I’m Sir Digby Jones, director-general of the CBI, and I was invited to edit FT.com for a day on Monday to mark the start of Enterprise Week.
After a quick induction on the newsdesk and the FT’s morning news conference a number of stories jumped out at me as ones we should give prominence to.
The story I chose to lead the homepage, about Tony Blair tonight calling on WTO members not to let the stalled negotiations collapse, is very important.
UK governments of every colour have always been free traders and one of the reasons Britain has nothing to fear from globalisation is because we’re good at investing and being invested in. Because of that we’re trusted around the world and have created full employment. I like to hear a PM standing up and saying to others around the world that we’ve got to do better.
There’s a strong contrast here with what’s going on in France - by that I mean the country’s cultural inability to reform. For that reason I played Nicolas Baverez’s comment piece on the French riots quite high.
In my view the French have taken a very selfish, very inward looking attitude that’s led to the country’s enormous unemployment problem. You’re not going to create full employment unless you start opening up labour markets. Entrepreneurship is one way of including everyone in society and creating full employment.
Another story that appealed to me was Britvic’s IPO. I’m very pleased that Paul Moody, the guy to lead the flotation, has a different background to your usual corporate animal. He didn’t go to university and worked his way up to the top of the business through lots of different roles. This shows there’s no such thing as a stereotypical entrepreneur and should encourage any budding entrepreneurs and young business people out there.
The O2 figures were solid but the real story was the fact that the Telefónica bid didn’t flush out any other suitors. I also think the copper story - that a Chinese government copper trader is missing after placing “big’’ bets on a drop in prices - leaves Beijing with some questions to answer. It’ll be interesting to see how this story develops over the next few days.
One other thing that I’m keen on at the moment, and that the FT’s working on over the next couple of days, is the bumper level of City bonuses this year. I’m delighted that these bonuses are being paid, because Britain’s financial services industry is the best in the world. But I hope there’s not too much from trade unions and in the popular press about fat cats - there are plenty of parts of private business where people aren’t getting anything like the same pay as City workers.
This week I would also love to know what people think will happen to the retail sector over the next few months - will FT readers be going out and spending their money or hunkering down? Send me your views in my online discussion and poll - especially all you in the City with big bonuses(!)
I want to stress that Enterprise Week isn’t just a London-based thing - we’ve got to make sure that business drives through an entrepreneurial culture on a regional basis. So the package written recently by the FT’s regional staff on doing business in different citiesaround the UK is a good addition to the Enterprise Week coverage.
Throughout the week FT.com will follow events with a series of special articles, video interviews and interactive Q&A sessions, giving tips from the experts on how to pitch ideas, set up a business and operate in different cities. I’m especially pleased that FT.com is making all its comment and analysis pieces on enterprise free, as these are normally only available to subscribers.
I’ll be logging on for James Dyson’s Q&A on innovation on Thursday and asking him what he would personally do to ensure the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs are better skilled.
Other highlights of include news from the Enterprising Britain Summit in London and an interview with Martin Halstead, teenage founder of Alpha One Airways, who has been dubbed the “baby Branson”.
For full coverage of Enterprise Week, click here.
