Attack On Money Markets In Britain

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31863, 16 December 1968, Page 17

Attack On Money Markets In Britain

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter~Copyright) LONDON, December 15. Labour Members of Parliament were pressing for a tribunal of inquiry into the mysterious workings of London centres of finance, Mr Norman Atkinson said today.

He accused speculators of sabotaging Britain’s economic recovery and said the demand for an investigation would be made in the next few days.

Labour no longer had confidence in the political impartiality of money markets, said the Labour backbencher.

for some time but has revived recently.

delivered on television by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Roy Jenkins). He said he was glad that overseas speculators in sterling suffered losses this week. The next night Mr Wilson savagely attacked Mr Edward Heath’s Conservative Party tor a non-committal attitude to the sterling crisis. He accused them of playing "anti-national and antidemocratic gutter politics” by remaining silent in the jittery atmosphere. The Conservatives did not qualify to be a responsible opposition, still less had they any claim to be an alternative government.

The Conservative Party deputy leader (Mr Reginald Maudling) recalling rumours that Mr Wilson would resign, said at a Conservative meeting today this, was unlikely. The Prime Minister, he said, was “clinging to office with a tenacity that would make a limpet blush.” The editorial in “The Times” warned Britain of grave economic peril and repeated its controversial call for a coalition LabourConservative government. It was the second such editorial within a week.

His Comments came after a jittery, see-saw week marked by flying rumours, a faint blush of election fever and a prolonged bout of soulsearching over Britain’s financial state.

The call for an inquiry reflects traditional hostility between Socialists and the City, the famed “square mile” of inner London, said to provide the greatest concentration of financial and commercial services, in the world, where about 500,000 persons work. The Prime Minister (Mr Harold Wilson) on Friday night branded as “alehouse gossip” rumours of top-level Government resignations and adverse financial developments circulated earlier. Brighter trade figures strengthened his hand.

“The Times” said bluntly that Britain was badly ruled by the Labour Government. Mr Wilson shrugged off talk of a coalition government. He lambasted Conservative politicians and currency speculators in the city of London financial district for sabotaging the British economic effort.

Mr Wilson, in his speech at Dunstable near London, issued his most stinging attack yet on business circles which buzzed last Friday with sensational rumours.

With the political pendulum swinging, he and others dismissed the idea of a coalition government. The suggestion came in an unusually long and gloomy editorial in “The Times.” For the Conservatives, the opposition leader, Mr Edward Heath warned back-benchers to prepare for a possible 1969 election. Mr Heath’s alert was regarded as cautionary and late 1970 is still thought the likeliest date. I Alleged anti-Socialist bias in financial circles has been a battle-cry of Labour Governments. Hostility became less

He attacked “ale-house gossip” and “wild speculation” that created profitable conditions for currency deals. In reference to the report on December 6 that he was resigning office, Mr Wilson said: “Millions upon millions of national assets changed hands for a short time out of the country, on an assumption based on nothing more substantial than a gin and tonic or two, that I was at Buckingham Palace.” A supporting broadside was