Skinflint's City Diary
Since the last issue of The Spectator the Slater Walker/Hill Samuel merger has collapsed to the unconcealed delight of Fleet Street and the gloating of those in the more stagnant reaches of the City. Last week I wrote "1 hope the deal goes through and Jim Slater leaves." Some phantom left out a few words needed to complete the sentence.,1 which was meant to be neither', meanlingless nor ungracious.. Sorry, Mr Slater, but what I interitted' to ,say was "I hope the
deal thro,Ugh and Jim Slater leaves so that he may start again, when my money will go with him."
Meanwhile, back at the factory, Jim Slater should be turning shares into cash faster than ever.
Sir Denys Lowson
Like *gam "doldwyn, men in the City sometimes let slip a phrase that makes life, just for a moment, that much funnier.
Bernie Cornfeld, the maestro of the mutuals, who has just now 'gone away' to Switzerland, was a man for a saying. " I came here on business," the girl he flew over from California was reported to have said when resisting Bernie's wooing. "This is the business" was said to be his imperishable reply.
Sir DenysLowson (" a lot of fag' dbotit nothing "), one of his henchmen, is earning his place among the ranks of these wordsmiths. It was suggested he might care to consider handing back to the investment trusts he controlled all of the profits made from the sale of the shares in the man
agement company of the National Group of Unit Trusts to good Mr Whyte of the Triumph Investment conglomerate. "Sir Denys has considered the matter but sees little merit in it," was the reported reply.
Melchett and successor
I have never made any secret of my belief that Lord Melchett was not the right man to be running British Steel; but I share the general sadness at his most un-. timely death. He fought like a' tiger for the organisation he thought was right for British Steel. He was unrancorous and was the possessor of naturally good manners of a somewhat formal style. His widow was much more informal by nature complementing rather than contradicting him; and, as happens quite often, what might on paper have looked an improbable marriage, seemed in fact to be a most successful one.
The kite being flown that John Davies, rather than favourite Monty Finniston (who is, as it were, already in the saddle), might succeed to the chair of Brit ish . ish Steel strikes me as an ex cellent idea. The steel industry is closely linked through the Iron and Steel Community with the institutions of the Common Market; and I reckon that John Davies would feel far more at home running British Steel than he has ever done trying to run things at Cabinet level.
Police matters
I waS very worried to learn the other day that the Metropolitan Police have a recruitment advertising allowance of no more than £100,000 a year. I can't honestly believe that, on a figure like this, and considering the fact that metropolitan crime problems are so much more virulent than those in the rest of the country, the Government is taking its various law and order pledges seriously.
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