At last some excitement. The next vote is on Monday, and this one could go to a recount. All eyes will be on the weather-vane in the Bank of England’s Court Room, which shows its directors how the wind is blowing. Next door, in an elegant anteroom, the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee
I found the Chancellor outside his local supermarket, conducting what he called a stationary walkabout. He had brought his spaniel, which canvassed the voters by licking them: ‘I suppose,’ said one, ‘that with a dog like that, you can’t be all bad.’ On the political battleground, this was a peaceful enclave, and indeed some of
Rover has now been removed to the Happier Hunting Ground. In a brief obsequy broadcast from Birmingham, Tony Blair sympathised with the dependants. The economy was strong, he told them, good jobs were being created, and £40 million of public money had been set aside to turn Longbridge, Rover’s old home, into an industrial park.
To be watching the last days of poor old Rover is to intrude on canine grief. A wise vet would have put this dog down long ago. I was asking only last week when Rover would go under: after the election? Some means could surely be found, after all those years on and off life
Charles Thomson has achieved what I thought was impossible. He has provoked me to sympathise with the directors of Equitable Life: the gold braid, that is, on the bridge when the ship hit the iceberg. Our oldest life assurance office — set up in 1762, which made it Barings’ twin — had been holed below
The trouble with a referendum, as Kenneth Clarke noted, is that people do not always answer the question you ask them. You want to know if they favour a bimetallistic approach to the currency, and they say ‘Throw the rascals out.’ Something of the sort may be happening to Jacques Chirac. He had the French
Paul Wolfowitz may have to choose between Shaha Ali Riza’s affections and his sense of duty. She is a gender specialist employed by the World Bank as an acting manager for external relations and outreach, he has been nominated as the Bank’s new President, the world’s biggest boondoggle is full of quasi-jobs like hers, and
This is where I came in. Another Gordon Brown budget: how well we know them by now — the thumping delivery, the gabbled numbers, the loopholes closed and opened, so many initiatives, so much complexity, so many popular causes. British films, British science, children’s centres, cars propelled by fuel made from processed hen-droppings — are
The hurricane season has opened early in Florida, where a hedge fund has blown away, leaving some seriously rich investors seriously poorer. The $250 million question, so their attorney says, is whether the money was lost, stolen or strayed. The two Koreans who managed the fund seem to have left town, so it is no
When I was last in the Elysée Palace, with a troop of bankers, we were given a speech of welcome from Jacques Chirac and the opportunity to taste French regional wines. This occasion, or so I imagine, will be more elaborate. A gold ingot will be escorted from the Banque de France by mounted outriders
It may not be too late for me to bid for the Stock Exchange. Open season has now been declared, Deutsche Borse (Frankfurt) and Euronext (Paris and Amsterdam) are manoeuvring for position, and there must be room for one more contender. I could even offer to save the Exchange for the nation, though not exactly
Bill McDonough once preached to Wall Street from the pulpit of Trinity Church, taking his text from St Matthew and reminding his astonished hearers of their duty to their neighbours. Lord George (Eddie, still, in the City) prefers to take his text from J. Fred Coots and Henry Gillespie, authors of the 1930s classic ‘Santa
Last exit from Lombard Street. This week Barclays begins to pack up and move out. The bank’s founder set up shop there as a goldsmith 315 years ago, and Barclays has been established on its corner site under the sign of the black eagle since 1728, periodically building and rebuilding. The post-war head office, a
Oh, look. In response to widespread lack of public request, the people at North Colonnade have found something new to regulate. A sequence of count-down advertisements — only so many days to go — have been preparing us for the joys of general insurance regulation, which comes into force on Friday. If you are in
How convenient it would be if we could find something out of a package — a computer programme, presumably — to do our conscience’s work for us. Then we could switch off and stop worrying. Happily, in the world of investment, this need has been met, with the invention of ethical funds, armed with ethical
In the narrow courts between Cornhill and Lombard Street, where the old City lives on, I find the senior partner in his seasonal bad temper. He likes to get on with his work but, he says, nobody else does — and, what is worse, nobody thinks that they should. ‘Take that clerk of mine, Cratchit,’
Archie Rice urged his audience not to applaud too loudly: ‘It’s an old house. A very old house.’ This may explain why The Entertainer (Archie in the lead) has not been revived in the West End. Too warm a reception might make the theatre fall down. Now all these fragile old houses have found an
For my birthday, I have been given a gold rouble. It’s the thought that matters, of course — but which would you say was worth more: the rouble, or the gold? The promise to pay, or the precious metal? In the rouble’s homeland this question has always been a no-brainer. Ninety years ago Russia went
Just what we need: a well-meant effort to gum up the market in houses. This market now seems to be gumming itself up, but never mind. A new Housing Act has been passed into law, and with it the concept of sellers’ packs. Anyone who wants to sell a house will have to put one
The postman who calls at 30 Able Road may be a new urban myth but, as myths do, he tells a story. The people at number 30 found that they were getting post for 30 Baker Street, 30 Charlie Avenue, 30 Dog Mews, 30 Easy Street and so on. When they compared notes, they worked