A.O.B.
Time to talk to George
Published: 10 July 2008
More chief executives should be talking to Shadow Chancellor George Osborne.
The General Election can be postponed no later than June 2010. But Gordon Brown’s leadership, if that is the word for it, may not survive the Labour’s humiliation at the hands of the Scottish Nationalists in the Glasgow East by-election on 24 July.
Even if Labour and Mr Brown had scraped home in Glasgow, another Labour MP could fall off the perch at any time, causing a by-election disaster too far.
If Mr Brown does go, even this Labour Government dare not hand on the poisoned chalice without a General Election.
Chief executives, or rather their advisers, have been slow to establish a dialogue with Mr Osborne’s office.
Some business leaders are putting their money on the Shadow Chancellor – literally so, in the case of, say, Rolls-Royce non-executive chairman Simon Robertson. He is funding the Shadow Chancellor’s office to the tune of £75,000, so Mr Osborne may ’better understand manufacturing’.
But now’s the time to be make your number, and to give the Chancellor-in-waiting the benefit of the experience he doesn’t have.
If you have a good case to put, put it now. You don’t have to wait for the fall of Labour to influence Government policy.
Not for nothing is Mr Osborne’s opposite number, Mr. Darling, known as ’Mr Magpie’. He got the name for pinching ‘Tory’ ideas on lower Inheritance Tax and roping in Non-Doms.
Ross Davies is a partner in The Governance Partnership.