Gordon Brown and British business

Posted on Wednesday 27 June, 2007
Filed Under New Labour

 


Gordon Brown finally moves into Number Ten today, maintaining radio silence towards the left and towards organised labour. The Lib-Dems have been offered – and have spurned – cabinet positions, and a leading Tory has crossed the floor.

Courting the business community has always been an integral aspect of the New Labour project, and Brown is determined not to disappoint on this score either.

The prime minister is setting up a Business Council for Britain to advise the government on all areas affecting business, including industrial policy, technology and state subsidies.

The line up of those invited to join might just as well have been expressly calculated to upset trade unionists. They include Sir Terry Leahy, chief executive of retail monopolists Tesco, and television star and Amstrad boss Sir Alan Sugar.

But the most contentious appointment of all is private equity king Damon Buffini, currently the principal target of a concerted union propaganda campaign against that particular line of business:

The Permira managing partner already advises New Labour on education, as part of a new National Council for Education Excellence.

The names of those making up the Brown cabinet will shortly be unveiled, and appointments from outside politics are expected. It will be interesting to see whether or not any roles in ‘the government of all the talents’ are allocated to anybody identified with the trade union movement or the political left.


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Comments

9 Responses to “Gordon Brown and British business”

  1. susan press calder valley CLP
    on June 27th, 2007 at 16:21

    Missing Tony already…..things can only get worse.Will Sir Alan Sugar be handling the new cabinet appointments?????

    Tessa/Margaret/Patricia ……you’re fired!

    Quentin….. you’re hired!

    I dread to think what Gord’s Govt is going to look like. Stiff drinks tonight, i think…..

  2. rob
    on June 27th, 2007 at 19:01

    labour party serves the interests of capital? good god no!

  3. Last of the Blairites (even Tony has given up)
    on June 27th, 2007 at 23:23

    Don’t say you were not warned :-)

  4. Phil
    on June 28th, 2007 at 11:59

    All right, who’s Jacqui Smith? Somebody here must know.

  5. Jeff
    on June 28th, 2007 at 12:01

    My gf used to work for her at the DfES. Personally she’s must nicer than most of them but seems to just be another drone politically. Union background but more Alan Johnson than Bob Bernie Grant.

  6. Phil
    on June 28th, 2007 at 12:06

    You mean ‘worker’ not ‘drone’ – drones are the idle parasites of the bee world, hence Bertie Wooster and the Drones Club. But everyone makes that mistake, so it’s probably well on the way to not being a mistake any more, a la ‘disinterested’ or ‘flaunt’.

    Anyway… yes, but Home Secretary?

  7. sue r
    on June 28th, 2007 at 16:13

    I think she meant drone. Drones fertilize the Queen, so who knows what new-style politics we will see!

  8. andy newman
    on June 28th, 2007 at 16:32

    Also, in the hive the workers only allow drones to develop if they need the Queen to be fertilised.

    After the mating flight the drones are pulled out of the hive and killed by the workers, whch beekeepers call IIRC the massacre of the innocents.

  9. Phil
    on June 28th, 2007 at 20:26

    This is putting the reshuffle in a whole new light.