The Spectator's Notes

28 March 2009

Charles Moore's reflections on the week

The Governor of the Bank of England’s eyebrows were the proverbial means of preventing unwise schemes in the City. He raised them, and rash financiers withdrew, chastened. Things have now come to such a pass that the Governor has to raise them — publicly — to discourage rash Prime Ministers. Mervyn King’s direct warning on Tuesday against ‘another significant round of fiscal expansion’ is born of a desperation which all involved in the ‘tripartite’ (Bank, Treasury, FSA) system feel about Gordon Brown. They admire his abilities. They mostly agree with his big ideas about how to stave off global financial collapse, but they worry about his judgment, and his belief that, simply by proposing an initiative, he has achieved something. They find it hard to make him pay attention to reality. Looking back over the years leading up to the present crisis, Mr King thinks that his analysis of the problems was correct, but he reproaches himself for not warning about them more loudly. He is determined not to make that mistake again. The success of his ‘quantitative easing’ depends on government finances which are credible. Only by shouting his message from the rooftops can he get the election-fixated Prime Minister to listen.

The row about Kenneth Clarke and inheritance tax is as predicted in this column (Notes, 17 January). Despite having been on his party’s front bench longer almost than all the others put together, Mr Clarke does not understand the concept of ‘the line to take’. He just says what he thinks. Many admire this as showing splendid independence, but it is actually selfish. He gets air-time because he is the party’s spokesman, but then speaks not for the party, but for himself. So on Sunday he casually undermined the single most politically successful pledge of the Cameron/Osborne era — the abolition of inheritance tax for all estates under £1 million. It showed an uncharacteristic lack of self-confidence in David Cameron to have brought back Ken Clarke in the first place. He was the first Tory leader since 16 September 1992 to have managed to restore discipline to his party, but then he gave in to the dimwit idea that ‘big beasts’ were needed. Mr Clarke perfectly illustrates why ‘big beasts’ are a nuisance. As Churchill said of John Foster Dulles, he is the only bull one knows who takes his own china shop with him wherever he goes. Now the Tories have to run round sticking the fragments together again.

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