Leon Brittan to advise on trade
Leon Brittan has been appointed as a trade adviser to the government. Not that the UK government has any real say over UK trade policy. As an ex-Eurocrat, I’m sure Lord Brittan knows that already.
But still, why not appoint as a trade adviser a man whose career saw him help lock UK trade ever more tightly into the sclerotic, high tax / high regulation Eurozone? It could be just the thing to stimulate trade with India and China.
The fact Lord L happens to have been explicitly hostile to the Tory cause in the run up to the last set of Euro elections even gives his elevation an uber moderniser, welcome-to-the-Big-Tent twist.
Something tells me that his £500 per day review (according to the BBC) is unlikely conclude that we should boost our global trade by having less interference from Europe. Nor, if I was a gambling sort, would I put money on an ex-official ever proposing fewer officials, less regulation and lower taxation. Instead, I imagine any proposals will somehow offer the opposite - coordinated trade strategies, picking winners, and bigger export credit subsidies for big corporations .....
Perhaps Leon might be asked to lobby his former Eurocrat colleagues to ask if we might be allowed to have the sort of trade policy we need? It is after all they, not anyone you voted for, who now decides.
Enough about technocratic appointments. How are those Coalition proposals to make government more accountable to Parliament coming along?