CITY AND SUBURBAN
No gold for Britain as we all fall down in the Financial Olympics
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Whizzing high over the City and com- ing down to earth with a thud, a symbolic blue arrow got the Financial Olympics off to an expensive start. It was part of a fire- work display representing the amateur spir- it and costing f40 million — but it proved a damp squib. Not a good omen for Britain's chances in this great arena of financial sportsmanship, where the competition is deadly! In the Twelve-Legged Race, a group of athletes from all over Europe bind their legs together and try to rush forward in step. The result is most diverting, even if it does result in broken legs — as our team manager says, they are good for us, really. Cycling will feature the British star Norm Lamont — 'Statistical Norm' — on his extended medium-term cycle. He remains motionless, pausing to let the air out of his tyres, and waits for the cycle to catch up with him. Then there is the Low Jump, sponsored by the medical charity Well- come. The competitors seek to knock the bar down to a level where they can jump over it. This makes a change from attempts to jump heights, usually by means of the Flop. In Synchronised Sinking, one of our best events, a team of property magnates Jump off the springboard, holding their noses, plunge into the deep end and stay there. How long can they stay under water without breathing? Back on dry land, the Marathon is all uphill, and the winning- post seems to be getting further away. Gasping, the runners are constantly told that it will be easier round the next corner. It isn't, though. All in all, this does not look like the Olympic year when Britain will at last strike gold. Still, it is not winning that counts, but taking part — isn't it?
Rowland's baby . . .
A SOFT answer turneth away wrath, but a stiff rejoinder landeth thee with the baby. It happens all the time. Your old college lets you know that it would quite like another £10 million. You write back asking who wouldn't, and what for, and what happened to the last lot, anyhow? Does this get you out of it? Not at all. It gets you a letter say- ing: well, if you know so much about it, why don't you chair our committee? David Rowland knows the feeling. Lloyd's of Lon- don, where another £10 million would not go far, sought his advice. He came back at length, with a number of awkward ques- tions and painfully straight answers. Lloyd's needed to be more accountable, less expen- sive, better capitalised and, above all, better structured and better managed. It did not get him off the hook. After an instinctive cry of 'codswallop', Lloyd's considered response is: well, if you know so much about it, come and chair our market. Lob- bying broke out six weeks ago, when Lloyd's had its golfing weekend at Royal St George's. (Some things do not change.) Since then, a steady stream of persuaders has flowed to Aldgate East, there to coax Sedgwick's board into releasing its chair- man and to urge him to accept his release. They argued, as I was arguing three weeks ago, that the man who knew the way was the man to lead the party. They had to twist arms, for Mr Rowland passed my Thomas Jefferson test for a chairman of Lloyd's: anyone who really wants the job should be disqualified from holding it.
. . . time to go
NOW, why wait? The new regime is sup- posed to take over on 1 January. This assumes that Lloyd's present council serves out the year, that elections take place at their usual time in November, that Mr Rowland (who is not now a member of the council) is elected on to it, and that the new council chooses him to be chairman. It must also delegate most of its powers, and halve its numbers. The next step in this stately pavane is for the council to meet next week and consider how to shrink itself. It could save itself the trouble by resigning. The election could then be held at once, on new constituencies, and the new chairman could expect to come in without delay and with a mandate. In resigning, the council could say that it has been the midwife of change and that its work is now done. Alternatively, it could say that it has presid- ed over a major commercial disaster, that it accepts responsibility — wherever the blame lies in detail — and will face the con- sequences. Either or both would be a prop- er response to the unhappy members who trooped up from the shires to Lloyd's big meetings. It would also respond to pressure building up within the market. I am told that when Lloyd's underwriters met last week, they were impatient for action. Why not? The council has cleared the way for reform, but has still to clear itself out of the way. Now is the time.
Allegro furioso
DAVID MELLOR'S ups and downs are being watched with curiosity at Barclays de Zoete Wedd. Memories go back to an episode in Japan, where BZW celebrated its stock exchange membership by sponsor- ing two concerts by a London orchestra. One, before royalty, went well. To the other, Mr Mellor — then Minister for the Arts and, for some reason, on his way through — arranged to be invited. At half time, he erupted. Turning on his hosts, he demanded to know who was in charge. `You people', he cried, 'don't know how to treat a minister.' They had, he told them, put him in an unsuitable seat. A good seat at the front? Too near the front — why, he complained, he could see up the lady cel- list's skirts. He was hurriedly moved, his hosts being anxious to spare his susceptibil- ities. They might not be so anxious again.
Take a note
THE GOINGS-ON at leafy Debden, where they print the banknotes, have prompted the Bank of England to call for volunteers. Used notes are supposed to finish up in Debden's furnaces, but (as I was saying the other day) mysteriously survive, surfacing in pubs and betting shops and in a local insurance broker's office, slightly singed. The Bank's house journal puts it down to technical difficulties in the banknote destruction operation, creating a backlog which has to be cleared: 'Volunteers are needed to take old notes home at weekends in order to destroy them. They can be col- lected in bundles of 500 on Friday after- noons, and should be torn up into 16 pieces before being buried in runner-bean trench- es at least 45 centimetres deep.' What is really needed is a monetary bottle bank.
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