Exploding central banks, Boris blame game, and being mad for Manchester

Theoretically, I’m not here this week. In theory, this was meant to be a holiday week. In practice, here I am because there’s too much going on and this is the newsletter for the wonderful members of Reaction. So, here we all are.

It might be a shorter version this week, on the basis that, as I said, theoretically I’m not here. Let’s see how it goes. I’m hoping to spend Friday evening having a glass of wine in front of the next episode of Succession, the comedy/drama about an American media family starring Brian Cox. I’m miles behind on this intriguing  show. People assume that being a media person I must have seen it all, but no. Completely passed me by. Half way through Season One and they’re still at the “will the internet catch on?” phase. 

This week for the newsletter, I aim to offer a few short thoughts on stories that mattered, and an observation about Manchester’s famous art gallery.

Incidentally, don’t miss Reaction Weekend, where there’s loads of good writing from the team on cultural matters and more. Adam Boulton has been at Cop26 (my sympathies, Adam). Jenny Hjul critiques the contemporary obsession with youth. Gerald Malone focuses on the mighty Wexford Festival. There’s our books digest, food, reviews and more.

Exploding central banks

How do you defuse a central bank? For months it’s been clear (and in this newsletter it’s been a theme) that the biggest question beyond Covid relates to the West’s central banks being giant unexploded bombs. To keep the show going the Bank of England has been on an £875bn bond-buying spree, buying assets to juice the financial system. The US Fed and the ECB have done similar. It can’t go on forever, and the Americans are the keenest to revert to normal. Soon, we are about to find out how a massive monetary experiment ends, or whether it can be resolved safely.

This is not an arcane or remote subject. If the central banks cannot manage the next phase successfully, unwinding Quantitative Easing and “normalising” interest rates, then we’ll all feel the impact if it tips us into a recession. In Britain, living standards are already under pressure with inflation heading for 5%. The obvious effect is that people under pressure behave more cautiously in their spending and investment decisions. That exacerbates the growth problem.

This week, the Bank of England surprised some investors and analysts by not raising interest rates – the FT’s advice earlier in the week was don’t raise, yet. But with inflation rolling, when? The authorities were clearly worried about the fragility of the economic recovery and investor and consumer confidence. The recovery had been charging ahead until the difficulties this autumn on supply chains and inflation. Incredibly, the government chose to add to the strain with a National Insurance tax hike.

One of the side effects of the Covid crisis is that sensible people are even more wary than usual of making sweeping pronouncements. That’s logical, when fantastical policies that would have once been thought impossible, such as the government closing down society and paying most people’s wages, happened and life carried on.

All manner of people who pre-Covid crisis used to have robust and well-informed economic opinions tell me they have no idea, really none, on what the impact of stopping will be. The best we can all hope for – Boris Johnson-style, he has no interest in economics – is that like the air going out of a balloon it somehow shrinks and there is no explosion. I do hope so, but call me sceptical.  

Mad fer Manchester

To Manchester, one of England’s best cities. On the way by train earlier this week I did what always has to be done from about Stoke onwards. That means switching exclusively to Mancunian music, feeling the excitement of being drawn at high speed into the great city soundtracked on Spotify by (showing my age) the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, the Smiths and Richard Strauss.

I associate Strauss with Manchester because of Michael Kennedy, the former music critic of the Sunday Telegraph who died in 2014. Michael not only wrote the outstanding biography of Strauss, he authored the history of the Hallé Orchestra, the symphony orchestra based in Manchester. Michael was generous with his time and insights when I went to visit him at his home in Manchester almost a decade ago because I had questions about Metamorphosen and Four Last Songs.

This week, once we had wandered Manchester for two days – eaten Indian in Akbar’s on Liverpool Road, taken Tapas at El Gato Negro, lived the Italian lifestyle for a few hours at the original San Carlo, been shopping, and toured the university – there had to be a pilgrimage to the Manchester Art Gallery. It’s worth the price of the trip on its own. The Lowry room includes the best-known paintings of industrial Manchester by Adolphe Valette, his Impressionist tutor who landed in Manchester via Saint-Étienne, Bordeaux and London.

And then, a problem. Is it now compulsory for good institutions, such as Manchester Art Gallery, to go through a needy, woke reawakening that tips into bad manners and self-indulgent wittering?

