Jim Armitage: Strong firms can keep us stable now Theresa May has seen sense

Despite all the gloom around the economy, business folks seem happier about Britain’s prospects than they’ve been for months.

At our business awards last night, the mood was unremittingly bullish. And it wasn’t just the cocktails talking.

The reason? Finally, government shows signs of backing business again. The change in tone since the election has been like night and day as the anti-business Prime Minister turned lame duck.

One boss said that, within days of the vote, he’d received a reassuring letter from Chancellor Philip Hammond.

Another told of how he and other chiefs have been invited to Downing Street for a summit on Brexit in July. It was the first they’d heard from government in months.

Communication lines, cut when Theresa May embarked on her disastrous business-bashing agenda, are reopening. Treasury brainboxes’ tails are back up, an emboldened Hammond unmuzzled.

This is a very good thing. For, if anyone is going to get us out of the train wreck of Brexit, it will be business.

And not just the cool, tech entrepreneurs politicians like to cosy up to. Our FTSE-100 champions and their supply chains still employ the most people, generate the most wealth, and pay the biggest tax contributions for our schools and hospitals. Government must work with them, not against them, when framing policy and the public debate. Rather than demonise companies, Downing Street should point out their successes and strengths.

It’s not hard. Take the winners at our awards last night: all are changing Britain for the better, be it Aviva forging slick technology to make life easier for customers, Framestore animating Hollywood’s biggest movies, or talent manager Dumi Oburota bringing grime music into the mainstream.

Hammond, a businessman himself, knows all this better than anyone, certainly better than May’s advisers Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill ever did. With Brexit, a hung parliament, and monetary policy confusion in the air, certainty is in short supply. But Britain looks a lot more stable than it would have been if May’s manifesto had come to pass.

Learning to love DUP?

It seems the Tory tie-up with the dinosaur Democratic Unionists has some positives. The newly powerful Ulstermen are pushing hard on Downing Street to cut VAT on tourist industries.

The DUP has a particularly strong argument, with hotels and attractions south of the border enjoying VAT of just 9%.

But as London fights the impact of terrorism and a weaker UK economy, it urgently needs tourist taxes to be cut to European levels too. For once, I’m with the DUP.