Field narrows...
MR LEIGH-PEMBERTON'S term as Governor runs out in June next year, and later this year his successor will be chosen by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister. The process of choice began a while ago with a list of half a dozen candi- dates — three of them classed as insiders and three as outsiders, though not in a bet- ting man's sense. Drawn on the inside were Eddie George, the Deputy Governor, Sir Peter Middleton, then Permanent Secre- tary to the Treasury, and Sir David Walker, whose career has taken him from the Trea- sury to the Bank and from the Bank to the Securities and Investments Board. The out- siders were all chairmen of banks: Lord Alexander at the National Westminster, Sir Nicholas Goodison at the TSB and Sir David Scholey at S.G.Warburg. It is now reckoned that Lard Alexander and Sir Nicholas have enough on their hands where they are. Both their banks have pro- duced dismal figures and NatWest is still labouring under the curse of Blue Arrow. By contrast, Warburg and its chairman (himself a Bank of England director since 1981) maintain their usual robust form. (Sir David's last published salary there was in excess of f500,000.) Among the insiders, two have now been recruited by the High Street banks. Sir Peter is being kept busy at Barclays, and Sir David Walker is Lloyds' ultimate answer to its increasingly evident problems of succession. He is still, I see, Ladbrokes' favourite for the Threadneedle Stakes, but I think the choice is narrowing down towards Mr George and Sir David Scholey — one insider, one outsider. In the 36 years since Parliament gave the Bank its present constitution, three outsiders have been chosen and two insiders. Not that the choice is so simply made. This time, I learn of influential support within the Treasury for Mr George and within the Bank for Sir David. One more line of form remains to be tested. Lord Justice Bingham will soon pronounce on the Bank's handling of BCCI, the Bank of Cocaine and Colombia. I cannot say that his judgment is eagerly awaited in Threadneedle Street. BCCI was an elusive bank, run by Pakistanis, financed from the Gulf, registered in Luxembourg, with branches from Hong Kong to Medellin via Kensington High Street, in trouble in Miami and Washington and processing its frauds through the Cayman Islands. Whose baby was it? The Bank relied on an interna- tional approach through the so-called col- lege of supervisors. The alternative was to insist that BCCI's British business should be incorporated here, supervised from here and if necessary busted from here. That line had its advocates, and I gather that the judge will say they were right.
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