CITY AND SUBURBAN
An ecological disaster at the water-hole the elephants have taken over
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
The elephants have taken over the hole. This is an ecological disaster, and Sir Leo Pliatsky would be mortified. At the Trea- sury he dealt with the spending departments of government, and likened his job to keep- ing elephants away from a water-hole: 'You drive them off, and drive them off, and in the evening, back they come.' Now Gordon Brown has welcomed them in. Already he is the first Chancellor of the Exchequer to spend a billion pounds a day, but he is only just starting. If he is still there in four years' time and if the figures he announced this week work out, he will be spending one and a quarter billion pounds a day. More will mean worse. He has deluded himself into believing that he can keep the elephants in order, and will only let them drink if they behave themselves. They have long memo- ries and they know tricks worth two of his. As they rush for the water, other life-forms will get trampled. So much for his repeated promise to keep the environment stable. He is now promoting what he calls a step- change. It is a step away from the bio-diver- sity on which growth and evolution depend. He is relying on choices made centrally. He is the gentleman in Whitehall who, as Dou- glas Jay (Peter's father) asserted half a cen- tury ago, really does know best. The lesson of that half-century is that individuals know better. Another lesson will, in due time, return to haunt him or plague his successor. When his projections go wrong, he will learn that, hard as it is to keep the elephants away, driving them out will be harder.
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