Prudence, come home
THE troubles of the Treasury (I was saying last week) include a peripatetic Chancel- lor, who from no choice of his own has had to spend his time since the Budget on the endless jawboning and jamborees of the international financial circuit. The point has now been made conclusively by the Episode of the Unanswered Question. On Thursday of last week the Chancellor faced a parliamentary question, for written answer, about Johnson Matthey. Officials drafting his reply would have had to catch him, either before a hurried Cabinet meet- ing, or on the way to the airport, or in Bonn. No wonder someone thought he had approved of the draft, when he hadn't. Then a hapless functionary was dispatched to retrieve the reply from the questioner's pigeonhole. Now the Speaker has thunder- ously ruled that this was quite wrong, and that the answer must be recorded in Hansard. It says that Johnson Matthey was not always prudent. How could it have been? It appears to have lost a greater proportion of its balance-sheet than the Crown Agents, hitherto the record- holders. What might also be prudent would be for the Chancellor to be given a better chance to mind the shop.
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