CITY AND SUBURBAN
Clarke backs the nobs against the knockers - I diagnose Chancellor's Itch
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
The governing party is now split between grandees and populists, or nobs and knockers. How bizarre to find Kenneth Clarke, beer-drinking man of the people, lining up with Lord Carrington and Willie Whitelaw. I blame the air tickets, myself. He is addicted to them. Pausing only to say that it would be pathetic if Europe launched a single currency while Britain dithered, he has flown straight off to join the British Commonwealth's finance minis- ters, gathered in Bermuda. From a long experience of these meetings I can say that what matters is the choice of venue Bermuda has style, St Lucia has charm, and I am sorry to have missed the Maldives. Nothing will, of course, be decided, but the Chancellor will make an easy hop to Wash- ington, where he has business with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and groups of ministers whose num- bers range from seven to 77. I diagnose the secondary stage of Chancellor's Itch. This disease is brought on by vexations at home
— trouble with the National Debt, with Anna Ford, with the next-door neighbours
— and sends Chancellors abroad to seek solace in secluded rooms in the company of chers collegues. It makes such a welcome change from the rough-and-tumble of the job that they itch to stay on, and find them- selves carried away. Margaret Thatcher warned Lord Kingsdown (now there's a grandee for you) of this insidious effect: They'll get you on the conveyor-belt, Robin.' So they did. In the tertiary stage, itch victims yearn to be chairman of the IMF's interim committee or the Euro- banknote panel. This is fatal. Mr Clarke's distressing symptom is an inability to see what the fuss over a single currency is all about. Bring on the men in white coats.
Where ignorance is loss
THE ODD couple snuggling up this week in the City of London Girls' School are Philip Warland and Clare Rayner. He cere- brally runs the Association of Unit Trusts: she is the motherly agony aunt. What brings them together is a shared belief that money leads to more trouble than sex, because it is even worse taught. They want to persuade schools to take it seriously. In my draft curriculum, Lesson One would be: don't rely on the government to provide for you. From now on more and more people will need and want to provide for them- selves. They will own their savings, control them, even manage them, just as they man- age other responsibilities within their lives. In an age of choice, only the losers will say that they do not understand money because no one ever taught them.
Lawson for lunch
THE Nigel Lawson diet sticks in my throat. Its author first recruited me to The Specta- tor many years ago, and I in my turn have stood up for him through thick and thin, or at any rate through thick. I have defended him against the vulgar onslaughts of his girthist critics. His was a shining example to the horizontally challenged — but now look! Along comes a new model Nigel to charge £12.99 for telling us that the Mark One version was all a mistake. I can only hope that this revisionism will not make its way from his waist to his head. We might then be told (for another £12.99) that the 1970s was the golden age of the British economy, that the Treasury must learn how to manage demand and that the pound should be merged with the peseta. As for the diet itself, I can say from personal observation that it stretches to game pie, summer pudding and a decent Pomerol. The secret is not to waste calorific intake on dud claret, unlike the young man in Dis- raeli's novel who rather liked bad wine because one got so bored with good wine. I might try it sometime, between meals.
Out of a hole
RETIRING is not a word I would use about Alastair Morton, but this would have been his week. His bank manager, John Melbourn, is standing down from the National Westminster and the two could have walked arm in arm into the sunset or, in Sir Alastair's case, to the Royal Soci- ety of Arts, where he is about to fire off a lecture (European infrastructure) at his usual level of diffidence. Between them they could have sorted out Eurotunnel's finances by now, but their problem has been to convince all the other banks who have poured money down this hole — a warning to borrowers who hope to find safety in numbers. Sir Alastair was lucky to find in Mr Melbourn a manager of the old school, and his bank was lucky, too. Just now, banking looks such an easy way of making money that bankers are rushing off in search of new mistakes. He knows better.
Umbrage is extra
WE all make mistakes in our careers. Look at David Rowland. He was bowling along when the chairman of Lloyd's of London asked him to write a business plan. He wrote it and the inevitable happened: he became the chairman and was told to make it work. He never promised that it would, but it has, and Lloyd's is sufficiently relieved to think of paying him a bonus. Now he finds himself showered with umbrage and sanctimony — the very idea of a bonus, when the money could be going to Lloyd's losers.. .. We can see now that the dice have taken Mr Rowland to the wrong square. He should have landed on the waterworks or the electric company. Then, on all current form, he would get a contract with a salary and bonuses, two of them — one of them coming up with the rations and another in his colleagues' gift. Then he would have stock options and a long-term incentive plan, and, of course, his pension. To earn all these, he would not have needed to pull a tottering institution back from the brink — coming to work and keeping his nose clean would do. Such are the wonders of modern reward schemes. Sanctimony and umbrage are extra.
Ready, steady
READY EDDIE'S words of calm leave a veteran banker rattled. The City, says Gov- ernor George, could flourish in or out of Europe's single currency and is prepared for either: no cause for concern. The veter- an is unconvinced: 'I always get extremely worried when the Bank of England tells us there's nothing to worry about.'
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