Brown's British Business Plan
There's been no shortage of 'business-friendly' message, but will they amount to anything more than gimmickry?
Is there room in Gordon Brown's big tent for business? It would certainly seem the case. Having enticed former CBI director general, Sir Digby Jones, to take the Labour whip as Trade and Investment Minister, Brown has created a new Business Council featuring an impressive "FTSE All-Star" line-up, including the bosses of Tesco, Rolls-Royce, M&S, Vodafone and GlaxoSmithKline.
The new group, chaired by Mervyn Davies of Standard Chartered, has some shortcomings: it ignores small business, and not a single woman has been signed up. But it nonetheless sends a message to companies across the country that Brown has no plans to hark back to the doctrinaire socialism of his youth and is a vivid demonstration of the powerful bond that has been forged between business and new Labour.
The idea behind the council might be politically shrewd, but the inclusion of such masters of self-promotion as Sir Alan Sugar and Sir Richard Branson surely undermines its credibility, making it look little more than a gimmick.
It's hard to get excited, but at least the recruitment of Permira chief Damon Buffini suggests Brown is not planning to lend support to silly efforts to sniff out witches or vampires in the private equity sector.
Things are also looking up for the rebranded DTI. True, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) has an acronym more befitting a playground insult than a government department, but the priorities sound right.
British business is in need of some regulatory reform and John Hutton, who has a reputation as a pro-business, pro-competition Blairite, is a plausible candidate to deliver it.
The most unenviable job of the lot surely falls to the Chancellor, Alistair Darling. Thanks to Brown's lavish spending on public services, his fate is to become the "cut, slash and burn Chancellor" – never a recipe for popularity.
Darling is undoubtedly hampered by the expectation that he'll be dwarfed by his predecessor, but far from becoming a "mini-me Chancellor", he has a clear opportunity to make his mark reforming the complex and convoluted tax system created by Brown.
Simplifying tax would not only make Darling a memorable Chancellor, it would also give his party a powerful platform on which to challenge the traditional party of lower, leaner taxation: the Conservatives.
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