Brown – The Bosses’ Friend

WOULD CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown be an improvement on Tory
Blair as Prime Minister? As Blair tries to dodge the banana skins, some people
hope so.

But Brown is a politician with impeccable capitalist
credentials. Anyone still in doubt should look at the ‘think-in’ he held this
week on ‘enterprise’ with top business people, including the world’s richest
man, ‘Sir’ Bill Gates of Microsoft.

Grossly overpaid bosses in attendance included, amongst
others, Jean-Pierre Garnier of drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Terry Leahy
of Tesco, Paul Walsh of liquor group Diageo and Arun Sarin of Vodafone.

The bosses told Brown their usual tale of woe. Leahy (fat
cat salary £2.5 million) complained that taxes on UK-based businesses were
"forever rising" and now accounted for "nearly half their
profits."

However, Brown and New Labour have slashed corporation
taxes since they came to power just as merrily as their Tory predecessors did.
Many billions of pounds have been returned to the coffers of big business in
Brown’s budgets.

The fat cats told Brown he must stop taking money out of
their pockets – and Brown listened attentively to them. Garnier, whose £22
billion pay and perks package last year even angered other rich investors, said
that governments had to ease employers’ tax burden or see more and more
workers’ jobs go to low-taxation (and poverty pay) countries.

Walsh of drinks giant Diageo (salary £3.75 million in
2002) said Britain’s tax system "penalised success". The man from
Vodafone (where four directors ‘earn’ over £1.5 million) railed against costly
government and regulatory action.

Productivity has grown slower under New Labour than it had
for decades. But instead of ignoring the failing industrial bigwigs, Brown is
threatening to "slow the rate" of spending on public services and
talks of "providing incentives for investment in wealth creation and
greater rewards for success".

Brown has given us due warning. If he were Prime Minister
he would be just as much a bosses’ man and just as little predisposed to the
workers as Blair.