20 SEPTEMBER 1997, Page 30

Collapse of stout party

CITY grandees flying out to Hong Kong will be looking forward to receiving their stiff cards with gilded crests. As I wrote from Washington, when the IMF and World Bank met there last year: 'The party of choice is the British Ambassador's. May the Chancellor, his guest of honour, never cut the Foreign Office budget that sustains it.' Now it seems that he has, for the party is off. The Treasury has decided that costs in Hong Kong are too high. The bankers and others for whom this party was the meet- ing's focal point will be mortified, and as for the guest of honour, he might have learned something at it.