Brown's grandees
Gordon Brown is creating a special council of business leaders to advise him directly as prime minister.
It will meet two or three times a year and will advice Brown on whether government policy is helping or damaging Britain鈥檚 competitiveness.
The members will also be available to Brown to give him advice as and when he needs it.
Brown鈥檚 business council members include:
Damon Buffini, managing partner of Permira
Stuart Rose, chief executive of Marks & Spencer
Tony Heywood, chief executive of BP
Sir Terry Leahy, chief executive of Tesco
Arun Sarin, chief executive of Vodafone
Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC
Sir John Rose, chief executive of Rolls-Royce
Mervyn Davies, chairman of Standard Chartered
J-P Garnier, chief executive of Glaxo Smith Kline
A senior member of the government told me that the initiative was part of bold plans by Brown to redefine the government鈥檚 relationship with business.
Other parts of those plans may include a slimming-down of the Department of Trade and Industry to focus much more on promoting trade, deregulation and the competitiveness of British companies.
Separately a new department focussed on skills and innovation is expected to be created. It would bring together the science and innovation bits of the DTI, and the training and skills parts of assorted departments.
For me, the most striking member of the business council is Damon Buffini, who runs the UK鈥檚 leading private equity firm. It rather implies that the current review of the private-equity industry by the Treasury will NOT increase taxes significantly for the private-equity superstars or in general change the treatment of private equity in a way likely to be perceived by private equity as damaging.
Why would Brown appoint Buffini if he thought there was a risk of Buffini storming off the council in a huff within months?
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> Why would Brown appoint Buffini if
> he thought there was a risk of
> Buffini storming off the council in
> a huff within months?
> Why would Brown appoint Buffini if
> he thought there was a risk of
> Buffini storming off the council in
> a huff within months?
Gordon still has time to impress me. I keep telling him to go after the toffs for taxes, not me. I鈥檇 rather like to see the spectacle of a big-wig in private equity being told to pay his taxes in full, and I鈥檇 know it was the real-deal if he stormed out in a fit of pique before the next election.
My fear with this initiative is that Gordon will pay too much heed to these City figures, resulting in policy that is biased in favour of the interests of big business in London. We have to ask if business is serving the people well. You might not get a truthful answer by asking these individuals, who are more interested in having people serve industry well, which is not quite the same thing is it?
Terry Leahy seems like a good sort 鈥 he was once a shelf stacker in Liverpool, I have heard. My shares in Tesco have done well, and I had a godd run with BP shares as well, so I suppose it鈥檚 OK if they meet infrequently and if Gordon has the sense to take some of what they say with a pinch of salt.
I once heard Clare Short being interviewed on Radio 4. She said that ( without any element of doubt, almost as a matter of fact and beyond argument) that ' of course all business is bad but at least big businness is better because it can be regulated and taxed.'
In other words, whilst tacitly acknowledging that big business delivers efficiencies that cannot be expected of government, that big business and government are highly codependant and that large corporations can be used to extend the governments will. Big business can almost be seen as part of government.
It's worth noting that Gordon Brown's business advisors include not one represetative of the small and medium sized business community, a community that makes up a very significant portion of the UK economy and one that is by definition domestic and not global.
His last budget was notable for hitting small business with tax rises but headlining tax cuts for big business.
Small business cannot of course emmigrate.
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Why's this story running as '成人论坛's Business Editor learns' when it was on the front of the Financial Times this morning?
Val Flynn beat me to it. It is us small business who are the engine room of the economy. Why is Gordon Brown not including us ? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - It's the cosy arrangement btwn big business & the Labour Party that has led to our margins being slashed & the bureacracy burdon ever-increasing. GB has been totally complicit in supporting the off-shoring & outsourcing that has driven down profits & wages for all of us who are not big corporations.
Roll on the election
"Why would Brown appoint Buffini if he thought there was a risk of Buffini storming off the council in a huff within months?"
Clearly because even if he does put the tax rates up, Buffini will get a knighthood or some other honour in return...
Val (#2) is spot on: it speaks volumes for GB's loathing of small businesses that the list of council members exclusively represent big businesses. He's already shown his contempt for small business with the corporation tax changes in the last budget, as well as many other anti-small business measures over the last 10 years.
Now that he's in charge, I, as a small business owner, am very scared.
GB's total hatred for small businesses is all to see. This dour socialist has never had a proper job in his life and has absolutely no idea how as a small business owner survives on a daily basis. This business committee that has been set up has no representation for anyone except those bosses who would want to change the law for their own benefit. As usual its one law for them and another for rest of us, who as usual has to pay for the abject waste, inefficiencies and wholesome incompetance.
Tony Hayward being on this panel is catastrophic for the future of energy strategy. If you want to understand what's happening with energy supply the last thing anyone sensible would do is ask an oil company and certainly not BP..
