There can be no doubt that the recent spate of conversions and takeovers has been a considerable blow to those committed to mutuality. And the blow has been all the harder because those societies that have left the sector in recent years have done so not because of carpet baggers and hotly contested take-over battles, but because their Boards have recommended the change as being in the former societies' interests, and their members have accepted their advice. So it is not the carpetbaggers who have orchestrated this change, but people who, a couple of years ago, would have been sitting next to you at this lunch and clapping loudly when mutuality was praised. I think I need to make that point, because from what I hear there is a feeling abroad that the threats to the future of building societies are very largely external, and that the response is mainly someone else's responsibility. That may be comforting for some, but in the end it is a dangerous and an unnecessarily dispiriting doctrine.
Mutuality does have a future.
Millions in this country do believe in it. And it is worth fighting for. But you have to be in the front line. No one can do it for you. There has never been a better time for societies to set out their case - not just with words, but with products, rates and qualities of service that plc's will be hard pressed to match.