Turn every corner and there’s a sign saying that the gallery team is in the process of “rethinking” what it means to be a gallery. Where did the wealth come from that built this collection? Who paid for it? Why is it here? Is the collection a result of – sharp intake of breath – someone’s privilege?

For goodness sake, enjoy the art and the achievement of the artist. Why turn every aspect  of human endeavour into a problem to be divided into class, race and gender? There’s a still life section featuring female artists (including Emma Magnus) from Manchester who blazed a trail by breaking through when men, idiotically, refused women admission to the academy. The quality of her work, and the narrative, speaks for itself.

In 1984, the gallery received two Canalettos as part of a bequest. This was a coup. A description next to the paintings asks: “Was Manchester misguided to ape the tastes of a class whose wealth was often based on exploitation? Or perhaps the curators in 1984 were wise to preserve these works for the city to enjoy.?”

Well, yeah, you think? They’re Canalettos. Look at them. They’re the business. In the 1980s a bunch of collectors, art experts, curators, local politicians, art ministry officials, were excited and well-organised enough to secure these specimens. Imagine the pride. What a wonderful thing these people did. They secured Canalettos for Manchester, put on public display in perpetuity, to look at for centuries. Any problem, any downside, if there is one, and there isn’t, is so very small as to be not worth worrying about.

We also took the Manchester United stadium tour. I always feel conflicted on football in this part of the country. Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish was my boyhood hero, for reasons of Scottishness and his genius as a player. But I’m for Glasgow Rangers. He played for Celtic before Liverpool. Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United manager, played for Rangers but Rangers treated him appallingly. Although not as badly as my home team St Mirren in Paisley who stupidly removed a young Fergie as a manager, in a row over some tracksuits. And so St Mirren lost the greatest manager of his generation. Life is complicated. What the hell. Take the tour of Old Trafford and enjoy it for what it is, whoever you support. I’m thinking of a colleague who supports Liverpool here.

Incidentally, the dressing room under Fergie was an austere place, wood-panelled and basic. Rightly, Sir Alex thought the players should concentrate on their work and mobile phones were banned in the dressing room. Once he had left one of his flashy non-Scottish successors had the dressing room modernised and supposedly improved with fancy new panelling, smartphone charging points and… cupboards. For all the money spent, the effect is budget Ikea at best, with tacky overhead built-in lights that can change colour. Fergie was right. Stick to the basics. And win.

Boris blame game

Those who “do” go into politics, those who “don’t” commentate, a political veteran told me this week when explaining once again that journalists (like wot I am) don’t know anything, or not very much, and that politics is tougher than it looks. Fair enough, up to a point, but we journalists can still recognise, like the voters, that it is nationally suboptimal when a government combines floating about and being adrift from its moorings with drilling a large hole in the bottom of the boat.

This week an attempt was made by Boris Johnson to overhaul the rules on investigating the conduct of MPs. The aim was to save the career of Owen Paterson MP, who had been found guilty of advocating for two firms that were paying him. The rescue plan was not robust and it didn’t work. Tory MPs were furious at being whipped into line and within hours Boris had reversed his net zero electric bus over Kwasi Kwarteng and Jacob Rees-Mogg. Both cabinet ministers had sought to explain the Boris position, Kwasi Kwarteng on BBC Radio 4 just after Boris had changed his position without, at that point, notifying his colleague. Afterwards, it was reported that Boris was unhappy, or frustrated, with the messy u-turn he himself undertook. A search has been launched for someone to blame. One thing you can be sure of when the person to blame is identified by Number 10, it won’t be Boris.

Rose Paterson

Beyond the horrible Westminster game this week lies a human tragedy, a horror story involving a person who has had too little consideration, praise or recognition in recent days. She is much missed. She was Rose Paterson, chair of Aintree Race Course, bookmaker as a school-girl, the first female chairman of the Jockey Club Racecourses, mother to three children and Cambridge historian. Rose committed suicide last year. In life she was such a kind, interesting and intelligent person.

What I’m reading

An uplifting book by Beth Shapiro – Life as We Made It: How 50,000 years of human innovation refined, and redefined, nature – recommended by Reaction Weekend.

Okay, that wasn’t a shorter newsletter than usual. Just different and possibly longer.

Have a good weekend,