Penned in
I ENJOY watching Pen Kent in the Shirley Temple part. It suits him. He holds hands with the quarrelling tunnellers under the Channel, and the great reconciliation scheme follows. Sir Alastair Morton drinks champagne with Neville Sims, his head con- tractor, the disputed bill (for £1,200 mil- lion) is set aside, and all is clear for the Queen and the President to open the tun- nel on time. This is the happy beginning, when the money starts to flow in and every- body has a chance of getting paid, including the owners — who, as witness the share price, have never despaired. They should thank Mr Kent. He comes into this as an associate director of the Bank of England, with an interest in the 220 banks who have poured money down the tunnel and do not want to run it as a mushroom farm. At such times the Bank likes to say that it makes its good offices available. That tough accoun- tant Bill Mackey added that the Bank then locks the door of the offices and puts the key in its pocket. The tunnellers have been there before. The previous chairman took it on as one of his retirement jobs, and never looked likely to get his bucket and spade beyond the waterline. The Governor called in Sir Alastair, and urged him to take over and start digging. For Mr Kent, this is the second leg of a useful double. When the Stock Exchange finally realised that it could not make its Taurus system (for paperless settlement) work, it turned to him, and he politely told it what to do. There is more to the Old Lady's life than the monetary work of central banking, and more (even) than forecasting the inflation rate, quarter by quarter, in six different colours of ink.
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