George Gater was a congenial colleague at the National Economic Development Office (NEDO) in the 1970s. Some of his colleagues involved in the organisation of the “little neddies”, the industrial working parties, tended to favour the interests of particular sectors. But George never lost sight of the ultimate purpose of the activity – improving the performance of the British economy – on which economists like me were more focused. Our lunchtime conversations ranged more widely, to such matters as the influence of social and historical factors in national economic performance.
