CITY AND SUBURBAN
Whitehall's mills grind slowly, so Geoffrey will just have to wait for them
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Geoffrey Robinson says that he wel- comes the Department of Trade and Indus- try's inquiry into his company, Transtec. If so, he will need to be patient. These inquiries are Whitehall's answer to the mills of God, and Stephen Byers has brought out his heaviest roller. Under section 432 of the Companies Act he can appoint inspectors where there is a suspicion of fraud or mis- conduct, or where the shareholders may not have had the information they might reasonably have expected. He finds a bar- rister and an accountant and sends them into action. They can ask what questions they like, the witnesses must answer or be deemed guilty of contempt and sent to prison, and these answers can be used against them in court. (Lord Chief Justice Taylor called this an exception made by Parliament to a fundamental principle of English law.) As a short way to establish the facts, an inquiry like this is, by its nature, a non-starter. The inspectors have other demands on their time. When they have at last put their questions and drafted their report, it must go through a process of Maxwellisation, named after the gallant Captain who patented it. Those who are criticised have the right to see what the inspectors say and to object to it, and this game of verbal ping-pong can go on and on. In the end the report goes to the minister, who must then think about publication. Some reports sit in pigeonholes for years and some never take wing, 'I shall not pub- lish,' said Lord Young when he was at the DTI, 'and I shall not be damned.'
Putting off the day
MR BYERS says that he has asked for a speedy inquiry and a report which he can publish, but we need not hold our breath. He sits in Whitehall's most rapidly revolv- ing chair, he is its third occupant since his party came to power, and by the time the report is ready someone else will almost certainly be sitting there. Setting this slow- moving machinery in process may be the most practical way of putting off a poten- tially embarrassing conclusion, involving, as it does, a ministerial colleague, benefactor and host. If Mr Robinson wants to speed things up, he could always arrange to be interviewed in the New Statesman. He is chairman of NS, which owns it. (No inquiry there, as far as I know.) Then, if Downing Street does not like the result, it can always explain that he did not mean what he said or did not say what he meant.
Charity at parity
DON'T let's be beastly to the euro! Don't let's be beastly to the mon: We'll watch it sink to parity And look on it with charity. . . . Words and music by Noel Coward, suitably adapted. Mon = money, and rhymes with bun, or whatever. Poor old single currency. Its best friends are the British skiers who can now afford resorts that have been closed to them for years. Its supporters at Britain in Europe are engaged on their umpteenth relaunch. The Foreign Office, always whistling to keep other people's spirits up, explains what a success the euro is, and the Treasury audibly doesn't. No doubt Gordon Brown's switch out of gold into euros, one of last year's least successful investment deci- sions, has soured him. This week the euro sank lower than ever against the pound and dipped below parity with the dollar. In a true spirit of not being beastly I now offer my confident prediction for this currency: if it lasts long enough, it will bounce. Currencies do. Even the rouble has its moments.
Follow my leader
LUC VANDEVELDE may be well-known, as Belgians go, but we shall get to know him better as the chairman of Marks & Spencer. The board hopes it has at last found someone who can pacify the City. I have a simpler test: M & S needs a leader. Rick Greenbury was an autocrat. Today's chief executive, Peter Salsbury, was his deputy and has yet to emerge from his shadow. Brian Baldock, the chairman, is a caretaker. In the store wars, leadership tells. John Sainsbury was a leader but his cousin David wasn't. At Safeway, nice Colin Smith wasn't — when he sounded the charge, the troops would remain in the trenches — but his successor, Carlos Criado-Perez, has the makings. Archie Norman moved from Asda by way of Con- servative Central Office to a company called ICnutsford, which is a highly-priced glint in his eye. He is a showman who has taken up prestidigitation. Watch those fish- cakes, Luc, and good luck.
Our mutual friends
I AM curious to know how long the Equi- table Life will carry on under its current board as if nothing had happened. Some- thing has. The Equitable — long-estab- lished, well-regarded — sold policies on promises which it thought would be cheap or cost-'free. It was wrong about that. Then it devised a way of honouring the letter of its promises but rendering them worthless. Then it fought a test case in defence of this barefaced proposal. Now, in the Court of Appeal, it has lost. The Equitable can only hang on and hope for the best from the House of Lords, but as matters stand it is the loser on both counts, injured in its pocket and its reputation, too. Its board likes to preach about the benefits of mutu- ality, but if this were a limited company, the big shareholders would long since have called the board to account. The Equitable itself, as an active institutional investor, would be stacking the gunpowder under the boardroom and lighting the fuse. After this chapter of disasters, the Equitable and its members deserve a stronger board under a new chairrnan, and I expect that, in one way or another, they will get it.
Other people's money
I TRIED to persuade the Cambridge Union not to cancel Third World debt, but its generous nature proved too much for it. Giving other people's money away is always fun, and painless, too. Opening our mar- kets to the Third World, buying what its countries produce, doing away with Europe's Common Agricultural Policy, which shuts them out — that sounds more like hard work. Even so, I blamed myself, on the night, for a tactical error. I should have proposed an amendment to the motion: for 'Third World', read 'student', or, better still, 'poker'.
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