Party leaders bid to charm top bosses at CBI bash
The election campaign intruded on the CBI’s annual conference yesterday, making the event even more political and even less about business than it otherwise would have been.
That said, the topics slotted into the agenda around the political speeches focused mostly on climate change, inequality, profit with purpose (Justin Welby was on stage for that) and mental wellbeing.
Interesting topics, and there were a couple of panels on the global economy and technological change, but even without the political pitches this wasn’t exactly a festival of capitalism. A sign of the times, perhaps.
As for the politicians, the Prime Minister was up first, promising to reform business rates and cut employers’ national insurance contributions. He also revealed that the planned corporation tax cut (from 19 to 17 per cent) will be postponed — in order to splash a bit more cash on (you’ve guessed it) the NHS.
Businesses were, in the words of the CBI president John Allan, “disappointed but not devastated”. It’s true that there’s been no great clamour to reduce the corporation tax rate, and the more interesting voices in this debate have favoured reform over reductions.
However, Johnson’s move shows the Tories are worried about fighting a defensive campaign on tax cuts for business while Labour hammer away on the NHS.
It also makes it all but impossible for Tories to claim in the future that lower tax rates yield higher revenues.
The calculation appears to be that the party doesn’t need to run the risk of committing to tax cuts, since Jeremy Corbyn isn’t competing with them on that pitch.
The Labour leader turned up to the CBI conference with a message that he wasn’t anti-business but, thanks to a question from the audience, ended up having to insist that he wasn’t antisemitic.
And then there was Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, who keeps telling us that she’s running to be Prime Minister.
She had to contend with an audience member who said that even though he liked her, he couldn’t do anything other than vote Tory since he was so scared about letting in a Corbyn government.
She was well received, but then again if her “cancel Brexit” message didn’t land well at a CBI conference, where would it?
Business leaders absorbed the promises and policies pledged by the three would-be PMs, but will ultimately face the same choice as the rest of us: which party do you trust to run the economy?
Brexit or not, there’s no Corbyn-shaped answer to that question.
Main image: Getty