THAT'S the election settled, then.

All the votes that matter are in. The result - if it's any concern to the likes of you - is a Tory landslide. Like senators of a decaying empire with their togas in a twist, 103 "business leaders" have spoken.

In some circles, the fact that the Conservatives and the Telegraph could muster 103 names for a testimonial letter is regarded as a new benchmark in political interventions. The ability to gather more signatories than ever before confers unshakeable legitimacy. Who, in an electorate of 43 million odd, could argue with 103 rich people?

Let's take them at their word. These folk believe "this Conservative-led government has been good for business and has pursued policies which have supported investment and job creation". They specify George Osborne's "flagship policy of progressively lowering corporation tax to 20%" as a very good thing. Anyone who thinks otherwise - meaning a Labour-led government - forfeits their support.

So who's surprised that personages wedded to company tax cuts, no 50p personal rate, and no serious government intervention in the zero-hours scandal, are keen on David Cameron's obliging party? The Tories are the political wing of corporate Britain. This is understood, even taken for granted, by all concerned. Conservative governments do as big business demands and business people, many of them, back the Tories with cash and endorsements. It's not news.

But let's examine this "business case". The signatories assert that Osborne's corporation tax cuts have been "very important in showing the UK is open for business". So a rate due to fall from 21% to 20% - a cut Labour would reverse - is crucial in the struggle against international competition?

Against Germany (29.58%)? Against Japan (35.64%)? France (33.33%), Italy (31.4%), Canada (26.5%), Australia (30%), Indonesia (25%), the Netherlands (25%), Norway (27%), Spain (30%), or South Africa (28%)? How about those awakening giants, India and Brazil? According to KPMG, their rates are 33.99% and 34% respectively. Presumably our heroes of commerce would rather invoke America's entrepreneurial spirit? Somehow it survives with a corporate rate of 40%.

You can find countries with a lower rate than Britain's, but they tend to count as emerging economies, tinpot regimes and tax havens. A few, such as Ireland (12.5%), are engaged in the "race to the bottom" that was deplored during the referendum campaign when Alex Salmond embraced the foolish policy now applauded by the 103. It remains the case that advanced economies are not half as indulgent of corporate blackmail as the UK. Even China levies 25%.

The fact that our bunch of business leaders should dare mention corporation tax tells us a good deal. Just a year ago - on April Fools' Day, indeed - Osborne issued a press release through the Treasury boasting of what his tax cuts were achieving. His department even put a figure on it. In 2014-15, said the triumphant note, "tax cuts for business" would be worth over £11 billion a year. Given stagnant average wages then and since, you might wonder where it all went.

It did not go, whatever the letter's 103 would have you believe, on investment. The Friends of Dave assert that a change of government would "deter" anyone thinking of putting money into UK plc. The claim implies that, thanks to the Tories, corporate Britain has been investing heavily in our collective future. Any executive who doesn't know this to be utterly false should fire him or herself forthwith.

As of October last year, according to the Financial Times, the companies in the FTSE 100 were sitting on £53.3 billion in cash. This was an increase of £15.4 billion on the previous year and more than four times the sum held before the 2008 credit crunch. A big piece of the money will have come from Osborne's tax cuts. Investment meanwhile fell in the last quarter of 2014, thus maintaining what the CBI calls the UK's "pretty poor" record. In that, we rank lowest, on a share of GDP basis, in the G7. And we've been bottom of the table for decades.

Osborne and Cameron have not transformed our fortunes. They have shipped billions to the corporate world and millions to the executives with their abolition of the 50p income tax band. They have insisted on austerity for everyone else while executive pay has grown from 60 times the average in the 1990s to almost 180 times (as of last July), according to the High Pay Centre. And the Tory pair have ignored anyone who refuses, unlike the 103, to promote their myths.

Two-thirds of the 33 academic economists polled by the Centre For Macroeconomics would count among that number. Asked recently whether austerity has had "a positive effect on aggregate economic activity (employment and GDP)" they answered simply: no. Some used the little word with a certain vehemence, and suggested that the loss in national income had been huge. Austerity has been a colossal waste of time and human potential.

Still we are supposed to attend when people who run businesses, well or badly, decide their thoughts on a general election are worth hearing. It is assumed, not least by these leaders, that anyone running a company must know a thing or two about what's best for the rest, even when - in terms of wages, job security, social protection, or employment rights - it patently isn't true. Zero-hours contracts are a scourge precisely because the corporate world took deliberate steps to make labour as cheap as possible

Even if you happen to share a political view with a business type, that hardly puts you in the presence of infallible wisdom. Is Jim McColl of Clyde Blowers Capital right about fiscal autonomy? I think so. Does that make his opinion decisive? There's no earthly reason why it should.

Before we allow 103 members of the richest 1% to pick our government, we should impose a test of our own. Are they good at what they do? You hardly need to guess their answers. But judge corporate Britain instead by a fundamental benchmark, one measured by the Office for National Statistics.

Last week, it reported that Britain's output fell in the final quarter of 2014. While Cameron and his chancellor preen over economic growth, their corporate friends have been under-performing spectacularly. In fact, those paid millions to run companies, the ones telling us how to vote, have helped the Government to the weakest productivity record since the Second World War.

The new joke, supported by the statistics, is that a French worker could take every Friday off and still produce as much as a UK counterpart. Productivity has been lamentable for decades, but things have grown worse thanks to the Coalition and its business allies. The latter have failed to invest - hence £53.3 billion sitting idle - and the former have presided over a low-wage economy that benefits only the few who, they insist with straight faces, must have more tax cuts.

It's as nonsensical as a Ponzi scheme, as daft as paying bonuses when banks go bust. Until selling snake oil becomes a British growth industry, the Telegraph's signatories should keep their political insights to themselves.