The Limits Of Business PR

Labour has been on a charm offensive to woo the City for at least two years.

Shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has had so many breakfasts, lunches and dinners with business folk that he must be keeping up an intense exercise regime on the side to stave off what would otherwise be fatal corpulence.

The City, like most of the rest of us, has taken it as read that the Tory party is going to lose the next election, so decided it might as well cosy up to Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and the rest.

The view I keep hearing: Reeves is really impressive, with a grasp of detail that has surprised the bosses of whichever sector she is chatting up.

Keir Starmer is a blank space onto which you could project whatever image you feel like, but he isn’t Jeremy Corbyn, he doesn’t scare the horses, so he’ll probably be ok.

Until now, all of this stuff has been a matter of PR.

Next week it gets a bit more real, with a Labour business conference that will supposedly unveil actual City policy plans.

More than 500 bosses will gather to hear what Labour bigwigs have got to say, away from the confines of a cosy lunch.

Here is where Labour’s City love-in risks going wrong.

Tory bankers don’t personally want to vote Labour and probably won’t. They do want public reassurance that Reeves and co aren’t secretly harbouring plans to nationalise everything and windfall tax banks all the way to Holland.

So far, Labour’s PR machine regarding business has been excellent. Next week might reveal that PR can only take you do so far.

The City, and the Tories, are looking for slip-ups.