Candid friend
ALAN WHITTOME, knighted in the Honours List, booked his place in history in sterling's worst crisis, 15 years ago, when Britain had to make terms with the Inter- national Monetary Fund. He headed the IMF team. Being chased in and out of Chinese restaurants was the least of his worries. At the head of the diplomatic list, his award honours years of lonely emi- nence as the IMF's senior Brit. As founder-members of the IMF and, until the other day, its second largest shareholders, we have never had the influence and patronage that the French so carefully fix for themselves, and now seem to be doing worse. Sir Alan has retired, Andrew Crockett has returned to the Bank of England, and it is not clear where the next top Brit is coming from. (I am told to cheer for a runner from the Treasury stable, John Odling-Smee.) We can never know when we may need a friend at court. Sir Alan in the crisis was the candid friend who forced reality on us, however painfully. He de- serves his own order of chivalry, as the Knight of the Long Knives.
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