No Cabinet Minister Has the Experience to Run A Whelk Stall
The cabinet re-shuffle analysis in the press will be detailed, so Guido will skip it. One blogger's analysis struck Guido as critical - not a single member of the cabinet has had a business career. Absorb that fact. Is it any wonder that Gordon felt the need to draft in Digby Jones?
Digby Jones is a talented operator and he will no doubt do a good job as minister for trade promotion. He is not however a new face, Guido recalls that the then Chancellor used his pre-budget report to announce Digby's appointment as his "skills envoy" only six months ago. So he is being re-announced as a Brownite ally. Ironically he always struck Guido as a business leader with a libertarian streak - see his pronouncements on taxation, regulation and political correctness - perhaps that is why he won't be joining the Labour party. Gordon's offer of a peerage was enough to get him go over to the dark side and join a government with no business nous whatsoever.
79 comments:
I was talking to a retired bank manager today. After he'd left the bank, he went on to become an administrator for the Met Police for 6 years.
He is still astonished at the difference between the public and private sector, re the attitudes of staff. As soon as people turned up for work in the Met, many went off to have a full breakfast, then they spent considerable time in the smoking room, and they took copious 'sickies'. No-one seemed to find anything surprising or wrong about this.
This is the culture the Cabinet are used to, and none of them know what it truly means to be in a position where if you don't do the work, you don't get the pay. Indeed, for many small-business people, even if you do put in the work, you often may not get the pay.
God, I hate this load of sanctimonious, lying thieves.
And yet why worship the genius of British Business? Perhaps without business experience the new cabinet won't award themselves massive bonuses and share options. Use their massive buying power to squeeze the suppliers like the supermarkets do (I talked to a farmer today who has a farm in Mexico, it's cheaper for him to fly in produce grown there than it is to grow it here).
I'm not someone who believes all business is bad, or that people in the public sector are all sicky taking workshy bastards. The truth is somewhere in between. I'm sorry Guido your analysis is just too simplistic. Business isn't the be all and end all.
Guido, thanks for the link to my post.
Dave you are right that business isn't perfect and there is no reason why a cabinet shouldn't have some members with no experience in that field, but to have not a single person out of almost 30 people with any business experience is astonishing. It means they have no one who has ever had to satisfy those whom in order to advance in their career.
Digby's (clearly successful) attempts to ingratiate himself with New Labour will be a source of deep embarassment to him one day. Glad I got that off my chest. Cheers Guido.
I just hate the extortion funded sector. When you compare it's achievements to the reciprocal benefit sector, there's just no comparison, business produce things that are better quality, provide better service, cheaper to purchase and less difficult to obtain.
With the news that no-one in this shit government has ANY experience in fulfilling customer needs; it looks like were in for a growth in the level, volume and micromanagement of our lives.
Gordon Brown would be jailed (under laws to stop another Enron) if he tried to fund a company using PFI.
Why can't I (for starters) opt out of the
State treatment rationing scheme (NHS)
The ponzi investment scheme(pensions)
The unemployment reward scheme (benefits)
and take the money I earned to someone I feel will provide a benefit for it.
I know how to run a whelk stall and make a ever increasing profit as well.
So if Gordons is reading this the name is at the top.
Its not the limos the attention, the meeting important people, the glamour, the fame or even the money.
ITS THE POWER
It does not actually add two inches to the size of your penis.
But it does make women better pretend that it has.
It does not actually make you incredibly good looking either.
But it does make women seriously and genuinely think you are.
I am sorry if many of you will just have to take my word for this.
Haha! You liberatarians are such an angry lot.
I think this FATCAT is from the school of thought that British Workers are Lazy but immigrant workers are the bees knees.
If we were so lazy how come we built our country up while many countries still have mud huts as standard living accomodation?
I think this FATCAT is from the school of thought that British Workers are Lazy but immigrant workers are the bees knees.
If we were so lazy how come we built our country up while many countries still have mud huts as standard living accomodation?
I don't understand why Gordon doesn not co-opt a couple a Pole or two into government. But why stop there, what about an Albanian, a Nigerian and a Russian?
Digby Jones was expelled from his school for streaking. Later in his professional life he was expelled from his position as senior partner of a leading Birmingham law firm for breaches of confidentiality, during the firm's takeover.......
On the principle that scum rises to the top, and armed with an ego the size of a tank, he morphed himself into 'Business Leader', as there was a vacancy at the CBI.
