THIS month Boris Johnson had a “meeting with Business Council co-chairs,” according to a No 10 press release.

These “Business Councils” are one of the key ways government consults big business. They give an interesting picture of which corporations count, politically.

One striking feature is how many of these companies have been involved in major corruption scandals: it does make it seem that the most important British corporations are always close to corruption.

Theresa May established these five Business Councils in November 2018.

May was criticised for paying too much attention to the narrow needs of the Tory Party and not enough to big business — so she created the councils to show she did care about the bosses of powerful corporations.

Johnson has stuck with the councils for the same reasons.

The chairs of the councils are:

** Roger Carr, chairman of arms firm BAE Systems (involved in numerous corruption scandals — paid a £300 million fine in 2010 in relation to corruption in Saudi Arabia, the Czech Republic and Tanzania),

** Sir Ian Davis, chair of engine maker Rolls-Royce (agreed to pay £670m in 2017 to settle charges of bribery and corruption in China, India, Nigeria and Russia),

** Emma Walmsley, CEO of drug firm GlaxoSmithKline (fines include a $3 billion settlement of fraud charges over drug promotion in the US in 2012 and $490m in China for bribing doctors in 2014),

** And Dave Lewis, CEO of Tesco (Paid £235m to settle charges of accounting fraud in 2017).

The other four chairs of Johnson’s Business Councils are Jan Du Plessis of BT Group, Shriti Vadera, chair of Santander UK, Emma Jones, founder of business advice group Enterprise Nation, and Brent Hoberman, chair of investment group Founders’ Factory.