Nigel the bouncer
IF YOU are looking for a King Charles spaniel, you do not buy a terrier. If you do not want combative instincts, you do not hire Nigel Lawson. Sir Martin Jacomb, his chairman at Barclays de Zoete Wedd, has known him as long as I have and knows that as well as I do. Indeed, I stand astonished at Mr Lawson's moderation. Since he joined BZW, he has limited himself to two nips at the Government from which he resigned — one for our entry to the European exchange rate mechanism, and one for the poll tax. In office, he was overruled on both issues, and if he thinks his successors muffed them, he may well be right, and he can certainly say so. Conspiracy theorists now opine that his poll-tax speech — 'to govern is to choose' — cost him his job, and that BZW sacrificed him by way of sucking up to the Government for business. That would not say much either for the Govern- ment or for BZW. On the contrary: it was Mr Lawson who had become restive. At BZW, he was in constant demand to top 'the bill at conferences and panel sessions, to lend lustre to luncheons, to impress visiting dignitaries — or to go and visit them. He did all this manfully, but it was a greeter's job, and he is more of a bouncer. He remains a formidable director of Barc- lays. That boardroom, I gather, resembles a classroom in which the more docile boys sit at one end and the more combative boys in one corner. Guess where Nigel sits.
Previous page
