The government has made a swift u-turn and reversed its decision to rebrand the DTI as the Department for Productivity Energy and Industry.

The prime minister was persuaded to backtrack by Alan Johnson, whom he appointed last Friday to head the department.

Interviewed in the FT, Johnson - who will no longer be known as secretary of state for productivity energy and industry - said the name change hadn't worked.

The Department for Productivity Energy and Industry had attracted "various descriptions... penis and dippy," Johnson said.

The CBI had criticised the "old-fashioned corporatism" of the title, and the unions weren't keen on it either, he said.

There was also a serious concern that the loss of the word "trade" from the title would send a misleading signal that the department's support for business overseas was "somehow part of the past".

After a few days, Johnson concluded the six-figure cost of rebranding was not justified and said that by reverting so quickly back to DTI, the DPEI scheme involved no more than the use of "one screwdriver to take down three letters [and] screwing [them] back up."

Asked whose idea the DPEI was, Johnson said: "I don't know. It certainly wasn't mine."