The Evening Standard (London) - Updown Court - Spy City



STRANGE goings-on at the Institute of Directors in Pall Mall. Despite a poll showing its members are overwhelmingly opposed to signing up to the new European Constitution (86% believed the Constitution would damage the economy because it would mean more EU regulation), the IoD has decided to remain neutral on the subject. Most odd. This has prompted dark mutterings within the organisation that new IoD chief Miles Templeman has been got at by New Labour. Certainly, since taking charge, Templeman has confessed to enjoying the access to ministers his position offers.

"The IoD's decision is in stark contrast to that of the CBI, whose director-general, Sir Digby Jones, said last week that he would 'campaign on the side my membership tells me to do'," says a spokesman for the No campaign. "We believe that, as a democratic membership organisation, the IoD should respect its members' views and campaign against the EU Constitution."

BARBARA Cassani to head British Airways?

She was rated so highly on the launch of BA's budget arm and did such a good job on the Olympics bid that the City will welcome her back with open arms.

Not.

AND ousted Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina to run the World Bank? This seems more likely, given her support for the re-election of George W Bush, in whose gift the post is.

SIGN of a change of political mood in the City. At the Grange City Hotel this week, luminaries such as Brian Winterflood of Winterflood Securities, a defector from New Labour, Lord Tugendhat and Sir William Purves gathered to hear Tory leader Michael Howard appeal for their support. When Howard spoke a year ago to the same Conservative City Circle in the same room, 350 turned up. This time, there were 700. Just one problem. "We ran out of quails' eggs," cries Patrick Evershed, the New Star fund manager. "It was quite extraordinary."

AS agents Savills and Hamptons seek a buyer for Updown Court, the £70 million pile in Surrey with 22 bedrooms, five heated swimming pools, a bowling alley and a cinema, and the hype increases, it's worth injecting an air of realism. At most, reckons Philip Beresford, an expert on the wealthy, there are 50 people in Britain who could afford such a spread. "That's the number worth £700 million or more.

A purchaser is unlikely to spend more than a tenth of their fortune on such a house." That total, says Beresford, includes home-grown multimillionaires and ones who choose to live here.

STILL on "the most expensive home in Britain" blah, blah, City Spy hears that journalists were denied the chance to nosy around. The launch of the forthcoming Sunrise Asian Rich List was earmarked for Updown Court but then it was felt hacks were too lazy to journey down the M3, so the unveiling will now take place in a club in Leicester Square.

STICKING to empty accommodation, the Prince of Wales is leading a new drive to persuade businesses to use surplus offices to provide more affordable housing for the young.

"If one business in each market town in England and Wales were to convert empty space, this could provide over 3000 homes for local people," he says.

Sponsors of the initiative include Thames Water, Northumbrian Water and Allsop & Co. So will they be giving the lofts of their HQs over to scruffy youths?


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