CITY AND SUBURBAN
Stop the millennium, I want to get off it's never too late to call time
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
It is never too late to call time on a dud project, but it sometimes seems to be. Now that we've got so far, people say: now that we've invested so much time/effort/money/credibility/puffery. . . . So they go on to spend even more and have even less to show for it. Recent instances include the British Library and Taurus, the Stock Exchange's automated system which was always going to be two years away, and the next one is just coming up. This is the idea of spending £580 million to mark the millennium with an exhibition on the con- taminated site of Greenwich gasworks. Since more than one-third of this money is earmarked to come from the National Lot- tery, Chris Smith, the minister in charge, has swallowed his grievance at the man- agers' bonuses and called in the plan for review. He may or may not be told that the cost is elastic — it has been up towards a billion and, for the moment, back again. He is sure to hear that millions have been spent on fees. He should talk to the busi- nesses whose chairmen came in on the pro- ject as the only way to stop Michael Hesel- tine ringing them up. Their problem has now been resolved and some of them would be glad to be let out. The banks took the calls, but even a banking buff like me can scarcely see a pavilion of British bank- ing as a crowd-puller, and they will not please their customers in Manchester and Leeds by pouring their millenary money down a hole in London SE10. Even that address misleads. The gasworks site is fur- ther out of London than Canary Wharf, and with worse transport, or none.
Asking for more
GREENWICH means time, of course, but time is running out on Mr Smith. If he could wave a wand and start tomorrow, he would still have only thirty months to clear the site, build the roads — stations? piers? — and lay the sewers, raise the dome, grow the trees, hire the staff and have the whole project up and running. Not even the lot- tery's capable managers would fancy their chances of doing that without a hitch. Mr Smith will remember the definition of a builder's estimate: a set of figures repre- senting half what a project will turn out to cost and half the time it will take. He should think what his bargaining position will be like when the chaps in the low-slung trousers ask for more, knowing that time is on their side, and counting on him to dip into the taxpayers' pockets or the lottery- players' pool. Now is his chance to call time on this project and blame its failings on his predecessor. The longer he leaves it, the worse it will get. If he must have an exhibi- tion to mark the millennium, Birmingham will put one on for him — but he ought to know that last time round, when Ethelred the Unready was in charge, we managed very well without one.
Yves ho!
I AM worried about Yves-Thibault de SU- guy. We haven't heard from him for days. This archetypal figure — with a name like that, if he were any more French he would burst — is the monetary commissioner in Brussels, and can always be relied upon to say that Europe's single currency is right on schedule. Now France's new finance minis- ter has contradicted him. He wants a pause for regrouping. The exchanges are shaken, the ten-franc kir is just around the corner, but where does this leave poor old Yves? Does someone want his job for a crony or girl-friend? Has he developed laryngitis, or a sense of humour? I couldn't make him up, and I should miss him.
Plant life
THROUGH my window blows a memo from Alastair Campbell, spin doctor to the Blair administration: copy to Peter Mandel- son. It is all about planting stories in the morning papers. Every afternoon there is a strategy meeting in Downing Street, so be sure to keep us posted: 'Any stories being planned for the Sunday papers should be communicated to us by the end of Thursday — stories being planned for Monday papers, by the end of Friday.' This will make a more effective presentation of gov- ernment policy, so Mr Campbell says, and in particular ensure that government stories are not competing against each other unnecessarily. He does not explain how to deal with The Spectator, but perhaps this memo is a plant.
Don't miss the Swiss.. .
I LIKE trains, and Interlaken is the Crewe of the Bernese Oberland, with trains rolling up, down and sideways in every direction. So I have been spending a happy few days there, comparing notes with bankers as the Euro Express wobbles on the rails. The train at the opposite platform has far more attractions. If we must find a partner for the pound and make a European merger, why should we merge it with the euro if that is to be a summer pudding of soft cur- rencies, laced with Southern Comfort? Why not choose something decent? Why not the Swiss franc? When I last reconnoitred this project, the pound was still rolling downhill and I thought we might merge the two cur- rencies at par: one pound for one franc. Now two francs looks more like it. Ours does not have to be a downhill-only curren- cy, and for two and half successful centuries it wasn't. The pound, like the Swiss franc, could be a strong currency outside the euro, and our interest rates could be almost as low as Swiss rates are — but if we want someone on the Continent to run our money for us, who better than the Swiss? They are accustomed to managing money and they run their trains to time.
. . . when they take over
I WATCHED Eddie George's face as his opposite number, Hans Meyer, passed on a bit of good news to the shareholders. Switzerland's central bank, the Banque Nationale, has more gold than it could pos- sibly want, Mr Meyer said, and he would have to find a use for it. One-third of his bank's shares are traded in the Zurich mar- ket, and a jolly good investment they have been, jumping from 600 francs last year to over 2,000 today. The Bank of England has only one shareholder, living at the other end of town, and some more would strengthen Mr George's hand. He would need to move quickly, though, before he gets a takeover bid from Mr Meyer.
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