30 JULY 1994, Page 23

Jim would be proud

OLD SCHOOL ties at the Treasury, which now has three Etonian ministers (and a Harrovian) out of its total of five. Harold Macmillan was wrong: we need fewer Eto- nians and more Estonians. I am startled to note that two of the five — Jonathan Aitken, the new Chief Secretary, and Anthony Nelson, the Economic Secretary — are old boys of Slater Walker. In that school of finance, under its headmaster 'Dr Jim', they will have learned things that are not in the books at Eton. Nor at the Trea- sury, come to that.