Here he will have to ponder the mysteries of industrial relations expect no significant trade union legislation before the election and
Posted in General on 25. Jul, 2010
Here, he will have to ponder the mysteries of industrial relations (expect no significant trade union legislation before the election) and pay (which is terra incognita; he is awaiting the publication of the Greenbury Report with less than bated breath).What nobody disputes is that the great charmer, who is married with two grown-up daughters, can handle the press. “He is a master of presenting an argument plausibly,” observes Wilson. “But no one believes a word of it.”Lang lists his recreations as skiing, golf, shooting, sailing and music He will have rather less time to indulge these passions now. He will shortly move into the expensively refurbished DTI headquarters at 1 Victoria Street, a little nearer the Commons. His office on the seventh floor may be even larger than Hezza’s tennis-court-sized suite.
He was associated with it both as a junior minister and as Secretary of State Labour will not let him forget that. He has successfully managed a wide range of responsibilities, and that brings a sense of balance to his personality.”But his critics argue that his lasting monument north of the border will be the shambles of the publicly funded, privately owned Health Care International hospital on Clydebank, which has gone into receivership. “He is very much a back-corridor, low-key operator,” said a close observer of Lang’s ministerial manner.Ron Gow, assistant director of the Scottish CBI, is bullish about Lang’s prospects “We found him a very good advocate for business We welcome his promotion Scotland is a micro-economy in its own right. “The new president has great respect for what Michael Heseltine achieved, and he looks to continue the approach of the former president.” We may expect the same nodding-through of virtually any company merger, though the style may be a little more discreet. “There is further scope for inward investment in the UK,” said a DTI spokesman. The Japanese industrial giant is sending a 50-strong team with the express intention of doubling its annual pounds 40m spend here. His first substantive public appearance will be at the QEII Conference Centre in Parliament Square next week, when he will be centre-stage at a welcoming trade mission conference for Kawasaki.
“The real emphasis all the time was attracting inward investment,” recalls Speirs, “rather than the somewhat unglamorous task of supporting indigenous business.”Pursuing this aim, on a bigger canvas, is clearly high on the new President’s agenda. That made meetings a bit of a non-event.” By contrast, talks with his hard-right junior (now successor) Michael Forsyth were never dull. “You might come out worse off, or better off, but you could actually have a discussion and he would listen, whereas with Ian Lang you got the party line and that was it.”The one issue that really excited Lang, it seems, was inward investment. He was a lukewarm devolutionist, who switched smartly to the defence of the union with the rest of the UK when it became politically opportune He wound up and sold off the Scottish new towns.
He only backed down from privatising Scottish water, his nation’s forests and the islands’ shipping link, Caledonian Macbrayne, in the face of monumental public protest.Bill Speirs, deputy general secretary of the Scottish TUC, recalls that Lang was “always charming” in his dealings with the unions – they still have such things north of the border – but never gave anything away “He stuck to his civil service brief. It was very difficult to get him to move from the government line. He shed crocodile tears over the closure of Ravenscraig steel works, the last bastion of heavy industry in Scotland. In particular, his putative “centre-Left” qualifications were sometimes found wanting The surprise is that anybody should have been surprised He was always a hanger and a supporter of the poll tax.