ALEX BRUMMER: Sir Patrick Sergeant leaves indelible legacy

Esteemed: Sir Patrick Sergeant

The natural topic for this comment to dwell on today would be the public finances, amid data showing that Britain’s debt levels have risen to 100 per cent of total output.

After all Rachel Reeves’ debut Budget awaits on October 30 when the Chancellor will set the fiscal framework – financial and geo-political shocks notwithstanding – for the next five years.

In the context of the life of my most illustrious predecessor, Sir Patrick Sergeant, who has died at the age of 100, that is a mere bagatelle.

As first deputy City Editor and then occupant of this chair from 1966 to 1984, Sergeant, with the assistance of some of the most distinguished financial writers of the last century, presided over 6,491 columns.

That was in addition to his entrepreneurial genius in recognising how the post-Second World War City of London was changing dramatically.

It was emerging, partly as a result of ill-conceived American regulation, as the banking capital of the world.

The establishment of Eurobonds, syndicated loans and eurocurrency markets in the Square Mile was the fertile territory on which Sergeant launched the magazine Euromoney. 

He was the ultimate chronicler of the birth of the modern City, which now contributes 12 per cent to the nation’s wealth, employs 2.5million people across the UK and pays in excess of £100million of taxes. 

Some might say that already is enough. There is a lurking worry that a newly minted Labour government, by penalising wealth, could drive financial services – much more mobile in the age of AI – offshore.

My own knowledge of Sergeant was gathered as a novice economic and financial journalist on the Guardian. 

I quickly learned that in spite of the role of the Financial Times as the City’s parlour paper, the best place to turn if you wanted to connect to the beating heart of the Square Mile was Sergeant’s comment.

Readers of these pages, many of them private shareholders, relied on the wit, wisdom, fun and pungent commentary of Sergeant to guide their way through the tick-tock of financial news.

His ability to pick up the phone to the titans of the corporate world and commune directly with the old line merchant banks meant that the comment column, more often than not, included scoops. It also provided the reader with vital knowledge on whether to buy, sell or hold stocks and in the process, accumulate personal wealth.

All of this was done, as Robert Hardman’s brilliant obituary in yesterday’s paper noted, with rare bonhomie and generosity of spirit. 

My first personal encounter with the Sergeant whirlwind came in Washington. The setting was the cavernous Sheraton conference hotel where commercial bankers, central bankers and finance ministers would gather each autumn for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund.

The arrival of Sergeant and his entourage was that of an all-conquering hero. 

He would be accompanied by a generous pile of that day’s Daily Mail, replete with a comment on the crisis of the day, as well as glossy and telephone book-thick free editions of Euromoney.

Most important of all, the champagne would flow. Sadly, IMF meetings since have become more sober affairs held amid great security downtown at the organisation’s headquarters. Delegates are more likely to be sipping from a bottle of mineral water than quaffing Moet.

Pre-Sergeant, financial journalism tended to the dull side. There were terrific but sometimes impenetrable economic columnists such as the FT’s Samuel Brittan and the Times’ Peter Jay. But investment, interest rates and the public finances were not entertainment material.

Sergeant changed that, humanising great City figures and helping to make share investment accessible. 

He pilloried those who fell below standard. One can only guess what he would have made of Labour’s downbeat start to government and current high levels of borrowing.

What I have gleaned from predecessors here at the Mail, Sergeant and the late Andrew Alexander, is that monthly public finance data is the difference between two very big and lumpy numbers – tax collected and money spent by government. It is to be handled with great caution.

Hopefully the Chancellor is listening to lessons of the wise.