CITY AND SUBURBAN
Rupert gets a job in the Bank it's all part of the Hogg service
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Iam sure that Rupert Pennant-Rea can spell 'potato', which makes it all the odder to see him set up as the J. Danforth Quayle of Threadneedle Street. He is on his way. A wave of the Queen's wand, with the Prime Minister holding her hand, has translated him from the editor's chair at the Economist to the Bank of England as the Deputy Governor. Truth to tell, and bored though he might be, he would be better placed in Washington. What a vice-presi- dent has to do is to preside over the Senate, represent the President at funerals, and, at the President's funeral, represent himself. A Deputy Governor has a more searching job specification (and a £164,910 salary to match) and it is no fault of Mr Pennant- Rea if he does not obviously meet it. The Deputy is now the nearest thing the Bank has to a chief executive. He is also the man in charge of the engine-room. The Gover- nor is on the bridge. He is the Bank's pub- lic face and voice, at home and abroad, and he travels widely and often. When he is away, the Deputy is required to stay at home and take charge. If there is a sudden crisis, he must handle it — the present Governor has something of a gift for absence, and was out of the country for the Johnson Matthey rescue and again in 1987 for the stock market crash. The Bank itself employs as many as 4,500 people, in such different skills as trading bullion, issuing stock (at £1 billion a week) and printing banknotes. It has a large economic dePart- ment and advises on policy, but it is not a department of state or a think-tank. It is, as it always has been, a bank, with a highly specialised business, an unrivalled cus- tomer base, and a £5`b billion balance sheet. These are risky days for banks, and they need professional management.
Fear of flying
NOW THE Bank must renew its acquain- tance with Mr Pennant-Rea. He spent a few years there in the 1970s, joining from the General and Municipal Workers Union and carrying the economics director's bags. Since then he has been with the Economist. If he has a banking qualification, he does not record it. It would be stretching the case to describe him as coming with rele- vant experience, either as a banker or as the manager of a large organisation. He could be a splendid fellow and a fountain of ideas and a breath of fresh or hot air, but that in itself would no more qualify him to be Deputy Governor than to fly a Boeing 747. Eddie George, the new Governor, takes over on July 1. On July 2 he could find himself wafted to Basle or Mexico City or Tokyo, leaving the Bank in the hands of a novice. He must hope that that the airline of his choice does its recruiting more con- ventionally, but I think he would do better to try to stay at home.
So sorry
ONE RECORD Mr Pennant-Rea has already set, no doubt for all time. His appointment was announced on Friday, and he himself, he tells us, only heard of it that day. On the previous day he had pub- lished a full-page apology to the Bank of England — and to National Westminster, into the bargain. (I do hope he will get to the Bank in time to accept it.) The Economist had picked up accusations made at the Blue Arrow trial and based an article on them. NatWest's chairman, taking it more seriously than it deserved, called for the Board of Trade to reopen its inquiry. The inspectors found that they had got it right the first time, which meant that the Economist had got it wrong. Oh, well, we all make mistakes — such as joining the Euro- pean Exchange Rate Mechanism as and when we did, and crippling ourselves as we tried to stay in, and losing a fortune when we were forced out. The Economist's truly bien pensant Europeans loved it, and thought the day of defeat the moment to move to full union. On the night when Mr Pennant-Rea's appointment was announced, another editor told me: 'You have to hand it to them on the ERM. They were even wronger than we were.' As to the succession at the Bank, the Economist's most helpful suggestion was that the new Governor should be Nigel Lawson. It was an engaging idea five years ago, when Mar- garet Thatcher came up with it, but by this time it was so obvious a non-starter as to be eccentric — though no more eccentric than to make the editor Deputy Governor.
It had to be Sarah
WHOSE bright idea is that? The first response, where I sat, was a cry of shock, and the second was: 'It has to be Sarah.' Third thoughts have gone no further. The appointment bears all the marks of Sarah Hogg, head of the Prime Minister's policy unit and upstairs eminence in Downing Street. In Evelyn Waugh's Scoop, Mrs Stitch presses the buttons which bring jobs and honours to the Boots — the wrong Boots, as it happens, but never mind — and passes it off as all part of the Stitch service. This must be all part of the Hogg service. Mrs Hogg is herself an old hand at the Economist. There, Mr Pennant-Rea was her protege. He worked for her when he first joined the paper, and worked with her thereafter in a group which modestly styled itself the Magic Team. There could be no two more natural members of a mutual admiration society, for no one could be plus bien pensant or closer to the heart of Europe than Mrs Hogg. In such matters the Prime Minister relies on her judgment. In much the same way, Neville Chamberlain came to rely in Sir Horace Wilson, nomi- nally his chief industrial adviser but in prac- tice a backstage whisperer and confidant on anything from absenteeism to appease- ment. A courtier's power is by its nature insecure (as Sir Alan Walters discovered) and the art, so seldom practised, is to quit while still ahead. If, as I think, this appoint- ment represents a serious error of judg- ment, I would advise Mrs Hogg to take it as the gypsy's warning, and move on. She could always rely on the Hogg service .
Go out and govern
POOR Horace Wilson missed his cue, and outstayed his patron, so that Winston Churchill arrived to find him still lurking about in Downing Street. 'Tell that evil man,' snorted the Prime Minister, 'that if he is not off the premises in half an hour I shall make him Governor of the Falkland Islands.' The sparky Mrs Hogg would be wasted on Port Stanley.
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