The return of the old-school Thais

Eric Ellis meets the Wykehamist and the Old Etonian who head recession-hit Thailand’s new government, and asks whether foreign investors can have confidence in them

He was born in South Kensington; his character was built at the spartan Old Malthouse prep school on the Dorset coast and at Winchester, alma mater of Hugh Gaitskell, Geoffrey Howe and Willie Whitelaw; then came the obligatory degree in PPE at St John’s College, Oxford, before successful spells with Warburgs, Robert Fleming and JPMorgan that transformed him into a very wealthy man.

His father was a senior civil servant and his grandfather a Privy Councillor. He’s tall, handsome, charismatic, just 45 — and sure enough, he’s now deputy leader of his political party. Did I mention that he has a perfect family too? Is there a better pedigree for 11 Downing Street, en route to Number 10? Probably not, but unfortunately for Britain, the Treasury that Korn Chatikavanij runs is that of the Kingdom of Thailand.

Still, there may be hope yet. As the old saying goes, an Englishman might remove himself from England but England can never be removed from the Englishman. Discussing details of the massive stimulus package he’s designed for the Thai economy, Korn makes a revealing, possibly Freudian, slip.

‘So pound for pound,’ Korn’s rounded vowels explain, ‘it’s going to provide more of a response to the economy.’ Pound for pound? ‘Oh,’ he corrects himself, ‘rather, baht for baht’ — and goes on to describe how he’s going to rescue Thailand. It’s the only beat he misses in a 90-minute interview at Bangkok’s confection of a Parliament House.

Thailand could use a bit of the stiff upper lip Korn acquired with his English upbringing. After coups, years of political turmoil, rampant corruption, death squads, four governments in a year and an economy plunged into one of the world’s deepest recessions by a catastrophic airport blockade, Thailand is on life-support.