Jones stays longer in CBI hot seat

DIGBY Jones, among the most prominent critics of Gordon Brown's taxes and red tape, is staying on for another two years as director general of the CBI.

Jones has agreed to delay his departure from the end of next year until December 2006.

The CBI says Jones wanted to stay on to deal with issues including the reputation of corporate Britain, Europe and the CBI's international expansion.

But it concedes he made the decision after pleading from leading members of the employers' federation, and a request from president Sir John Egan. They want him to continue his feisty campaign on behalf of business, which last week saw him brave a threatened walkout to address the Trades Union Congress conference in Brighton.

Jones has been a sharp contrast to his bookish predecessor Adair Turner, whom he replaced three years ago. He has attacked the Government for 'killing the goose that lays the golden egg' by overtaxing and overregulating companies, observed the TUC had 'no relevance to the everyday working lives' of most private sector workers, and even attacked former Lord Chancellor Derry Irvine's £100,000-a-year indexed pension, saying it 'raised a question of trust in government'.