Bernard Ginns: Ken means business in quest to be in power again

WHY should Ken Clarke be the next Secretary of State for Business? I asked him this question on Friday, when he visited the Yorkshire Post office for an interview on the campaign trail.

He told me: "The most important thing we face coming out of recovery is to get Britain open for business again. I think I have acquired sufficient experience of politics, economics and business with my non-executive business activities to be able to contribute to that.

"I hope to provide the ear of someone who understands business and the problems of business with the access and influence inside government to get government to deliver an environment that's conducive to the growth of successful business.

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"The reason I'm still standing in the election is I enjoy politics, but I equally enjoy the problems of business and I like the company of businessmen so I hope to be able to do something to help them survive these difficult times and get back to flourishing again."

Sounds a bit like a job application, which I suppose that's what it is.

For those of you who complain that there is not much to choose between the parties these days, an ideological difference appears to be emerging between Mr Clarke and Lord Mandelson, the incumbent business secretary. Whether it makes any difference in reality is another matter.

Lord Mandelson is a firm believer in what he calls Industrial Activism, a policy which is set out in his strategy document New Industry, New Jobs (catchily abbreviated to NINJ).

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The NINJ vision is for business and government working together to promote manufacturing, engineering, specialised services, logistics and the creative industries as the future drivers of economic growth

He spoke about NINJ during a visit to Yorkshire last month to announce government support for Sheffield Forgemasters, in the form of soft loans to help the company pay for a new forging press.

Lord Mandelson said: "When only government can intervene and put its hands on necessary levers to bring about a strategic, transformative intervention that is what government must do."

Mr Clarke has an interesting take on the NINJ approach. He said: "Peter Mandelson in the last two months has suddenly discovered the virtues of French interventionism, which had passed him by for the previous 13 years.

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"He's got a slush fund and he's been saving up grants and he's been distributing them very liberally in the last few weeks before the election. I do regard all of this as fairly deplorable.

"In amongst those grants are undoubtedly some a Conservative government would have given. To know which ones we would have given and wouldn't, I would need to see the business plan, which I haven't.

"I would need to be allowed to ask the investor, why should the taxpayer finance this for you? What is the problem in raising the money in the normal way in the markets?

"You shouldn't just give government grants in marginal seats because it gives you a photo call."

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Politics and point-scoring aside, Mr Clarke is all too aware that if the government of the day doesn't provide enough incentives for investment, another country will. This is why the Tories might find themselves doing exactly what they've accused Labour of, although, of course, there'll be differences in rhetoric.

Mr Clarke said: "There are plenty of New Labour governments in other parts of the world that will just give any money it takes to get the investment to go to the country. You have got sometimes to match it.

"I don't approve of that approach, but I'm not naive. A British government has to make sure conditions here are as attractive as they would be in rival locations in Western Europe. It's all part of encouraging inward investment.

"That's why perfectly profitable companies like Rolls-Royce wind up getting grants from government because they are able to tell you 'well, if you don't give us a grant we can get given quite a lot of money by the Irish or Singapore'."

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Less NINJ, more IDABINN then. (Otherwise known as the "I Don't Approve But I'm Not Naive" strategy.)

My view is this: If you can't beat them, join them. If government want to spend our taxes usefully, then directly helping to create jobs is a good place to start.

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