There is little question Jones is able. But when you combine ability with an overarching ambition, an monster ego, and a conceit which is difficult to hide, you do not get a pretty picture.
If this is the best example Broon can find of people who have some 'business experience', god help him.....
PS Who is Jacqui Smith ? Does she shag ?
Surely, Digby Jones is one of the most easily recognised Slitheen. How can no-one else be wise to this already?
So if it's true that the cabinet don't have business experience, all power to them for bringing outside business experience. Good grief - why criticise them for doing something so sensible?
p.s. It won't just be Digby Jones from business either.
p.p.s. The right do seem to be very very rattled at the moment.
p.p.p.s. last time I checked Royal Mail was a business. It may not seem so today (!) but it's even attempting to exist in an increasingly competitive work place. So Alan Johnston makes a nonsense of this whole story. Another example of an inconvenient fact getting in the way of a good story.
What this little spin really means is that none of them have been big fat cat employers from the private sector.
Still, well done GB for drafting in talent from business. More than Digby Jones to come ...
This story is probably supposed to have read that none of them have 'made' anything i.e. been in manufacturing industry, as opposed to business (which the point about Alan Johnston shows to be untrue).
Not surprising really though about manufacturing industry. Mrs Thatcher destroyed it all.
Labour's lack of business nous extends to Gordon Brown. He has manipulated the Inflation indices, cancelling the RPI and replacing it with the CPI. That currently knocks 2% off the rate.
The problem is that with tax and housing costs excluded, as in the CPI, inflation is seriously underestimated. Many analysts believe the true rate of inflation to be nearer 10% p.a., which is the rate at which property prices and the money supply are both rising. Food prices are not far behind.
People can avoid buying electronic gadgets for a while but they need a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs and have to pay Council tax. This is Gordon Brown's Achilles heel. Various Public Sector strikes are imminent. Welcome back to the 1970's.
Brown's blindspot is tax. He's forgotten that tax take and tax levels can have an inverse relationship. He's failed to cut Corporation tax to internationally competitive rates, and many businesses are quitting the UK.
He's hiked National Insurance and imposed it in all earned incomes, when originally it was not seen as a tax but a fund for each individual. Now many wealthy individuals go abroad too.
Curiously wealthy foreigners can live in Britain tax free - the Non Domiciled. Why not end the tax free status of non-dom's and put National Insurance back to what it was intended to be.
If Brown cuts tax rates in this way, he will take more money. That's where a business brain might help him. But since Brown is the one who has made Britain uncompetitive in the first place, it seems unlikely he would permit Darling to undo the mess he has made.
Blimey Tapestry ... that sounds like the sort of schoolboy economics George Osborne would come up with. Sure it's not you?
Of course inflation isn't 10% lol. At best one might use the RPI rather than the CPI but as the Govt publishes both I can't see any problem there.
Ending tax cuts for Non Doms would be sheer stupidity. One of the reasons for the unprecedented growth under Brown's 10 years was making Britain one of the economic centres of the world. To do that you need tax incentives for the rich. Good for Brown I say.
It's even worse than that, Tapestry.
Gordon Brown introduced (with the able help of Red Dawn Primarolo, his political bitch)a tax called Pre-Owned Assets.
This means that just about everyone who had a house of their own, the largest investment in their lives, would usually put the property either into a company or a trust to await their children to inherit it. Provided the former house owner lived 7 years, the transfer of the asset was not taxed and then became outside the charge to IHT.
Gordon Bloody Brown has now said, 'if you did such a trasfer within the last 20 years, it doesn't count, and you will still be charge IHT. Alternatively, if you are still living in the house you will pay income tax on it as a benefit in kind, you choose'.
Spiteful ? An attack on the middle classes who save all their lives to pass wealth onto their children ?
Now of course, as soon as mum and dad die, the kids have to pay 40% on the value of the house. Result ? They have to sell the house to pay the tax.
And if this is not bad enough - not ONE word of complaint from the so-called Opposition. What does Dave have to say about it ? Nada.
We have a spiteful, nasty man in No 10, who is into the confiscation of wealth, and a Tory party which has no idea that these policies should be attacked and savaged at every opportunity.
This really is a desperate line of attack Guido, can't you do better? Would it be better NOT to have a top businessman inside the government?
There should be a minimum age for MPs, say 40 years old, so that they have to get some experience of life and work before entering Westminister. It can't be good for them (and therefore for us) to go from university to party activism and then to a safe seat by the time they're 30. They need to get some experience of the "real world".
