CITY AND SUBURBAN
The economy's potent, the Treasury's paralysed Whitewater gets into the works
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
My fact-finding tour of American financial markets (racing at Saratoga and martinis in New York) has left me with a poser. The economy is as strong as a horse and stronger, in fact, than several of mine. The Treasury, by contrast, is paralysed. Whitewater is lapping down its marble cor- ridors and round the necks of its decision- makers. Imagine the scene transposed to our own dear Treasury. It would have start- ed with rumours about a property develop- ment in Brixton, back in the days when the Prime Minister was a pillar of the borough council. The deal (Mrs Major would be in it, too) would flop, and the local building society which had financed it would go bust. So would lots of others, all guaran- teed by a public corporation. The taxpayer would get the bill and the Treasury would have to tidy up the mess. A worldly man- darin would have made sure to delegate this job as far away as possible, and prefer- ably into the next county, but the new man brought in by the Prime Minister at Chief Secretary level chose to do it himself. Now he and his staff are being cross-questioned into the small hours. His private secretary had been rash enough to keep a diary, and noted that when the catch question came up, his boss gracefully ducked it. Lord Jus- tice Scott has just been taken off the inquiry and replaced by the dreaded Bar- bara Mills QC, so everything will have to start again. Only the man at the top of the Treasury is unaffected. With his silver-grey hair, his serious mien and his 70 years, he looks like the President of the United States as played by Henry Fonda. Presi- dents have changed since then, and so have Fondas, but the image still counts. It is agreed that if there had been any skulldug- gery, no one would have told him. In any case, he rather fancies himself in charge of foreign policy, once the present chinless scapegoat has been moved out of the way. His tactics now are to concentrate on look- ing dignified, stay above the battle and do nothing.
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