Raleigh Addington
Raleigh Addington
editor at Chartwell Speakers

Yet again Chartwell has been whizzing around London watching speakers in action this week.

Bob Litan, vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation, gave a brilliant presentation over lunch at the Legatum Institute yesterday on how to re-invigorate the US economy through entrepreneurship.

This was followed closely by coffee with London’s networking Queen, Julia Hobsbawm of Editorial Intelligence, who described how a healthy networking culture is one of the most important tools for companies to stay innovative and competitive.

Barely an hour later I found myself in the bear-pit that was the Policy Exchange Fight Club debate on Scottish independence (the first rule about this fight club is that you talk about it). Speaking for the motion “It’s time for an independent Scotland” were Pete Wishart of the SNP and Sir Simon Jenkins, and opposing were Sir Malcom Rifkind and Fraser Nelson of the Spectator. The preliminary vote went decidedly against the motion, as did the post-debate count, although with a slight swing towards pro-independence.

And this morning I found myself at Policy Exchange again (frankly I don’t know why I didn’t just pitch a tent in Parliament Square) to attend their Financing Innovation forum, before dahsing to Victoria in time to catch Roger Bootle for a brisk morning coffee at Capital Economics.

If it weren’t for the cappuccinos, I’m sure all this rushing around would make my trousers fit much better.

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