The real question with the Cabinet (specifically) and MPs in general is how many actually have experience of running a large organisation (and therefore understand what it really takes to impelement change/policies. Just being a card carrying member of a political party should not e the sole qualification for a ministerial role.
Digby Jones was not in industry despite his CBI role.He was a solicitor like several other members of the cabinet .
I'm moving my business out of the U.K. and into say Ireland in order to pay less corporation tax.
Anyone done it? We can pay for advice.
An Agriculture Minister who is a vegetarian.
Two Brothers.
A man and his wife.
A leader of the House who is Chairman of the Labour Party.
48% less women than under Blair.
Educational Backgrounds mainly Politics and Economics.
As you say no Business Experience.
Bulk of them sacked or resigned under Blair.
Jones was a lawyer with no business experience.
A postman in charge of the NHS-the nhs will be in its element with the postmen on stike! What a Shambles, Guido ?
AND HUTTON WHO DOES NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ENTERPRISE AND BUSINESS
What about their educational and social backgrounds - for example the brothers Millipede - sons of a barking mad Prof of Politics. (Ralph Milliband wrote some odd books on socialism - Labour not left wing enough - wanted planned economy, and more controls. (Didn't the old man Millipedi set up some benefical trusts for his boys to avoid inheritance tax, or was the press story far from accurate?)
How many of McStalin Broon's cabinet come from families which have been not dependent on the state for employment?
The business sector has not done all that bad under Brown for the past 10-years. Could have been better but if Brown was as bad as some of you make out surely after 10-years we would be approaching third world status! Truth is we are not, although there would seem some tough times in the not too distant future. The point being, Brown has not shown himself to be anti-business in the last 10-years, so why would he start now? God forbid that he's going to introduce some policies that benefit the other 95% of the population in the same way that the top earning 5% have benefited in the last 10-years! Fuck me, that would be a surprise.
paul @ 8:03am
"There should be a minimum age for MPs, say 40 years old"
Exactly, exactly, exactly. (Hmmm sounds familiar)
What we have these says is simply career politicians. No experience and no use to anybody.
Well said, bring back the Tories 4 million unemployed, people dying on NHS waiting lists, pensioners not worried about povity but about freezing to death in the winter, inflation sky high, interest rates over 15%, millions of homes repossed, schools with leaking roofs and no books, crime up 100%. Oh yes the good old days. Oh yes and Thatcher the witch in charge!
A definition of a proper job is when if you get it wrong you lose everything.
Property Livelihood and Self Respect.
Sitting on your arse with your hand out huffing and puffing about things you have little knowledge with no come back should you be wrong is not a proper job of work.
Inflation rates in the USA and Europe are both substantially under-reported by government statistics. There is a Shadow Statistsics website estimating US inflation at 10% not the 2.5% claimed.
People who live in the Eurozone will tell you that money has more than halved in value sicne the Euro launch. That makes above 10% inflation.
In the UK money supply increase is 10% per annum. There are some productivity gains. Inflation is probably nearer to 10% here than the 2% claimed. The RPI is at 5% or so, but both CPI and RPI are failing to keep up with prices people are actually paying. Council tax, houshold bills, fuel, food are rising much faster than admitted.
anonymous - it is boring of you to argue without a name.
pppps
Ignore all previous posts. I was pissed and have now realised what a wanker I am.
Sorry - we are asking them to run whelk stalls? So am I being moved up to run a Govern Mental Department? How shellfish of Mr Brown not to shell me directly. Hang on I'll go and gut my Oyster card. Moule mariniere!
anonymous at 9.10. Gordon Brown is bringing back 4 million economically inactive workers - redefined as on incapacity benefit.
Homes are being repossessed in record numbers. Prediction of 40,000 p.a. in two years time. Inflation is sky high, but hidden in false statistics. Interest rates are being kept down to hide Gordon Brown's blushes, but the tide will overwhelm him soon.
crime is up 100% but again Police are trained to reduce crime statistics by refusing to record crime such as credit card fraud. street murders are now a daily occurrence, as society has lost control. schools are failing to educate as they are now full of bullies that teachers are not allowed to discipline or evict.
your hell on earth description is what is happening now. you don't have to look back 25 years. Labour are grossly irresponsible and in denial of their responsibility. They are a PR agency, operating as a sub-office to Brussels. It's completely hopeless.
Digby 'I'll get my snout in any trough that's going' Jones ?
How very Nulabour..
