I think she'll fit right in with the new Labour (AKA "Tory Lite") government as just like Darktrace they're all smoke and mirrors too.

Starmer and his cronies really don't seem to understand they are only in power, won their landslide, because of tactical voting, that people coalesced around Labour simply as the best option to get rid of the shambles which was the Conservative government.

All he and Labour have done so far is further alienate those who voted through gritted teeth.

You could say about most new governments that they only got voted in to get rid of the previous shambles.

This is what happens when you vote for least crap of two political choices. The least crap party takes it as a mandate to keep being crap. If people hadn't voted Labour then sure we would have had 4 more years of Tory crap but at least it would force Labour to give us a real choice. Here we are with the most unsurprising case of same shit, different day you could imagine.

Let me get this straight... voting against the less crap party will make them better?

How long do you have to keep voting for the crappier party, before the less crappy one becomes good? More than 14 years, presumably.

For a rare change we see somebody with a tech sector background in a ministerial role where their expertise is relevant. I'd have thought that well worth shouting about.

The "sales over substance" allegations can be applied to ANY software house that's not in the mature cash-cow phase of operations - the nature of software sales doesn't match nicely with accounting principles that evolved to suit manufacturing industry.

Declaration of interests: I work for DBT, not in any capacity around Gustafsson's remit; I didn't vote for Starmer, but remain cautiously optimistic his government are better at the strategic fundamentals than they are at the PR side of things.

@AC

How tech is Poppy though?

Accountant and then went on to exec positions - not sure if Poppy did any actual "proper" tech work (cant check on linked in as I do not have an account for reasons probably obvious to many el reg readers who like their privacy, & an account needed to view someone's full experience details)

Poppy will have board member level overview knowledge of some aspects of IT, but I doubt career includes anything that would qualify for "who me?" or "on call" entries

"Poppy will have board member level overview knowledge of some aspects of IT, but I doubt career includes anything that would qualify for "who me?" or "on call" entries"

Accepted, but in the context of encouraging inward tech investment in the UK she's better qualified than a technically expert caveman who has spent most of their career lurking in the server room? Even brilliant people from a true technical background wouldn't be suited unless they'd gone over to the dark side of management.

Do you think that any of the "consultants" could avert (if needed) the following waste of money (£21bn) ?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/11/labour-carbon-capture-climate-breakdown

Will this new person just be someone who favours specific projects based on their connections ?

I see that the IET is approached for Government Consultation requests, so how will these fit into the DBT processes, if at all ?

People are sceptical, because the "very well experienced consultants" are either ignored (bad decision made) or are listened to (bad decision made), and the UK government wastes many billions of GBP.

"Do you think that any of the "consultants" could avert (if needed) the following waste of money (£21bn) ?"

What have consultants and CCS got to do with Ms Magnusson? They're valid questions, but she's been appointed as junior minister for investment in the Department of Business and Trade.

The new government have made no secret of the fact that they think the system spends far too much on consultants, so perhaps they will get round to using them less often. But most big ticket projects are signed off because they're a favourite idea of the prime minister, and all the surrounding analysis and business case is just bullshit to prop up a done deal. Think of the navy's two carriers, approved simply because Gordo Broon wanted to bribe voters in Glasgow, or HS2, signed off because The Lying Philanderer wanted to wave it as a "levelling up" project.

CCS isn't a DBT project, it sits with the shambles that is DESNZ. The policy peeps at DESNZ are mostly the same as those at BEIS, and who laid the foundations of our current catastrophic energy policy. Even then you have to allow for the fact that ministers only pay a little attention to their own officials, and are susceptible to pressure from the Net Zero fascists and high priests of climate change who are the Committee on Climate Change, plus all the NGOs and other pressure groups. Mix in that most ministers have no grounding in STEM or common sense, and it's no wonder..... Your current Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero is the Rt Hon Ed Milliband, a man who had excellent A level results including Maths, Further Maths, and Physics but sadly squandered his talents by choosing to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

Now you're just being Scilly.

Funny A/C ===> Pint for you good sir!

I know, Wight?

Man, that was good.

I was looking to the skye, mulling what to choose, but my glass is raised to Islay.

The Jura is still out on which island he means ...

What the Hilbre are you lot on about? Your heids are in the Muck, and I'm on the Rùm

Icon: nearest

Why don't you Guernsey for your self....

How is it going to work?

Minister will be doing sommersaults in hope that investors will start throwing money?

Seems like Labour is going about it the wrong way.

It's like starting a business by first thinking about the model of the chairs in the office, rather than the product.

It's like starting a business by first thinking about the model of the chairs in the office, rather than the product.

Exactly like it was when a company I was working for was preparing an IPO. All we got was endless presentations on corporate culture, standardisation of colours of wallpaper and chairs, nothing about how we'd be that successful PLC. We were told how great it would be but not how the company would become great.

We got the wallpaper and chairs but the IPO fell through. And the company collapsed soon after.

@elsergiovolador

Obv aware that lots of el reg commentards are raving brexiteers...

