John Davies (businessman) - CBI Director-General

CBI Director-General

The Federation merged with British Employers' Federation and the National Association of British Manufacturers in 1965 to form the Confederation of British Industry. Davies was appointed as its Director-General from that July, wanting the organisation to have a much higher profile than previously. He supported initiatives such as the National Economic Development Council where government, employers and trades unions met to discuss the economy, and set up a joint CBI-TUC joint committee. He was also supportive of British entry into the European Community when the government applied in 1967.

Davies surprised some such as Enoch Powell in May 1967 when he made a speech in California in which he observed that the Labour government's measures to keep pay and prices down were working; Powell considered this not only untrue but an example of collaboration in which "the very spokesmen of capitalism" were doing the work of the socialists. As CBI chief Davies had some quango appointments as a member of the British Productivity Council, the British National Export Council and the Council of Industrial Design. He was briefly a member of the Public Schools Commission.

However Davies was a Conservative by instinct and after the devaluation of the Pound sterling in November 1967, he became much more critical of the government. Increasingly he would lambast Labour ministers on television, although he continued to work together with Ministers in private. Davies handed over the title of Director-General to Campbell Adamson in 1969.