Among the encouraging aspects of Andy Burnham’s rise to Number 10 were reports that his economic advice was coming from three wise men.

The triumvirate of former Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill, ex-Bank of England economist Andy Haldane and recently departed Office for Budget Responsibility head Richard Hughes inspired hope.

Securing their full- or part-time attention is proving trickier. Among the stumbling blocks is the Prime Minister’s apparent support for wealth taxes to pay for big-ticket items such as a drive for affordable housing and an urgent lift in defence spending. Taxes on wealth are attractive to the Left with its politics of envy.

That argument lost some force because of allegations that some supporters used entirely legal tax avoidance schemes.

More telling is O’Neill’s scepticism. The former Tory minister and one of the intellectual forces behind efforts to boost regional economies is an active investor in UK innovation and tech.

One easy fix is the proposal to tax capital gains at the same rate as income. As much as one would like to see the ‘carried interest’ loophole for private equity barons closed, I fear this may be the last straw for UK entrepreneurs.

Recent support for a tax on the UK’s super-rich households has come from economist Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, who argues that a well-designed wealth tax on individuals with assets of £100million or more could yield substantial returns. It would bypass criticism that a wealth tax would punish start-ups and innovators.

To prevent avoidance, it would include a clause forcing those caught by the measure to pay taxes for a decade after they leave the UK. How HMRC would enforce such a measure is more complex.

An analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies last year argued that an annual wealth tax ‘would penalise investment and savings’. It might have added that these are key drivers of growth.

The International Monetary Fund’s most recent inspection warned that the UK was close to peak taxation. The yield from new taxes would be negligible.

Hopefully, Chancellor John Healey got the message.

Deal breaker

At the start of last week, I was told that investment bank advisers were frantically working to announce a proposed big pharma merger of Britain’s AstraZeneca with American rival Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), after a prospective deal leaked to the FT.

As was the case when the Wall Street Journal reported that Shell was lining up a bid for BP, the deal never happened.

In both cases, the Government was involved. Shell was politely asked by the Government, fearful of an overseas bid for BP, to step in as a ‘white knight’ if necessary. 

Similarly, Downing Street was put on alert about Astra’s deal for BMS fearing that the FTSE star, with one foot across the Atlantic, could be heading for the US.

The desire of chief executive Pascal Soriot for scale, in an American market where it is outgunned by Eli Lilly and others, is understandable.

On this occasion, Soriot, who had doubled down on the US with a New York listing and a promise of $50billion of investment, retreated. 

An already divided board, which didn’t much like the transaction, cancelled engagement after £17bn was wiped off AZ’s share price.

Soriot, who helped transform AZ from an also-ran into an £185billion immunology powerhouse, has huge credit in the bank with investors. But he is not invulnerable.

Reds alert

There is great excitement among Liverpool FC supporters at the prospect of one of the world’s richest men, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, joining an investor consortium which is placing an eye-popping £4.4billion valuation on the club. 

On another occasion when Bezos dipped into new territory, buying the Washington Post in 2013, there was also great enthusiasm.

It all turned to tears earlier this year when a third of staff, including most of the sports department, were axed.