CITY AND SUBURBAN
War's a chancy business, so the Tories leave their winning general out of battle
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Kenneth Clarke has been left out of battle. He has had his own skirmishes, some of them with the enemy, but at gener- al headquarters his face does not fit. Only the odd poster, crudely contrasting Tory boom with Labour gloom, suggests that his party might have chosen to fight on the economy. They prepared a broadcast on these lines but junked it. War, as Marshal Foch said, is a chancy business. Last year and this, Mr Clarke was telling anybody who would listen that the election could still be won and the economy would win it. Boom is not his word — too many booms have been followed by busts — but he is happy to talk of a recovery that can go on and on, and to the International Monetary Fund he claimed to have broken the mould. Whatever his broken mould has come up with, he has certainly timed it to the minute. This year, so his budget speech blandly explained, the engine of growth would be fuelled by the money flowing into people's pockets. The flow is increasing, the engine is motoring, a touch on the brakes can wait until next month — but somehow the drive has not yet mobilised the voters. They voted for this government five years ago, in recession, but they are not hurrying to vote for it in recovery. Have they been left out, along with Mr Clarke? Or do their reservations go deeper? It is not this Chancellor's fault that, last time round, they were sold the Tory stock on what they can now see was a false prospectus.
Promises, promises
THE self-styled party of lower taxation had let public spending run out of control. It would soon need to borrow a billion pounds a week. John Smith had rightly said that taxes must go up to pay these bills, and his candour may have lost his party the election. The recession was prolonged and deepened by the government's commit- ment to the European exchange rate mech- anism. Mr Major now seems to regret hav- ing taken us in. All you chaps, so he told his press conference, seemed to be in favour of it. He really must read this column more attentively. Five years ago his Chancellor was saying that the ERM was at the centre of our strategy, we would stick to it come what may, let there be no scintilla of doubt about that . . . Anything else, the Prime Minister said, would be a betrayal of our future. Eight days later his central policy collapsed under its own weight as the mar- kets destroyed it. The direct cost of that day's humiliation was £4 billion. Cheap at the price, you might say, for the recovery that followed when the ERM's dead hand was lifted and an incredible chancellor was at long last removed. Perhaps the high com- mand now fears that Mr Clarke will say so.
Votez non, votez souvent
THE target of a ten-franc pound looks more attainable now that France is having an election of its own. The opposition (yes, there is one) thinks that the single currency is too tight a fit for France — a looser-fit- ting policy would be more healthy. How nice if that happened in time for the annual British exodus to the Dordogne. The French would have saved themselves and us a lot of trouble if they had voted down the Maastricht project when they last had the chance. Their referendum was a close-run thing, with the casting votes so conveniently flown in from far-distant Reunion and Mar- tinique. (John Major never thought of that one.) My advice is what it was then: `Je dis au peuple francais: votez non, votez souvent.'
The country banker
"TELL us, Mr Governor,' said Tony Beau- mont-Dark, MP, 'about the single currency — are you looking forward to being the manager of a country branch of the Bun- desbank?' The expression on Robin Leigh- Pemberton's face was a study. He looked as if an insect had flown all the way up his nose. We have yet to see Eddie George's face when he is asked to ship gold from the Bank of England's vaults to Frankfurt. Europe's putative new central bank will need capital: how much will depend on who joins, but anything up to $50 billion, and we might have to put up 15 per cent of it. That would come out of our reserves, which are now reassuringly valued at $45 billion — $5 billion in gold and the rest in foreign cur- rencies. Of course, we may have mortgaged them. We sometimes do. Twice at least we have gone into the red. There should, though, be enough left over for a national emergency, and Mr George may have to do nothing worse than to put Euro-stickers on some ingots in his basement. The real loss would be not in gold but in autonomy. Head office would have moved to Frank- furt, and Mr George's branch would have to survive on its reputation for good lunch- es. No wonder the idea gets up his nose.
It's my party
JUST in time, I have worked out what Andrew Regan sees in the Co-op. Armed with little more than nerve and an enthusi- astic spokesman, this young City spark has laid siege to the Sleeping Ugly of Balloon Street, Manchester. Less than flattered, she wants to know if his intentions are hon- ourable. Does he yearn to compete on level terms with Sainsbury and Tesco? To collect dividend stamps on his funeral? I doubt it. He must have remembered (what the war- ring politicians had forgotten) that the Co- op has a party of its own. Not long ago there were Co-op MPs. Labour would co- operate with them and make sure that they had their share of the spoils. Harold Nicol- son was turfed out of Churchill's wartime government to make room for a Co-opera- tor. Even now the Co-op sponsors 50-odd candidates — enough to make the owners of smarter shops turn as green as their car- rier bags. Just imagine the leverage that a proprietary party could exert! Put it down in the books as goodwill.
Love in a mist
WE have a wide range of choice in my con- stituency. The United Kingdom Indepen- dence party's candidate makes a point of explaining that she is a virgin, and the Con- servatives are fielding Alan Clark. Two Kensington and Chelsea ladies caught me on my doorstep and asked if their man could count on my support. When I demurred, they looked me straight in the eye: 'He's very experienced, you know.' Quite so. I expect he will offer the UKIP a coalition.
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