http://www.insider.co.uk March 2020 INSIDER 51
IN MY VIEW: IAN RITCHIE
N
OW that the Conservative Government
has a majority of 80 in parliament, it is
clear that they will be able to implement
pretty much anything they want. The
opposition is effectively powerless, and even a few
rebellious Tory backbenchers will have little impact
on their ambitions.
Boris Johnston is not a conviction politician. As a
journalist he would turn his pen to whatever topic he
thought would best amuse and entertain his readers.
The man in Downing Street with convictions,
driving their strategic goals, is his senior advisor,
Dominic Cummings.
Cummings is a clever man – he has a first from
Oxford – but his degree is in Ancient and Modern
History, not in science or engineering. This hasn’t
stopped him becoming very excited about the power
of technology innovation to transform an economy.He has shown a particular interest in the US
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA),
established in 1958 by President Eisenhower to
“invent the future”. He has written extensively about
his admiration for ARPA – his WhatsApp profile is
even labelled: “Get Brexit done, then ARPA”.
He has been particularly inspired by a book,
Dream Machine, which outlines how ARPA
was responsible for funding the research which,
among others, led to the internet and the personal
computer. He thinks that a similar research funding
programme here of around £800m could lead
to Britain once again leading the world in future
innovative technology.
He clearly doesn’t understand how the British
innovative economy works, or rather, why it fails
to win.
Britain doesn’t lack fundamental innovation. We’ve
invented world changing technologies: radar, liquid
crystal displays (LCD), medical scanning (MRI,
CT and ultrasound), cloned mammals, grapheneand so on. Brits discovered fundamental scientific
concepts such as the electron, proton and neutron,
the structure of life (DNA), and the Higgs boson.
In the world of computing we invented the world’s
first electronic processing machine (Colossus), the
world’s first programmable computer (Manchester
Baby), the packet-switching technology that enables
the internet (NPL), the computing chip in all the
world’s smartphones and mobile devices (ARM),
and the World Wide Web (Tim Berners-Lee).
Where the UK falls down is not in our innovation
and inventive capacity, but in our industrial policies.
As a nation we are extraordinarily careless about
retaining the economic benefits of our innovative
industries. Medical scanning, LCDs, and graphene
are now mostly exploited elsewhere.
British industry is largely driven by short-term
financial returns, not by long-term strategic goals.
It is mostly run by accountants and investment
executives, not technology pioneers.
Here in Scotland we invented the CMOS imaging
chip that powers the cameras in smartphones, and
the audio chip that creates any sounds they make.
The former is now owned by Geneva-based ST
Micro and the latter by Texas-based Cirrus Logic.
We invented the world’s leading computer game
(Grand Theft Auto), now owned by New York-based
Take Two. Edinburgh’s unicorn, Skyscanner, is now
part of China’s Trip.com.
When Cambridge-based ARM was bought by
Japan’s Softbank the UK technology community was
stunned, how could this be allowed to happen? The
world’s leading computing chip company sold just
like any other object.
When US-based Pepsico wanted to buy Danone
the French government stepped in, drafting a law to
protect companies in “strategic industries” such as
Danone from takeover. Danone makes yoghurt!
It really looks like Cummings is concentrating on
the wrong end of the problem. What the UK needs
most is an industrial policy which better enables
our excellent UK innovation to create and retain
economic benefit. ■Ian Ritchie is a leading businessman who advises start-up
technology companies.CUMMINGS’ FOCUS
ON INNOVATION
COMES AT THE
EXPENSE OF
ITS ECONOMIC
BENEFITS
He clearly doesn’t understand how the
British innovative economy works,
or rather, why it fails to win