16 JANUARY 1988, Page 21

Title engineering

I DON'T like Lord Young's idea of a Department of Enterprise. It is an example of the regressive euphemism through which Whitehall seeks to solve its problems by title engineering. Trade got Industry and Technology (that gloss soon wore off), Works became Environment (look at it), Labour (when you couldn't get it) became Employment (now you can't that), worka- day Fuel became sparkling Energy (to go with Enterprise), offices and boards be- came ministries, ministries became depart- ments and their ministers are one and all puffed up into Secretaries of State — a title which Gladstone thought too ambitious for Joseph Chamberlain, so setting off their historic and sundering quarrel. Bring back the Board of Trade, say I.