In defence of the long lunch: Business needs the human touch Eliot Wilson is co-founder of Pivot Point and a former House of Commons official. No-one quite knows when the long lunch suffered a mortal blow. Perhaps it was the financial crisis of 2007-08, when money lost its lustre. Perhaps it was before that, in the 1980s, when US working cultures flooded the City of London after the Big Bang. The grim phrase “al desko” was first recorded in the Washington Post 40 years ago, so the rot has a long history. Now, in the aftermath of the pandemic, with employees habituated to working from home for much of their time, the idea of spending two or three hours in a day at a nominally social event seems not just absurdly extravagant but positively treasonous.