A better class of enemy
THE APTEST tribute to Ian Hay Davison was the list of those not present when, this week, he collected the Founding Societies Award, his fellow accountants' highest accolade. These absentees were unavoid- ably detained, some by the Fraud Squad and some by the grim reaper. The crooks and fraudsters exposed by his efforts include John Stonehouse, the Labour min- ister turned banker turned round-the-world swimmer. Then came the autocrat of the Grays Building Society, and the chairman of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the dark-suited bandits at Lloyd's of London. Put into Lloyd's to clean its rotten apples out, he soon discovered that something was wrong with the barrel. He fell out with the market's bluff, genial, untrustworthy chair- man. Years and billions later, he was proved right about Lloyd's, and right about the chairman, whose career ended in dis- grace. His award does him credit but his list of enemies is an award in itself.
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