29 MARCH 1997, Page 26

Better luck next time

INTEREST rates can go up as well as down, but the tactful time to put them up is after an election, not before it. At the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan has now acted on this assumption, and President Clinton, safe until the millennium, can scarcely complain. Here at home, all bets must be off until polling day. Next month, when the Governor of the Bank of England asks him to put rates up, Kenneth Clarke can smirk and say that the Cabinet Office rules forbid him to do anything controver- sial: 'Better luck in May, Eddie, old chap.' 'Better luck to you, too, Ken.'