I SHALL BE SURPRISED, though, if the Establish- diem does
not take another drubbing in the City Over Harrods, as it did a few months ago over Ilritish Aluminium. My first reaction to the news that the House of Fraser had made a take-over hid for Harrods was one of irritation; partly h.'cause over the Lyle and Scott affair the House Of Fraser had, I felt, behaved rather shabbily; Partly because 1 regard Harrods as an institution \vhich, like Fortnum's, ought to be preserved from the financial wolves, even if it is by strictly commercial standards inefficiently run (in the sense or not making the best use of its resources). But if Harrods' identity is to be submerged anyway— if it is a choice between one taker-over and mother—then common sense suggests that the Shareholders should accept whichever bid pays them best; and the news that the City Establish- 'aunt had moved in to try to keep out the brash tleweomer Fraser simply in order to let in the
known 'safe' firm Debenhams was enough to make me change my mind. The way some of the City bankers have been behaving recently, it looks as if they believe that all that matters is for the country's economy to be kept within the `old boy' network; and I shall be glad if Mr. Fraser, like Mr. Warburg before him, teaches them the error of their ways.
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