The Consolations of Metals
Extraordinarily, Britain, as of the summer of 2026, acquired a Prime Minister with a degree in English Literature. Who also happens to be a runner and a supporter of Everton FC - two qualities that further endear him to me.
But how, you may ask, does the study of Emma or Middlemarch assist a PM to make good judgments about the war in Ukraine or the ‘triple lock’? Some say that Burnham’s English degree confers ‘moral intelligence’, which possibly means the ‘nous’ to realise you are not a Messiah.
But could mathematics have been a better qualification? Indeed is there any subject that especially qualifies someone to be a leader – or indeed metal trader? Mrs Thatcher was a chemist, Boris Johnson a classicist, Tony Blair a lawyer. In metals it is sometimes said that metallurgy would be useful – but not necessarily when it comes to trading. One famous member of the metals trade from the 1950s who was by training a lawyer, thought of himself as a great trader but habitually persisted in suing his customers – a quality that did not encourage business.
Burnham’s degree appeals to me because I did English as well. But you would not want me programming an AI algorithm, any more than you would particularly want a mathematician to write poetry or act the part of King Lear.
My rather roundabout reason for airing all this is the worry that rather too many clinical judgments or political decisions appear to be made these days by the wrong people - the people in the wrong jobs - who do not appear to be taking into account the human element, for which Burnham’s degree might be a leavening factor. The bank-rolling of a political party with the purpose of buying one's views a place at the top of the agenda is the antithesis of democracy. It is one reason I feel cautious as to whether the two mathematicians, Delo and Harborne, possess the ‘moral intelligence’ to have the right to inflict their beliefs on those who don't have enough money to fund a personal political party. It remains a mystery to me that those with the luck or misfortune to have made money appear to conclude that this means their political views are superior to those who are less pecunious. It is particularly noticeable how some of these, such as Sir Jim Ratcliffe, believe their success at making money confers the right to make damning comments about the country of their birth from the safe haven of Monaco.
Converting money distilled from the crypto zone into real-world currency requires an almost lunatic spiritual faith – not so much spirit made flesh, but higher maths made into coins. All those zeros and ones multiplied in the ether conferring the right to influence the national politics of 70 million Britons. Theirs are not alternative philosophies – merely a car crash between the politics of ‘the one’ with the politics of ‘the many’.
The proliferation of kleptocratic leaders with messianic illusions is troubling too. The very wish to be a prime minister or president, as some have said, should be cause for disqualification. And yet is there any nation in history that has chosen a leader who was a true ‘servant of the people’? (The title of Volodymyr Zelensky’s TV show - and his party). Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand or Mark Carney of Canada perhaps?
A close reading of Emma, I agree, might not contribute directly to solving Britain’s economic woes but to have imbibed history, philosophy, novels, poetry, economics, must surely give the person who drinks at these watering holes a range of reference – or you could say ‘bottom’. Mr Burnham does not merely have nice eyelashes.
The Polish writer, Ryszard Kapuściński (for many years Poland’s only foreign correspondent) was accustomed to travel with a copy of Heroditus’ ‘Histories’ in his pocket as a reminder that the conflict in the nations he encountered had taken place before. There was so much in Heroditus to teach him about the present. In his case, as a Pole, those parallels gave him hope that even the oppression of Soviet Communism might one day pass. In his book ‘Travels with Heroditus’ he noted that the democracy of Athens comprised a state full of citizens with multiple opinions, squabbling among themselves (like our own), and yet Athens was still able to repel the invasion of the mighty Persian army. He is too careful to be certain of the answer as to why - but he wonders whether it could be because the Athenians knew what they were fighting for? Xerxes of Persia is defeated because his oppressed soldiers were about as loyal to the cause as a North Korean soldier on the Ukrainian frontline.
What a lifetime’s trading in metals teaches us (and I note that apart from Herbert Hoover who, with his wife, translated De Re Metallica from Latin into English there have not been many presidents or prime ministers with a metals background) is the role of uncertainty and the blessings of it. The uncertainty principle in physics - that you cannot simultaneously measure the exact position and momentum (speed or velocity) of a subatomic particle - is the same measure of uncertainty you could apply to the rightness of a trading decision - even if taken for the best of possible reasons.
So I do wish good luck to our new PM; as I also hope Everton FC wins its next match at the Hill Dickenson stadium and, as it happens, that I will complete the London Marathon for which I have entered in 2027 aged 70.
As we used to say of our trading decisions – they were never right and they were never wrong. They were just decisions - and we tended to have to live with them.
We now wonder, uncertainly, if it taught us humility.
But it would be the height of arrogance to suggest this.
Anthony Lipmann
a version of this article was published on www.lord-copper.com
22.09.26
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