And whilst I'm not a fan of Alan 'wanker' Sugar, his disdain for Digby on the Today this programme was a delight to listen to..
"One of the reasons for the unprecedented growth under Brown's 10 years was making Britain one of the economic centres of the world."
Um, no. It is due to the fact that our total public and private debt is a staggering $10trillion. We are one of the most indebted nations in the world. Almost all our growth can be equated to the growth in money supply due to a dramatic increase in debt. We are not actually producing more than we were 10 years ago, in fact we are producing less and are becoming less competitive. British business and the CBI don't care where the money comes from of course. But Britain will have to pay it back.
Anyway, the Digby Jones thing strikes me as more window-dressing. A case of keeping ones friends close and ones (potential) enemies closer perhaps? I doubt that he will have any impact at all on government policy. Very similar to the nonsense that Blair went through with Jonathon Porrit and David Puttnam. Same old NuLabour.....
maybe guido could have an age cap for poster here. It'll certainly cut out the useless spitefull purile loonie leftie nulab idiots like the ones posting above.
Damage.
Is she still alive? Thatcher I mean. I thought she went to Chile with her mate the dictator Augusto Pinochet and died.
Wishful thinking on your part, the wicked witch lives!!!!
No way, I saw her on tv recently, she was dead (hehehe).
What's new?
Digby Jones has been a New Labour mouthpiece for the past few years.
As for his "business experience", he doesn't have any. He was trained as a solicitor, his main talent is self-promotion, and his only motivation is personal ambition.
BTW Tapestry is spot on with his inflation figures. The economy Brown created is fucked, it's a giant pyramid selling scam which will collapse within 12 months, taking the pound, and millions of over-indebted people with it.
What other experiences do they lack? Have any of them got military, medical or educational experience? No. So they'll need shedloads of advisers and consultants. But the advisers won't have any experience either so they'll need advisers as well. And so on ad infinitum
I guess this kind of ignorant comment is based around the idea that running a whelk stall is an easy proposition.
Have you ever been whelk fishing? Do you know how to clean a whelk? Can you monitor whelk stocks to ensure that all sold whelks are fresh i.e alive? NO AGAIN!!
So why knock people who do...
Is it me? but the news channels have rolling coverage of a blue tent with a merc in it... for the last few hours , but at 4.00am there was but ado about the clusterfuck in admin of the flooding and the usual lack of cohesive effort buy gnu labours various agencies . Well done nice cover up...
AntiCitizenOne said...
I'm moving my business out of the U.K. and into say Ireland in order to pay less corporation tax.
Anyone done it? We can pay for advice.
Don't try Ireland they closed off many of their tax loopholes years ago. Set up a company in the Isle of Man (totally independent of the UK and Labour authoritarianism) and run the UK office as an overseas branch of that company. That's what I do.
Alan Sugar was on the radio this morning (think it was 5 Live). Apparently Sugar is going to be onthe same taslk force or wahetver it as as Jones. Also they do not appear to get one. Something along the lines that Jones does not consider Sugar to be a true businessman.
In what way I wonder? Not being a palm-greasing, city boy - banker type? I can see why they wouldn't get on. Sugar had a side-swipe, making comments about people getting to be mouthpieces for industry when they have done nothing themselves in their life.
The poster who mentioned immigration and Jones is right. From what Jones has said he seems to have utter contempt for the workers int his country. Should fit in well with Brown.
If we did a crude analysis - Tory + business owners; Labour = workers - it shouldn't be a surprise. The tragedy is, none of the cabinet have any experience of business or work (in the sense that the rest of us understand it).
My my lots of nulab astro-turfing economic illiterates on this thread.
Anon 3.43am - it was built up by self reliant people who judgment was not clouded by idiot welfarism.
Anon 6.30am Yes Royal Mail is a business a very badly run one losing market share at an alarming rate due to restrictive union practises. When the question is raised abut people with business experience it is the desire for successful business experience - not simply taking handouts or running something into the ground.
I'm pondering that soon after equity release on property becomes more of a necessity, there will be increased government interference, with a slide towards more regulation and possible compulsorial powers.
These already exist in a form which makes nursing home operators rub their hands with glee. £700 per week is a lot of dosh to shell out...
I find it difficult to understand why all this hasn't happened already, and assume that the bombshell will be dropped during the housing bust, when 'treasury advice' becomes 'treasury income', after the institutions are told to regulate themselves on equity release, or else.
