Visible and audible
THE LORD Mayor of London, Paul Newall, is beating the drum for the export industry all around him. It brings in a net £19 billion a year — and not, as some underbriefed minister told the House of Commons recently, £4 billion. The Lord Mayor has now briefed him. He has drafted a card with the figures and sent out 10,000 (more are being printed) to MPs, working peers, senior civil servants and every opinion maker within reach, heading it: 'The City's exports.' He was saying at the silver jubilee dinner he gave for British Invisibles that the word 'export' should appear somewhere in that opaque title. BI is there to do its best for Britain's invisible earnings, but I would relaunch it as the City Export Board. Now BI is to have a new chairman, the splendid Sir Brian Pearse from the Midland Bank — a banker who can and does speak for himself. Visible and audible, the Lord Mayor has set him an example.
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