Making it his business
NOW MR HUGHES must catch his minis- ter on the right day, when Mr Hunt is not preoccupied with the wonders of science or staffwork. He might mention that, over at the London Business School, the study of the City's competitiveness is rumbling mag- isterially forward — Lord Young slapped it down but the City Corporation picked it up. The Corporation and the present Lord Mayor like to beat the drum for financial exports. So does British Invisibles, audible abroad although muffled at home. The Bank of England broods on it. The Trea- sury worries about it. Every so often it goes in at one side of the DTI's head and comes out at the other. Now the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will discover that it has become his business, too. Everybody's busi- ness is nobody's business. The missing fig- ure in all this is the William Webb Ellis of financial services — someone who will pick up this ball and run with it. I am sure that Michael Hughes can throw a scoring pass. I am less sure that I can imagine David Hunt getting his boots on.
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