4 MAY 1985, Page 23

Gilt-edged takeaway .

THE STOCK Exchange's ditchers, who. would reject their new constitution and damn the consequences, are being told tht the first consequence would be the loss of most of their turnover. Hints, loud enough to be heard in the deepest recesses of the backwoods, proclaim that if the Exchange does not vote for its reform, its best customer, Her Majesty's Government, will feel free to take its business elsewhere. A bluff, the ditchers will say. The hedgers will reply that the poker player who is never bluffed is a losing player. This, indeed, looks like the sort of poker hand on which it will pay to go quietly. The Government accepts the Stock Exchange's argument that, other things being equal, it would be a pity to break the place up, but it is under a public obligation to get its financing done as economically as possible, and if other things were too unequal, that obligation would take precedence. Most of the business in Government stock will in any case leave the Stock Exchange floor — will 'move upstairs' into the dealers' offices, where stock will be traded through a network of electronic screens, with 'hit' buttons and moving displays, for all the world like a high-stake game of Space Invaders. The Exchange is welcome to the role of galactic policeman. The Bank of England concedes that role with suspicious readiness.