CITY AND SUBURBAN
Men from the ministry with a Christmas message: `Confound all presents wot eat'
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Christmas presents can be more blessed to give than to receive, and less expensive, too. Mr Jorrocks found that out when he was given a horse: 'Confound', he said, 'all presents wot eat.' The most expen- sive of all presents must have been the copy of the latest Jeffrey Archer novel, signed by the author and sent by him, two Christ- mases ago, to Karen Morgan Thomas, who worked in the City. She rang Lord Archer to thank him for it and since then it has been eating her out of house and home. I explained here three months ago that the men from the ministry had come back to call on Lord Archer. He had been the sub- ject of a (supposedly secret) inquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry's' inspectors. Their report was not published, except to Michael Heseltine, who announced that he proposed to take no fur- ther action. None the less, the DTI (still in secret) asked its inspectors to reopen their inquiry. This time they took an interest in Karen Morgan Thomas's share dealings. This, too, became public knowledge. I now understand that the inquiry is being closed again and that, as least as far as she is con- cerned, no action will be taken. That is something. For as long as the inquiry was known to be hanging over her, she could not expect to find work in the City. Now she is left to contemplate her lawyers' bills and to look for a job which might help her to pay them. It would be something else if the men from the ministry could break their vow of secrecy and clear her. Their procedure is arbitrary. It rests, as the Lord Chief Justice said the other day, on an exception made by Parliament to a funda- mental principle of common law. That exception has been challenged in the Euro- pean Court and may not survive. It remains for me to wish her better luck with her Christmas presents.
Chief of Intelligence
FROM WHERE I stood or cowered as an aspirant journalist who had just put the Times's foot in it with the Bank of England, Hilton Clarke looked ten feet tall. If he had donned his black silk hat it would have pierced the clouds. I appeared in my own defence. He, to my astonishment, looked over my shoulder and said, 'You know, I think he's quite right.' Among his gifts, I later learned, was the art of being indiscreet. Intelligence was (and is) a two-way market and he knew how to get more than he gave. In those days the Discount Office was the Bank's window on the City, and Hilton, as its principal, knew what everyone was doing. With few formal powers the Bank had to get its way by moral suasion, by the raising of the Governor's fabulous eyebrows. Hilton repre- sented the eyebrows in action. Like a good Chief Whip, he was infinitely persuasive because he was infinitely well-informed. He once complained to me that too many City firms had opened their own lunch rooms, so that he could no longer rely on his knowl- edge of individual bankers' choice of wine bars and their drinking habits. In retirement he developed a happy knack of falling upwards, taking on a part-time job at a mer- chant bank or money-broker and becoming chairman. Now he has gone out with the old year. At the risk of putting my foot in it again, I wish that the present-day Bank — in the matter of Barings, for instance — had half as good an intelligence network as his.
Shepard's watch by night
LE PATRON don ici. Giles Shepard, the new managing director of the Ritz, is work- ing his way around the bedrooms, sleeping for himself. So the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. Before the Fortes forced him out a year ago, he had been managing director of the Savoy for 15 years. Now the battle has moved on, Forte is on the defen- sive, the dynasty has abandoned its long- held ambition and the Forte stake in the Savoy is up for sale. As polished and ele- gant as his own tie-pin, Mr Shepard is too civilised to gloat. He has been brought into the Ritz by its new owners, the Barclay brothers, who bought it for £75 million and have money left to spend on it. No sudden changes. I am encouraged to hope for the resurrection of the Rivoli Bar, where my late spaniel, Lupin, had visitor's rights and ate quite a lot of smoked salmon. As for the Savoy, Mr Shepard likes my idea of a cus- tomer buy-out — we agree that lunchers should qualify for share-meals, on the lines of air-miles. Not at the Ritz, though.
A tumble from the cycle
IT IS something for a banker to have his testimonial from Eddie George relayed by Kevin Maxwell. This happened to John Melbourn of the National Westminster, who is this year's president of Chartered Institute of Bankers. Mr Maxwell described in evidence how he went to see the Bank of England and was told that he could not be dealing with a better man. Thus fortified, Mr Melbourn has been giving his presiden- tial address, which deduces from a study of the banking cycle that the next crisis is due in 2009. I think we shall do well to stick it out till then. My interpretation of the cycle is that crises happen when those who can remember what happened last time have retired, so that with more and earlier retire- ments the process is speeding up. Mr Mel- bourn more austerely quotes from H.G.Wells: 'Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.' Shrewd banker that he is, he declines to tip the winner.
Date for your diary
OPEN YOUR shiny new 1996 diary at June 19 and make a note to keep the day clear. It will be observed in the Virgin Islands as Organic Act Day. This essential information reaches me from the Morgan bank's 1996 World Holiday and Time Guide, and confirms my view that other countries are better at bank holidays than we are. They tend to have something to celebrate: St Paul's shipwreck (Malta), the Melbourne Cup (Australia) or the burning at the stake of John Hus (Czech Republic). We just have pointless perennials — a spring bank holiday, a summer bank holiday, and the May bank holiday that Michael Foot first wished on us to signify the international solidarity of labour. Now we are reminded that three of our eight holidays are grouped closely together in the year's chilliest and shortest days. I argue that in a free country with a market economy we should be free to decide for ourselves when to go on holi- day. On that basis I would opt for 19 June, subject to confirmation from the Morgan bank. All dates for the Virgins, say the bankers, are provisional.
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