Conference call

摘要

The floor of the SOLACE conference centre last Thursday morning resembled a scene from a meeting of Gamblers' Anonymous. Said one delegate: 'Yeah, I lost ￡15m from the Icelandic banks collapse. 'Course, that chap over there standing by the coffee stand lost ￡7m. And that one down there on the mobile just by the gents - he's down for ￡11m.' It was questionable how many of those attending, up until a few hours before, had even been aware of their council investments, a normally-arcane process left to treasurers. One London chief executive confessed that in the previous fortnight, he had spent more time with his borough treasurer than the previous 15 years. Oddly, the local Belfast media were either uninterested or unaware of the story on their doorstep. Here was UK local government standing to lose ￡1bn on dodgy Icelandic banks, and the chief executives were actually meeting on their patch.