Any other business: If the governorship is open to all comers from abroad, my money’s on Dr Bollard

If we are happy to venerate a Palestinian patron saint — it occurred to me, as I composed these thoughts on St George’s Day — then we can’t really object to a foreign governor of the Bank of England. The idea may offend the self-esteem of indigenous bankers, but that’s the way the betting has moved since last week’s revelation in the Financial Times that ‘an informal approach by a member of the Bank of England’s Court’ had been made to Bank of Canada governor and former Goldman Sachs executive Mark Carney as a potential candidate to succeed Sir Mervyn King next June.

Carney, whose name was also in the frame to run the IMF after the fall of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has denied receiving any signals from Threadneedle Street and pointed out that his tenure in Ottowa, where he doubles as chairman of Canada’s Financial Stability Board, has three years to run.