16 DECEMBER 1989, Page 24

. . . Noel, Nigel MESSAGE of seasonal goodwill for

Nigel Lawson: who says they never come back? Compare V. P. Singh, who resigned as Rajiv Gandhi's finance minister and dis- avowed higher ambition, saying that he would make a terrible prime minister. We now have the chance to see whether he was right. Xenophon Zolotas of Greece, who became the world's longest-serving central bank governor, is now Greece's Prime Minister. The Greek Colonels in their time of power took against Governor Zolotas and exiled him to an Aegean island. They failed to observe that his hobby was long-distance swimming.