Party of choice
GORDON BROWN is easing off. When the International Monetary Fund and World Bank stage their meetings in Wash- ington this month, he will just hop on an aeroplane and go there. Even the Com- monwealth's finance ministers, gathering in the Cayman Islands earlier in the week, will have to get along without him. To his first IMF meeting, in Hong Kong, he went via Mondorf-les-Bains, Mauritius, Madagascar, Johannesburg, Singapore and Bangkok, taking in three ministerial meetings (Europe, the Commonwealth and Asia- Europe) and catching four helicopters (two of them borrowed) and six fixed-wing air- craft (two of them chartered). This time he will spend the weekend in meetings, fly home on the Sunday night, show up at the Labour party conference, and then fly back to Washington in time for the traditional party given in his honour by the British Ambassador on the Monday evening. Trav- el to and from a party political occasion cannot be charged to the Treasury, so a benefactor may be needed, and I assume that Robert Ayling and Lord Levy have the matter in hand. Better luck this time. The Ambassador's is the party of choice and the Chancellor missed it last year — at the last minute, he had another meeting.
Previous page
