[BITList] James Dyson: Let engineers make Britain great again |Comment is free | The Observer

[HUGH]

Mike,

I've been preaching that for ages, but nobody is listening.  Going through 
my letter files I see that, as early as the 70s, I had noted a certain 
indifference in high places to the fate of UK heavy industry, aka 
engineering and shipbuilding. Thatcher didn't help, nor did her predecessors 
or successors, and somewhere along the line we had that clown Geoff Hoon 
rubbishing the remnants as "the metal bashing trades".

I think less could have been made in the article of UK "professionals", not 
my favourite topic.  I didn't leave the sliding scale in my calling till I 
was 30, and I have to get some dickhead on a list of "professionals" to 
countersign  forms for me.  When I moved to Denmark in 1965 I became Hr 
Ingenior McIntyre.  I was not a member of the relevant Danish Institute, but 
as far as the firm, the union and others were concerned I had that status by 
virtue of my training and experience, and it was so ordained. Few of my 
Danish colleagues had it.  Much to her amusement, my wife became Fru 
Ingenior McIntyre - she's still got the envelope from the Brugsen (the 
Danish Coop) about her dividend, so describing her.

Still snowing up here, but why is it barely 1.5" deep after being on for 
most of the day?  Something to do with the Barnett Formula?

Hugh.