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I recorded Lloyd’s of London’s long chapter of accidents (and worse) — You can go to sea in a sieve, like the Jumblies, or you can join the wrong syndicate at Lloyd’s — but I noted its resilience: Times are getting harder at Lloyd’s, where globe-flying brokers have found themselves demoted — from their usual first class, right down to business class. An intrepid birdman has been telling me of the experience. ‘Jolly exciting’, he says. ‘Do you know, I could see the wings?’
The people who wanted to sign us up for Europe’s exchange rate mechanism — and what a traumatic experience that was — now want to sign us up for the euro. I never cared for either project:
To rely on the ERM as an external discipline is to say that we either cannot or will not manage our own affairs and would prefer that others acted for us. They will, of course, act for themselves. ‘Nations on the gold standard,’ said Churchill, when as Chancellor he signed us up for it, ‘are like ships whose gangways are joined together.’ No one cared to tell him that ships with gangways joined together are singularly ill-equipped to sail the seas. What gangways are good for is boarding.
Edith Cresson was the French prime minister who doubted English virility and as a European Commissioner put her dentist on the payroll:
Fran
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