When did any Labor cabinet include anyone with business experience? I can't think of a single person since 1964 who would have survived Bob-a-Job week, let alone build an enterprise dependent on satisfying its customers. Can anyone cite a counter-example?
This isn't a news story - it's 'no business as usual'.
I thought that Alistar Darling was about to gain some work experience - as chief Monkey to the new Organ Grinder. Not exactly running a Whelk Stall, but he will have as about same level on influence on economic policy.
"Labour = workers"????
There are 8 public school boys in the new cabinet. Labour = public school boys who grew to hate their parents wealth and privilege because they knew they couldn't match their success and developed an unhealthy interest in theoretical Marxism.
Yet another bunch of useless apparatchiks to bleed the proletariat dry.
What a bunch of parasites.
The freakin' Post Office?! Am I alone in thinking that just about the last thing the eegits should have done is to go on strike? Yes, let's try to drive business away just a little bit faster. Moronic. "Job cuts"? There'll be a 100% job cut one of these fine mornings if they don't get their heads straight.
Labour = public school boys who grew to hate their parents wealth and privilege because they knew they couldn't match their success and developed an unhealthy interest in theoretical Marxism.
this comes as a surprise? after Gaitskell, Crosland, Driberg, Crossman, Benn, Atlee, Dalton, Cripps etc etc etc
Seems half all prominent Labour politicians went to Winchester.
Is this the friday caption competition?
OK then.
Man holding gun to his chin:
'Fuck this for a game of soldiers, my 'donation' is as good as anyone elses and I wanted to be a Lord!'
anticitizenone - I don't always agree with everything you say but today you are spot on, as is tom and a number of others here.
This revelation (kudos to) speaks volumes. Digby is a faker, btw, and so does not count one iota. This is a disaster in the making for us - the cabinet will not suffer as long as they are lickspittles to Brussels, their pension is secure.
And Brown has now set up 9 regional minsiters...the scumbags!
The record of business men in government has not been a good one. John Davies ex CBI chairmain a minister of Trade and industry in the Heath government, was probably one of the worse ministers in post war British politics. Prior to making statements to the house he would go into the toilets and be violenty sick, he would then have to be forced into the chamber, he could not cope with parliament at all.
Stick a pair of ray bans on that big fat head and it prescott mk2
And what fucker have they put in charge of the weather?
What does Guido consider a "proper job"? Management consultancy (like Hague), PR (Cameron), journalism (Boris Johnson)? The real problem is that across all parties politics has become a professional career, and fewer MPs enter the Commons after a productive life outside politics (whether in business, education etc).
How many people in the CBI have public sector experience, just wondering like.
I mean its so shocking that people at the top of the pile in the public sector have spent their career in the public sector. Weird world isnt it.
Oh, and anticitizen, of course you can opt out. Its called fucking off out of the country and going somewhere else where the tax system suits your needs better you whinging little c*nt!
Did not that friend of norfolk clarke once run a badge shop or summink. you know whtas is name, yuo know charlie clarke, not millie brand, I ll fink of it in a minute, Talks wiv a strange limp, milburn thats it Jackie milburn, no ;got it alun or was it alan, could someone ask please
Nothing wrong with opting out of paying tax to Labour. Keynes thought tax avoidance the only worthwile amusement left.
Exactly why do we need a minister for each region???
More wind-baggery.
> Its called fucking off out of the country and going somewhere else where the tax system suits your needs better
You should worry more about emigration than immigration! The UK has never had a higher rate of emigration of skilled people, who are generally firmly punished for their hard work and success.
When the credit crunch hits the UK, all those hard working Poles will also fuck off, and you'll be left competing with the imported benefit addicts, their expensive mosques and cousin kid cripples.
Enjoy!
this from response to Toynbee on comment is free...
