Business has given government its 2018 wish-list. We’ll see…

Comment Martin Flanagan

The Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland today issues its New Year message, following on from a host of other groups including the CBI, the Institute of Directors and British Chambers of Commerce.

Boiled down, looking ahead at 2018 business wants clarity and resolution on the key issue of the day, Brexit, allied to government pump-priming for companies big and small to deliver within a hopefully temporarily slowing UK economy.

They want the UK government and Holyrood to keep taxes and rates low, keep flashy initiatives to an absolute minimum, work to achieve a step-change in the UK’S infrastructure – our economic arteries, as George Osborne once called it – and devote significant effort to improve the UK’S skills base among the young population.

Like Budget submissions, New Year clarion calls from business can often flatter to deceive, the political hurdy-gurdy ensuring not to much happens.

Let’s hope not this time. individual, a Yorkshire straight-talker with obvious acumen who got to the nub of issues very quickly and turned around a badly flailing Compass in an 11-year tenure that saw shareholders who stayed the course benefit handsomely. As has been pointed out, the man changed Compass from a profit warning lightning rod to a cash-generating machine.

I never had occasion to cross his path, maybe partly because Cousins was almost legendary for just getting on with the task at hand, never a media schmoozer.

But I heard all the stories on the City circuit of one of Britain’s most demonstrably brilliant business talents,