The Iggles test
I DRAW Michael Heseltine's attention to the Lord Mayor of London and his cat. A true heir of Dick Whittington, Lord Mayor Paul Newall considered that when he moved into the Mansion House, his cat, Iggles, should move in with him and main- tain the tradition. Now I learn that regula- tions bar her way. They have meant that
the refurbished Mansion House is now infested with fire doors, which must be kept shut, so that poor Iggles would spend her days mewing on the wrong side of them. No problem, I said — the doors should be fit- ted with cat-flaps. This, though, I am told, would bring in English Heritage, which at the very least would insist on Georgian cat- flaps with ogival mouldings but would doubtless ban the whole idea. Mr Heseltine comes into this with the Deregulation Bill, the Government's new initiative, drafted to do away with obsolete regulations. This will allow regulations which are not obsolete, but current, recent and virulent, to come through unscathed. If Mr Heseltine wants deregulation to be taken for anything more than the latest instance of government by sound-bite, he will apply the Iggles test. No deregulation policy worthy of the name would have seen Lord Mayor Whittington parted from his cat. Turn again, Heseltine.
Previous page