A truly decent clever team, eh? Hmm, I'd disagrre with that. More tellingly it's NOT a team with teribly wide worldly experience or background, with NO-ONE from a business or 'regular' work background:
via http://fountain.blogspot.com/2007/06/brown-cabinet-in-full.html
These are the areas they worked prior to entering politics, there are some overlaps and some of the lawyers worked for public sector employers or pseudo charities. Note Pseudo charities refers to those organisations which are either heavily funded by the taxpayer or exist to promote a specific political agenda (Smith Institute... which has given Pollywork):
Public Sector:
Gordon Brown (College Lecturer)
Alastair Darling ( Board of Napier college)
Jacqui Smith (Teacher)
John Hutton (College lecturer)
Alan Johnson (Postman)
Ruth Kelly (Bank of England)
Geoff Hoon (College lecturer) *
Tessa Jowell (Social Worker)
Baroness Scotland (Commission for Racial Equality)
Lord Grocott (Polytechnic Lecturer)
Trade Unionists:
Alan Johnson (Communication Workers Union)
Hilary Benn ( Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs)
Peter Hain (Communication Workers Union)
Jack Straw (National Union of Students)
Lawyers:
Alastair Darling
Des Browne
Jack Straw
Harriet Harman
Hazel Blears
Baroness Scotland
Pseudo Charity:
John Denham (War on Want, Oxfam, Christian Aid, British Council)
Harriet Harmen (National Council for Civil Liberties)
Ed Balls (Smith Institute)
Baroness Ashton (Various)
Tessa Jowell (MIND)
David Miliband (National Council for Voluntary Organisations)
Shaun Woodward
No Known Career Before Politics:
Douglas Alexander
Ed Miliband
James Purnell
Andy Burnham
Yvette Cooper (Although she later did a stint in journalism)
Journalism:
Gordon Brown (Scottish Television)
Ed Balls (Financial Times)
Ruth Kelly (Financial Times)
Yvette Cooper (Independent)
Shaun Woodward
Lord Grocott (TV)
Private Sector, other than Law & Journalism:
None
Anon, 2:39: Exactly why do we need a minister for each region???
Because he wants to carve up the UK ready for European regionalisation.
ross f 1:16pm
It means they have no one who has ever had to satisfy those whom in order to advance in their career.
The inclusion of Oona King would have rectified this imbalance.
anon 3:43am
I think this FATCAT is from the school of thought that British Workers are Lazy but immigrant workers are the bees knees.
If we were so lazy how come we built our country up while many countries still have mud huts as standard living accomodation?
You keep stealing our assets - so we been too busy building up your national infrastructure you damn bloody fool.
sterling boyo 8:49 AM
and a man that gordon can call darling
whelkstallowner 9:28 AM
Sorry - we are asking them to run whelk stalls? So am I being moved up to run a Govern Mental Department? How shellfish of Mr Brown not to shell me directly. Hang on I'll go and gut my Oyster card. Moule mariniere!
you're gear sounds real good! where you located?
i fancy slipping my tongue into n oyster right now
Brown's choices are all very interesting, but does anyone know when the Labour Party will be unveiling its frontbench - because this certainly can't fucking-well be it. Digby fucking Jones? Christ, why don't we have Norman Tebbit and the corpse of Alan Clarke while we're at it?
Sarcasm Alert only. Honest!
Well it was Haymarket until this morning but the police found my mobile van and it aint there anymore. No worries I have a spare near Hyde Park. Hang about though...... what's that officer LOL
Stay safe out there people
Anon, has provided some very disturbing information, it looks as if this shower have never worked for an organisation which sets out to make sales, profits or wealth. They are parasites nothing more, nothing less. Are any of the lawyers involved in commercial law or not? I still wonder if any of them have spouses or parents involved in the private sector. It would be good to find out more about this narrow minded clique.
I pointed this out on Mrs Dales blog yesterday.
What is particularly frightening is these people did shitty degrees too - Law & PPE
I'm sure Guido will offer a five pond newt to the first person to correctly identify the cabinet member who studdied Russian at Uni.
(Clue his dad was a spy)
whelkstallowner,
The ultimate irony is that one of the bomber's cars had been towed away by Westminster City council to the car pound in Hyde Park. No doubt Westminster council/Capita will be filing a Penalty Charge Notice to Al Queda now.
Digby was part of the long decline of the CBI into the 18% Club or Confederation of Big Industry. It no longer represents or listens to SMEs. If you look at the makeup of their advisory committees (if you can get hold of the information, which is not widely available, for some reason), you would find a similar picture to Gordon's Business Council for Britain - dominated by corporates to the extent that the SME perspective is barely represented. They are completely resistant to changing this profile. It is a stitch-up, where we all pay our membership fees and lend our numerical support, and then the CBI comments on policy as it and its larger members see fit. My company discontinued membership at the start of the year for this reason.
Given Howard Davies's recent role in France, and now Digby's appointment, it is clear quite how cozy is this relationship between Gordon and the representatives of big business.
Doesn't selling Socialist Worker outside the Uni' Union bar or spending other peoples hard earned money count as a "business career"? - I think you'll find it does in the Little Labour Book of Spin.
Post a Comment