Of course the reason there's no small business representation is because he wouldn't want to be seen to be encouraging the sector. It might start manufacturing something useful and want investment..
The majority of people in this country are employed by small businesses and I note that they are entirely unrepresented by this council. I can only assume that Brown will continue to treat the small business community with the contempt, suspicion & hostility he did for the 10 years he was Chancellor. The voice of the globalisers does not represent the interests of the people of this country. For instance, speak to any recent IT graduate who can't get a job due to the unrestricted access given to Big Businesss to bring in indentured IT workers.
In Brown's world you either work for the State or Big Business. Anything else is discouraged.
I am very disappointed that there is no representation on this Council from the small business community.
Please can somebody help and find out why it appears that this government maybe ignoring the hard working and taxpaying small business person.
I am disappointed that Buffini, a private equity executive, got into Gordon's council of business leaders. Recently, private equity companies are criticised for borrowing huge sums of money to take over PLCs, asset-strip them and causing huge job losses while the private equity partners earn a lot of profit. While the government tries to close the loophole of low ("less than a cleaning lady") capital gains tax needed to be paid by private equity,
why does Buffini get accepted into the council? Does the Gordon want to reassure to the business community that he will do his upmost to protect the business community's interest?
Also, Sir Ronald Cohen, founder of Apex Partners (private equity), has paid up to 拢250,000 to the Labour party to bail out Labour party's debt problem. Does Mr. Cohen need a favour from Gordon of not to increase capital gains tax charged by private equity deals? We shall wait and see.
Brown's father worked for a small business called the church
No opportunity for the SME sector to contribute and not a woman in sight. I am a little suspicious of GB commitment to change if women entrepreneurs have no place is his special gang - he needs to rethink that one
What the **** does that list of people know about the current problems medium size business, let alone small business face in the UK. I doubt many of them have any experience of the day to day problems caused by the governments obsession with bureacracy and penalties at every turn. Even if the members of the council started at the bottom, it was at the bottom of what was already a big business.
Today I had to put up/replace 12 No Smoking signs at our Head Office, that's more than one per employee! Inclduing yet another one in our fuel store, so anybody smoking inside now knows it's illegal as opposed to just plain suicdal.
I doubt that any of the above have the slightest inkling of this sort of burden, although I imagine Tesco's signage department would be delighted to fill Sir Terry in if he asked.
Sir Alan would do well to ponder that his original business selling car aerials would have been stifled at birth by current regulation & proceedure.
As a total cynic I cannot help but think all this regulation works for big business as represented above, by burdening innovative new business.
Well Mr. B is you want to start an SME council, I'm sure a quick Google will give you my phone number and the number of awards we/I have won should qualify me, excuse me if I don't stay in waiting for the call!
There is an absence of anybody here from small business. Over 90% of companies in the UK are SME's. Over 70% of the UK's working population are employed on them. Brown has seen fit to ignore them when seeking advice from business.
So then it will be business as usual. Brown will continue to increase taxes, regulation and stifle Small Business at every opportunity.
So that'll be GB redefining the government's relationship with *big* business then.
It's about time he took his blinkers off and looked at those that provide the majority of the jobs in the country. Where's the engagement with them?
I see he's limiting himself to advice from big businesses, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of businesses in this country are SMEs.
Plus 莽a change...
With the abolition of the Small Business Council earlier this year I hope that the government has plans to ensure that this sector of the economy will also be represented at the highest levels.
I'll just point out that Gordon's socialist views fit rather well with big business. He's a control freak and will regulate the life out of everything he can get his hands on. Just look at the tax credit system.
Now you might think big business won't like this approach, but you'd be wrong. Increased regulation and red tape actually increase the barrier to entry for small companies, it reduces competition and centralises power and money in the hands of the large companies.
Expect a ticker tape parade of bureaucracy coming your way.
Typical of government to select such a list of "high flyers" as being representative of "business". Whilst they certainly represent "International Big Business" and even if one or two of this select band did cut their teeth with an SME, they certainly have absolutely no idea of what small business is about these days.
Just look at their collective cv鈥檚, university plus Harvard, Berkeley, MIT etc. and then 鈥渕anagement positions鈥 in large corporations. Only Alan Sugar has anything approaching an SME background, but what does he know about running a small business these days, with his extensive band of advisers and 鈥渁pprentices鈥.
If Gordon Brown wants to know what issues face the majority of UK business's, that is SME鈥檚, then set up a council with representatives from SME鈥檚.
Lets face it, should one of his current council have a 鈥渓egislation鈥 related problem they either hire one of their band of paid lobbyists or 鈥渁dvisors鈥, or move country (or threaten to do so 鈥 which is far more effective). UK based SME鈥檚 just have to put up with it.