more in the spotlight than ever before.

In next week's Caterer, the British Hospitality Association will unveil its election manifesto as we kick off our election coverage. It will point out that whichever party wins on 5 May, it will be governing over a period of growth for the sector.

But for your business to grow successfully, you need a government that will help you on your way. Each party will, therefore, have to address the highly charged political issues of how we feed our schoolchildren and stop our teenagers from getting legless in town centres on a Saturday night, but also ways to promote tourism more effectively, improve transport links, beef up vocational training schemes to attract more qualified staff into the sector and support small businesses.

Despite the issues of the day, it is often these factors that prevent your business from growing successfully. No doubt overt the next four weeks, Snow's swingometer will swing one way and the next. At Caterer it's not our job to tell you who to vote for, but what we can promise is an unbiased perspective on the main parties' pledges on the issues that affect your business.

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 07 April 2005