However, the elephant in the room for attracting investment is the huge obstacles / extra delays & costs UK now faces in trading with the EU, this makes it much less attractive than nearby countries in the EU. Starmer says he has no plans to re-join EU * so going to be an uphill struggle to make the country attractive other than allowing "investors" to pay minimal tax & let them drain the people dry (e.g. look at privatised water companies)

* Yes, I know he habitually lies, but he has not shown signs of altering on this yet

@tiggity Actually that's not so much of a big deal.

I'd agree if a Belgian sausage maker wants to build a new factory outside Belgium, then the UK's going to be out of consideration, as it is if somebody wants to invest to physically trade inside the EU. But we don't need sausage factories. For serious money and serious projects though, Brexit isn't a material barrier. In 2022 (latest figures easily to keyboard), German outbound Foreign Direct Investment was €114bn in the UK, compared to €58bn in France. The German investment in the UK was almost a third of the amount they invested in the US, and about the same as they invested in China (or Luxembourg (no it's not a tax haven, no siree)). It's interesting see those numbers - the EU as an institution treats the UK with a degree of imperial contempt, fortunately for both the Uk and Germany, German business are happy to establish business relationships with us, and vice versa.

The data has shown massive inward investments to the UK in eg Fintech, car industry, AI, etc over the past year or two, meanwhile the EU struggles under the weight of complacency, excess regulation and vested interest. If you search out the recent Mario Draghi you can read it for yourself, from a mover and shaker of the EU project. The EU suffers persistent under-investment, stagnant economic structures, nations and industries utterly intent on blocking innovation, few new fast growing companies, and persistently poor delivery of the potential benefits of digital infrastructure. Not my words, the words of one of the EU's ultimate insiders. Meanwhile UK businesses had to re-evaluate their entire business models and supply chains post Brexit, and that's actually delivered worthwhile benefits in cost and resilience. Things that will also count in future are work done initially under the Tories and continued under Labour like signing trade deals such as CPTPP. That's already a larger trading group than the the whole EU, and of faster growing economies - we won't be exporting toilet roll or parsnips to those countries anytime ever, but there are lots of things we can trade with them both ways.

So no, Brexit is not a major barrier to investment. And it's not an elephant in any room, excepting one full of people who opposed Brexit and have never got over it.

"Minister will be doing sommersaults in hope that investors will start throwing money? Seems like Labour is going about it the wrong way."

Speaking from the inside, and from a different political complexion to the government, I have to say that they are going about business related things in a clear, focused, systematic and thoughtful manner.

You won't know that from the popular press, but there's a lot of serious effort to improve investment, to strengthen the economy in things the UK is good at. I've been a minion under rather a lot of ministers over the past few years, the current lot are taking the responsibilities of government seriously, and that's something of a first for fifteen years or more. Even when doing things that might be seen as anti-business such as worker rights, they're listening to business concerns (and from a personal perspective, if they can stamp on the curse of zero hours that's an excellent thing). They're also not afraid to break a few eggs to make an omelette.

The Labour party created an unfortunate straitjacket for themselves by what we might now consider unwise promises on tax, when in opposition. That will come back to bite them after the forthcoming budget. This is because the wider public are unwilling to see public services cut or made contributory, and think higher taxes should be paid only by people richer than they are.

Things are not going to change with massive blindspots Labour seems to have.

as anti-business such as worker rights

Labour don't seem to have plans to reverse Tory IR35 changes, this means their flag ship worker rights bills can be very easy to side step by any company and we will actually end up with even worse conditions for workers (no employment rights at all).

public are unwilling to see public services cut

Labour seems to be oblivious to the massive profiteering going on in the public services by usual suspect suppliers. Cut of spending with increased quality of services can absolutely be done, but usually sleaze gets in the way. The fact that is not even in the mainstream conversation says all about where Labour stands.

but there's a lot of serious effort to improve investment, to strengthen the economy in things the UK is good at.

We are not used car dealership, where management thinks customers can be tricked by a nice website, free coffee and a test drive, only to get overpriced car that will require massive repairs the next day.

As a business person, I am sorry, but I cannot see that Labour is doing anything remotely useful to help growth and investment.

"Labour seems to be oblivious to the massive profiteering going on in the public services by usual suspect suppliers. Cut of spending with increased quality of services can absolutely be done, but usually sleaze gets in the way. The fact that is not even in the mainstream conversation says all about where Labour stands."

They've had a hundred days in office, WTF do you expect them to do when there's long term contracts agreed by the previous lot?

Government certainly could rip up existing deals, but that then makes a mockery of the rule of law and the principle that a contract has to be honoured. If they nationalised all UK government work being done by Crapita, Atossers, Mitie, Serco, Steria and the rest, then Liz Truss's mini-budget disaster would seem as nothing but a storm in a teacup. You'd have meltdown in UK equity markets, government borrowing costs would skyrocket, and we'd have international relations problems with nations whose companies suffered.

Sorting out the mess of decades of ill considered outsourcing will itself take a long time - if the government even wants to. Are you happy to see the public sector workforce dramatically increase in size, and will that of itself solve the problems?

Office chairs are extremely important. They are covered under health and safety. I would say it's starting a business by first thinking about having a microwave in the office, rather than the product. I say microwave because there is always one dirty bastard microwaving really strong smelling fish.

I agree, not the best example, but sentiment came through. I got distracted by a ping from a microwave and wanted to finish the comment quickly.