OUR 10 Commandments for the General Election campaign are aimed at encouraging North-East candidates to speak positively to business, writes Ross Smith, NECC director of policy.

But as they will undoubtedly take a cue from their party leaders, I watched with interest to see how well they were observed in last week’s televised debate.

Not surprisingly, some of the regionally-specific commandments were not really relevant for a national debate.

But Nigel Farage’s geographic mishap in stating that Hadrian’s Wall stands on the Scottish border suggests UKIP candidates are failing on number 10 – to brief their frontbenchers effectively when making reference to our region.

David Cameron was guilty of a sin of omission on the seventh commandment – to not make the election a ‘battle of the NIMBYs’.

When asked about housing he spoke at length about his party’s largely positive measures to support homebuyers – but failed to make a case for new development to increase supply.

But there were two commandments in particular that the entire panel were in almost constant breach of.

Number five says: “Thou shalt not imply a simple equation between the performance of the economy and the performance of Government. It is businesses that ultimately deliver growth, though government actions can either help or hinder them.”

Yet coalition leaders argued that the recovery was all down to them, while the opposition picked holes in economic success because to do otherwise would give the last government credit.

The thanks due to businesses and their workforce for delivering growth was not forthcoming.

And number nine says: “Thou shalt be specific if you need to criticise actions of businesses, not imply everyone in the private sector is the same. Bad practice sadly exists, but is not the norm. Most of our members take a highly responsible approach as employers and corporate citizens.”

Not so when the vexed topic of zero hours contracts gets debated. The default assumption seems to be that most businesses would abuse them given the chance, which doesn’t match my experience.

Our 10 Commandments are a bit of fun, but if the parties want to engage business in the campaign, they could do worse than to take a look.

This week we start a series of business hustings in North East constituencies, in partnership with the Federation of Small Businesses and Tees Valley Business Club.

Let’s see if our local candidates can do better than the example set by their leaders.