Michael Mainelli was organising this prestigious event each year at that time. 2008 was the year of Bill Emmott, who at that time had only recently stepped down as editor-in-chief of The Economist. It was always a pleasure and a privilege to spend time with Bill and that evening was certainly no exception.
As I had met Bill before, Michael asked me to “look after” Bill ahead of the lecture. Interestingly, Bill asked me if anything big had happened that day, as the world economy was in the midst of a financial crisis at that time and he wanted to be sure that hew asn’t wrong-fotted by events ahead of his talk.
Here is a link to the Gresham College resources for that talk.
I was also an honoured guest at the dinner with Bill afterwards, which I’m pretty sure was at the Four Seasons Canary Wharf (at the time of writing, April 2020, the Canary Wharf Riverside Plaza). As was often the way with these evenings, some of the most interesting questions and insights came from that group discussion over dinner.
This was a very special evening.