Blain’s Morning Porridge Sept 25th 2024: The Rest is Remembering – Politics, Alastair Campbell and Sir Patrick Sergeant.
“Sigmund [Warburg] said he already had too much to read. Having been thoroughly discouraged, I went ahead and did it anyway.”
With the UK political conference season underway, Alistair Campbell provides the comic relief and explains it all rather well. Sir Patrick Sergeant founded modern financial journalism – he spotted the opportunity and went for it.
Something a bit different this morning.
I was reading the Torygraph on my way up to London y’day, playing my new game of “Socialist Economic Death Frenzy”. It’s great fun – you earn points for spotting the most fantabulous headlines in the daily journal of the UK’s entitled right wing.
Yesterday it was illuminatory improbable-opinions-dressed-up-as-irrefutable-facts, including “Clueless Starmer is blind to the scale of the disaster to come”, “Starmer’s sausage gaff shows his incompetence”, “Angela Rayner sits front row at Dior’s power-dressing show” (actually, that was Brigitte Macron), and “Rayner to build 4 million homes on Greenbelt”! How exactly? Where will she find the labour and materials to construct that number of houses, about 400% more than the Tories built over 14 years?
You have to giggle.
I just love the sense of angry entitlement that oozes out of these angry, barely coherent haverings of the right wing press writes these days: “I’m a Tory – you must listen to me.” They are like toddlers who won’t be getting a new pony – because they had been very, very naughty indeed.
However, they are shouting at an open goal. The UK’s new Labour Government has made itself extraordinarily unpopular faster and more effectively than any other new government in UK history. (Liz Truss doesn’t count – she was speshul.) They have upset everyone by consigning Britain’s pensioners to the deep freeze for the winter while helping themselves to luxury holidays and expensive clothes from dodgy-looking rich supporters. The fact they don’t smile a lot, and keep telling us its all the Tories’ fault is a clear signal they are overwhelmed by the enormity of it all….
Yada, Yada, yada….
The Tories never did anything bad….? (Sorry, who is Lord Evgeny Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia?)
The problem is…. this social media age of news manipulation and disinformation confirms old lessons:
- Throw enough dirt and it sticks.
- Make enough noise and people will start to listen.
- What counts in now. Yesterday is quickly forgotten.
One of the reasons I was up in London was to attend independent Investment Management firm Waverton’s annual investment forum for its clients. We were treated to a swift and clear summation of global macro from CIO Bill Dinning, and then a really interesting dive into investment themes from equity guru Tineke Frikkee – I must ask her to write a guest piece in the Porridge.
The main event, however, was guest speaker Alastair Campbell.
Give Campbell credit for hot-footing it from the Labour conference in Liverpool to address a meeting of ruddy-faced City Types and wealthy investors. Most of us remember Campbell as Tony Blair’s media Consigliere back in the last Labour government; permanently angry and combative, a very serious proposition most Tory’s admit terrified them as an intellectual bruiser of the top order.
He hasn’t changed, and he has. He is now well on the way to becoming a National Treasure. (For foreign readers: National Treasure status means you can say or do anything (some caveats apply), and everyone will immediately forgive you, “oh what a card, but we love him/her”.) Together with former Tory Cabinet minister Rory Steward, they host the UK’s single most popular Podcast: The Rest is Politics. (I also recommend the sister show; The Rest is Politics, US.)
Its motto of the Rest is Politis is simple “Disagreeing agreeably”. It’s balanced, and thoughtful as two ends of the political spectrum agree to disagree and listen to each other’s stories. Its clear they may be politically divided, but converse as gentlemen.
It’s the perfect antidote to the moral outrage, self-entitlement, anti-vax, anti-everything me-me-me fury of Torygraph journalists Alison Pearson and Liam Halligan on their tired sounding Planet Normal podcast. Other political podcasts are available…
Campbell took us through a succession of very funny tales – great Put-down on Blair about Putin… first time they met him in 1999 Blair apparently said “we can work with him…” Rory Stewart’s claimed ability on the bagpipes was questioned. (Rory.. dinnae fash bout it. I’ve been trying to learn the Pipes for decades… they sit there staring at me as a reminder of failure..)
Only once did Campbell momentarily loose the crowd – when the inevitable question about the Prime Minister’s wife wearing an expensive dress gifted by a supporter as worse than Tory Sleaze came up. Immediately a host of other aged men in the audience were roaring Hear, Hear.. nothing says proof positive of Labour shenanigans like gammons squeaking from the oven. He addressed it without any whataboutisms, and by the end got an enormous resounding ovation.
I’m not surprised the Alistair Campbell Rory Stewart show is now able to fill the O2. I’m going to get a ticket.
Sir Patrick Sergeant
However, also on the way up to London I read the obituary of Sir Patrick Sergeant – the man who founded Euromoney way back in 1969. In 1987 the boss of Euromoney, Padriag Fallon, persuaded me to chuck in the wealth and riches of my early career at Morgan Stanley and join him, for a fraction of my salary, launching a new title at Euromoney; Euroweek. It was a financially incredibly stupid decision, but about the best thing I ever did.
Sergeant was the best paid and most listened to financial journalist as business editor of the Daily Mail when he set up Euromoney in a corner of the Mail’s office. After spotting the opportunity the then blithely ignored Euromarkets offered, and his chat with Siggy Warburg in this morning’s quote, he made it a success. Let me lift this directly from his Obit (from the Telegraph):
“By judicious flattery of the leading players of the Eurobond market, by making itself a journal of record for their deals, and by attracting acres of “tombstone” (bond-issue announcement) advertising, it grew into a spectacular financial success. In due course it spawned a number of subsidiary titles and information services, as well as an international conference arm, and won two Queen’s Awards for export achievement.
The invention of Euromoney awards such as Finance Minister of the Year and Central Bank Governor of the Year maximised both the cachet of the title and Sergeant’s reputation as a global networker par excellence. He attended no fewer than 34 consecutive annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund, the ultimate bankers’ jamboree (or “boondoggle”, in the vocabulary of the editor’s columns).”
I was enormously fortunate to have been part of that – although late to the party. Although Sergeant had passed on the reins to Padraig Fallon (one of the most influential and helpful mentors of my career), I did attend, as a very junior junior, a couple of memorable lunches.
Sergeant recognised the importance of the Euromarket when it first emerged. He knew all the key players, and they respected him for giving the new market voice and following. I joined as it became a mature market – something that enabled the City of London to thrive. Things are less exciting today… but, gosh, I still remember the office in Playhouse Yard with great affection.
There was a time when finance was fun and politics was good. I wonder if they will ever return…
Very out of time, and normal service resume tomorrow.
Bill Blain
Author of the Morning Porridge, founder of Wind Shift Capital
Finally: Please check out Bill’s Pub to Club Swim: Myself and some chums swan 2.5 miles down the River Hamble last weekend raising funds for Heartbeat. Please consider a donation!
