CITY AND SUBURBAN
The Captain and I are under starter's orders to gee up the Old Nanny Goat
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
My racing correspondent Captain Threadneedle and I are reviewing our options. We had intended to bid for the Tote. Only days ago we were given the go- ahead by the Sunday Leaks division of the Labour Party. New Labour, said the leaks- man, was going to need all the money it could get, and £500 million from selling off the Tote would come in handy, so this would be its very first privatisation. The state might not actually own the Tote (which seems to own itself) but trivial objections like that had never stopped the Thatcher government from selling off the TSB. Now was our chance. We knew at least as much about racing and finance as most of the bidders for railway franchises knew about trains. The Old Nanny Goat, so the Captain said, needed a gee-up — every dog in Newmarket could tell you that and now that Lord Wyatt had given up his search for an older chairman, he would not mind the job, and the free lunches and passes, himself. Then, just as we were on our way to see our bankers, word came that the Weekday Leak team was back in com- mand and that all bets were off. With New Labour, the Tote would be safe for the nation and for racing, which it subsidises. Its monopoly of sweepstake betting would be sacred. I am not a believer in sacred monopolies with entrenched managements, and I do not buy the self-serving argument that without its monopoly the Tote would lose its value. If it is any good at its busi- ness, it ought to be good enough to com- pete. To Robin Cook, New Labour's racing man (I have admired him braving the weather at Cheltenham), the Captain and I have something better to propose.
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