A few years ago, my Late Lord Mayor, I ventured to refer at this dinner to the legendary Texan tourist who, faced with a medical crisis and the cry for artificial respiration, generously said that there was no need to bother about artificial respiration as he could afford the real thing. I suppose that this is in fact the underlying issue we currently face: how can we afford the real thing? the real thing that is actual sustainable prosperity for a whole population ”“ a flourishing ‘real economy’; the real thing that is security for actual people in the most vulnerable situations. And we have been reminded that the relation between these things and the intellectually exhilarating, rapidly-moving, self-multiplying world of financial adventure is by no means as simple ”“ or as benign ”“ as we’d like to think. Just to talk about greed is simplistic: it’s more that we are looking at a large-scale system, sophisticated and normally successful, that can persuade us to imagine that it is more unquestionably solid and dependable than it in fact is. And when some of the salve wears off, we’re bound to ask how best we reconnect with what we’ve lost.
The City has worked hard over the years ”“ and you, my Late Lord Mayor, have been a notable example in this ”“ to connect with the struggles and needs of the urban life that exists around you and the needs of the wider world. In another part of London, I was struck, on a recent visit to Canary Wharf, by the willingness of so many to put premises, skills and resources at the service of a much challenged neighbourhood: one of the first people I met there was the head teacher of a local school with whom the firm I was visiting had developed a very creative partnership. There are countless people – very many, I know, in this company tonight – who have shown how to connect, how to think about affording the real thing. And it is this which gives me and others some confidence in these uncertain days: there is still in our institutions a will not only to make money but to create employment, security and a just sharing of goods.