“I’m the only candidate with a business degree so I don’t need lectures on economics.” That was the claim of Brian Paddick, Lib Dem candidate for London Mayor during Tuesday night’s BBC hustings with Andrew Neill.

Given the fact City Hall money has gone wandering under Ken Livingstone’s administration and Boris Johnson estimated the £140m cost for bringing back bus conductors at £8m, he might have a point.

Politics aside, it reopens the age-old debate, ‘are business qualifications important for business?’

It’s an argument never settled because there’s little evidence, either way. It hasn’t stopped perpetual debate of course.

It usually goes a bit like this: one side argues that business qualifications breed managers who make balanced decisions, not entrepreneurs who take risks.

The other side (usually those who’ve spent time and money on an MBA) argues they have got ‘edge’ they just know which risks are worth taking and have a wider set of skills to exploit them.

Looking at entrepreneurial high achievers offers little clarity, either. Leaving school at 16 didn’t do Sir Alan Sugar any harm, while dropping out of Stowe isn’t a decision fellow knight Richard Branson is likely to regret. Even looking across the pond at the Forbes 400 list, there are only four top dogs boasting MBAs in the top 50.

Of course, there are plenty of MBA and equivalent qualification-wielding entrepreneurs putting their studies to good use. The problem, I guess, is telling how much of their success is down to their qualifications and how much good old-fashioned entrepreneurial flair.

easyGROUP’s Stelios, a grad from London School of Economics, is a prime case in example. He’s undoubtedly a stats man who’s made the yield management model his own, but then again he’s every bit the entrepreneurial risk-taker.

I mean it’s not as if his time at LSE prevented him from chucking £93m at easyInternet and ending up with assets of just £6m or wracking up first year debts of £21m first year losses on easyCar. And, genuinely, that’s taking nothing away from the great man and I respect his appetite for taking a punt – it’s just not very, well, business educated.

This amble isn’t, I’m afraid, going to reach a conclusion other than that Brian Paddick won’t win the election. Do you need a business qualification to succeed in business? Unequivocally: no. Will it help? Possibly. Will it hinder you? Maybe. Can you teach entrepreneurship? Yes, I mean, no, er, yes… I think.

Your answers on a postcard, please.