CITY AND SUBURBAN
Gordon Brown heads out into tiger country with a prescription for mange
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
This is the week when the world's finance ministers get the chance to meet Gordon Brown. They are falling over each other, or so they are polite enough to tell him. They can't wait to hear all about this Chancellor's reforms and his new policies, based, as he intends to explain, on his twin watchwords of transparency and accountability: Already his roadshow has taken him to Mondorf-les- Bains in scenic Luxembourg, for Europe's finance ministers; then he flies on to Mauri- tius (for the Commonwealth's), Bangkok (Asia's and Europe's) and Hong Kong (all the 181 member countries of the Interna- tional Monetary Fund and World Bank). The man must be made of some crease-resis- tant fibre. As he heads east into tiger coun- try, he will be asked what he prescribes for the epidemic of financial mange that broke out in Thailand, infected its neighbour coun- tries and is still spreading. He will blame the secrecy in which Thailand's central bank took on the world in support of its currency, running up debts of $23 billion before any- body noticed. It sounds just like Britain in the run-up to Black Wednesday, five years ago, when we used up the reserves and went into the red. (That last incredible day cost us £4 billion.) Whether central banks or finance ministers would be any better poker players if they had to show their cards, Mr Brown will have to tell us. At the Treasury, his regime has been marked by what I would call a water gardener's approach to disclosure selective leaking and planting, with a liberal top-dressing of manure. Transparency would certainly be welcome.
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