George Osborne said on Friday, at an event hosted by the Institute of Directors, that business is under political attack on a scale it has not faced since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Previously, Digby Jones, had warned that companies are at risk of being killed by regulation from "big government".
In an article in the Guardian today, George Monbiot asks where the evidence is to demonstrate that big business is under attack.
David Cameron has said he is "rolling out the red carpet for multinational corporations, cutting red tape and cutting taxes". There has been little real opposition to these sorts of statements.
Meanwhile, in this supposed anti-business environment, the secretive TTIP talks steam ahead - their aim to suppress the ability of governments to put public interest ahead of profit. One example of how such powers may be used (and there are several other examples) can be found in El Salvador, which refused permission for a gold mine because it would poison people's drinking water. An Australian company is suing the government before a closed tribunal of corporate lawyers for $300m of purported potential lost profits.
In the UK, clauses have been inserted into contracts with companies who are taking over the probation service that if a future government seeks to cancel the contracts it would have to pay such companies 10 years' worth of lost profits - in the region of £300-400m.
My feeling is that challenges to the power of big corporations appear to come from concerned individuals and pressure groups such as UK Uncut, while governments have been largely acquiescent to the demands of big business.
