Ministers propose but markets dispose — the wraps come off Project Rubicon

Apologies for absence. I was, indeed, away last week — in airports, in limousines, in meeting rooms booked under false names in secluded hotels, and in the engine-rooms of my financial advisers, urging the number-crunchers on. Secrecy was of the essence, as with all coups, and there can have been few so dramatic as this since Lionel de Rothschild backed Disraeli to scoop up the Suez Canal. Mine, too, represents a financial solution to a financial and economic problem with political overtones. This week the wraps will come off Project Rubicon. It will be a revelation to the money managers who are now scouring the world in search of trading opportunities. Conventional investment, as they know, is out of fashion. So far this century, shares have been boring at best, and bonds at today’s prices can only appeal to optimists, or pessimists. The money has flowed towards managers who promise something better — into the hedge funds and deployers of venture capital and private equity.