So, here we come again to another LME Dinner. It’s the cue for people who have been in the business for a long time - me included, I have to admit - to start with the “this is my fortieth, forty-fifth, thirty-ninth ……” and so on, and how it was so much better, back in the day. (What that bit actually means is “I used to be young, and I’m not any more. So obviously, it was better then.”)
I thought I’d just throw out a few random reflections; I’m sure others will have different ones, quite probably more interesting - but this is my column, so you get mine….
Early 1980s (either my first or second Dinner), I remember demonstrators blocking the entrance to the Grosvenor as a protest against General Pinochet; Chilean copper connection, of course. Then there was the man from a well-known soft beverage company who told us in his speech how, with the opening up of eastern Europe after the fall of the soviet empire, he had seen the inhabitants of Prague (or Budapest: I honestly can’t remember which) welcoming trucks emblazoned with the logo of his particular fizzy drink with tears of joy in their eyes, as they saw ahead of them the prospect of their children’s teeth rotting as quickly as those in the west, as they consumed the beverage. No, he didn’t mention the teeth, I made that up; he just talked about the tears of joy. The audience, I have to say, seemed a bit sceptical about that one. But his company uses I don’t know how many thousands of tonnes of aluminium, so why wouldn’t we applaud his somewhat - it seemed to me - apocryphal tale?
Then there was someone to whom I shall refer as a banker of sorts, whose speech seemed to have been affected by the generous hospitality on the top table….. And finally, on speeches, the one that surprised me most. I wouldn’t normally expect to have been particularly impressed by Peter Mandelson, but his speech at the Dinner fifteen-odd years ago was surprisingly perceptive, one of the best I can recall.
There is of course another side to the evening which can make bar and club owners across London very happy, and there was a phase some years ago of the Standard’s gossip column picking up lots of louche tales. I have no comment on that, beyond one entertaining evening in an ice bar somewhere, with a member of an eastern European royal family; that finished with a couple of policemen with sub-machine guns helping me out of my cab and across the pavement to the door of my Club. They were charming, and gave me some useful advice that perhaps less is more on the booze front, and the opposite is true when it comes to sleep.
On a more serious note, yesterday (30th September) marked two slightly connected events in the United Kingdom. The last coal-fired power station in the country (Ratcliffe-on-Soar) was closed, and the final blast furnace at Port Talbot was switched off. Now, I’m as keen to see clean energy and unpolluted air as the next man, but we are being fed stories which are not really accurate. The reduction in carbon emissions by the UK over recent years is an impressive number. But if it is made impressive simply because we have effectively exported much of our manufacturing base to other counties - like China - who continue to use and build new coal-fired power stations, then in global terms it’s pretty meaningless. And if we ship wood pellets halfway round the world and claim they are greener than the coal which sits right next door to the power station, then we are deluding ourselves. Our Energy Secretary - the vacuous Ed Miliband - is out of his depth, and his childlike pursuit of ‘net zero by 2030’ will create a cold, dark country, where it will cost you a fortune to drive your car anywhere.
Anyway, enjoy the Dinner and its associated functions. The transition of the world from an oil-based economy to a metal-based one - which is necessary if electric power and particularly battery technology are to assume the role they should - bodes well in the long term for the metals business. My criticisms are not of the intent, but of the inability to understand the time-frame or the depth of change which is necessary.
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