CITY AND SUBURBAN
Lurid tales of greed, ambition and disaster financial nasties: ministers act
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
weeping measures are to be introduced to crack down on 'financial nasties'. Fol- lowing a surge of synthetic protest and an instant back-bench revolt, the Government is preparing to tack another clause on to its all-purpose Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill. This will tackle the menace of adult publications, on unrestricted sale at newsagents, which can be bought and taken home by any children who can read. Their lurid tales of greed, ambition and disaster — sometimes printed, for greater effect, on shocking pink paper — have been blamed for a rising tide of petty cash embezzlement and spurious expense claims, and also for the South Sea Bubble. A typical London housewife said tearfully, 'My little Oliver picked up one of these so-called City pages, and now he wants a three-year contract so we shall have to pay him a fortune to leave home.' A typical merchant banker and Member of Parliament added: 'I have not a scintilla of doubt that if it were not for these vicious emanations, I would still be Chancellor.' The Confederation of British Industry has asked an eminent confectioner to devise a voluntary code of conduct. It was in nobody's interest, a spokesman said, to publish titillating details about compa- nies. Shareholders must not be exposed to the shock of reading their directors' con- tracts, let alone approving them. At the British Board of Financial Censors, the director-general, Sir Arthur Jobsworth, stressed the need for flexibility. There was no reason, he said, why after tactful blue- pencilling, people should not read the Bar- clays results or even the Treasury fore- casts, and accounts of trance-like states induced by the Bank of England's inflation report appeared to be exaggerated. Mean- while, acknowledged masterpieces like the DTI inspectors' report on the Guinness affair remained unpublished. More resources were needed, said Sir Arthur, and more funding.
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