Bored of Trade
HOW glum, across the square from the Treasury, stands the grey bulk of the Department of Trade and Industry. John Smith, its substantial shadow minister, gave its character during the campaign: `The DTI is a joke. It loses every argument in Whitehall. It's been given the City to play with.' Poor DTI — so far down the mandarins' pecking order, so luckless, until now, in its ministers! It had four different Secretaries of State in the last Parliament (and Sir Keith Joseph before that). Now the biggest clear-out of the reshuffle gives it five new ministers out of seven, and brings in, at the top, the Affable Twins. Two Cabinet ministers, with the combined clout of Lord Young and Kenneth Clarke, can do wonders for the old place and for new thinking. Into the slot which Michael Howard made his own comes a newcomer to government, Francis Maude. He has the briefs for competition and for City regulation. He will find a major review of merger policy heading for his in-tray. He has the chance to change both the cumbrous mechanism of monopo- ly and merger control, and the arbitrary triggering which sets it in motion. In the City he will find growing anxiety that the new regulators will become musclebound.
Previous page
