‘We must avoid a chilling effect’: the CMA chief on the UK’s pro-growth shift

Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the Competition and Markets Authority. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

Signs by the lifts in the Canary Wharf headquarters of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) remind staff not to talk about their work in public, given the billions of pounds resting on its decisions.

But a very public debate is taking place about how the competition watchdog works and is run, with the Labour government determined to make an example of it.