Some honesty could spice up CEO meetings with Number 10
To listen to Downing Street, today’s meeting of the great and good of the British corporate world in Number 10 – as part of the “business council” – is part of a groundbreaking relationship between private sector and policymakers.
It would be churlish to critique anything that brings our business leaders closer to government, but it is in truth neither new or particularly exciting.
What could liven it up, of course, would be some aggressive honesty from those invited. Shell’s CEO Wael Sawan, for instance, could berate those present for years of inaction and confusion on UK energy policy.
Sainsbury’s’ chiefs may also have something to say on the noises off that supermarkets dealing with unprecedented supply chain inflation are to blame for inflation running out of control. At least BAE Systems can hardly be too grumpy about the country’s build, baby, build policy towards armaments at the moment.
The worry for Rishi Sunak et al is that his charm offensive may come too late. Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer are becoming City regulars. The Tory party – not necessarily Sunak’s fault – has become a byword for incompetence and instability.
And economic growth projections, again largely outside the control of the current Prime Minister, are distressingly flat.
The PM should be alive to chinks of light, though. The Treasury’s clear, thought-through changes to pension fund regulation, working with the Square Mile, went down about as well as any government policy in recent memory and have the chance to be genuinely transformative.
More of that would be welcome, and we dare to suggest may be a little more significant than tea and biccies in SW1.