Call me Madam
The Prime Minister looked down the list of prospective members of the SIB and ob- jected. Not, as was said, to the presence of a critic of her tax policies (that blackball was cast by the Treasury) but to the absence of anything like enough women. Now comes her edict that every shortlist for a major public appointment must in- clude a woman. The next public appoint- ments in the City are going to be fun. The directors of the Bank of England are appointed by the Queen — on the advice of the Prime Minister. In the Bank's 292 years of hustory there has never been a woman among them. Who will be the first? A veteran of such appointments, such as Sheila 'Statutory' Black? Or a specialist? Kate Mortimer from Rothschilds — now, as it happens, lending the SIB a touch of class? Mrs Elizabeth Sam of Singapore, where she ran the Monetary Authority? That formidable blonde who kept New York's bankers in order, Muriel Siebert? Or can the Prime Minster be thinking in terms of a retirement job with an frequent trains to and from Dulwich? If so, why stop at a chair in the Court Room? Why not the highest chair of all, as the first Governess of the Bank of England? For the Bank itself we shall need a new metaphor, after all these years. We must learn to speak of the Non-Sexist Non-Ageist Person of Threadneedle Street.
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