MY column in today's edition of The Mail on Sunday takes a trip down memory lane.
It is the autumn of 1997, in Birmingham, where the Confederation of British Industry was holding its annual conference. The CBI has reinvented itself from being merely a gathering of the corporate clans into a stage upon which major public figures can make big speeches.
I'm pretty sure Jack Straw was there - then the Home Secretary - and I know for sure two other people were present.
One was the Chancellor, Gordon Brown.
And the other was the leader of the opposition, William Hague.
Other personages were also round and about, speaking to various gatherings. But the point is that Hague was not so much the odd man out as the allegedly-freakish kid in the playground who is picked on by everybody else.
You see, euro-mania was the order of the day, the thing all the 'sensible' people believed in. Hague, who didn't want Britain to join the single currency, was clearly not a serious person and therefore not really worthy of a hearing.
His back to the wall, Hague gave a brilliant speech and was given not one but two rounds of applause. Was that the turning point in the euro debate? I don't think so - the chances of Britain being pushed into the single currency remained high until, I would guess, about 2003/2004.
But you knew the personal danger to Hague had passed the following year, when he gave a speech of unexampled dullness.
All very much a long time ago.
Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of the bank holiday weekend.
Going South: Why Britain Will Have a Third World Economy By 2014, by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson is published by Palgrave Macmillan