JAMES Dyson, vacuum cleaner entrepreneur and ex-chairman of the Design Museum, delivered a searing attack on the state of British industry during the 29th Richard Dimbleby Lecture.
Mr Dyson, the first engineer to deliver the lecture, told his audience last week that the British people’s overriding fondness of “retail therapy” is part of the reason for their lack of interest in engineering and manufacture. We are no longer a nation of shopkeepers, but shopaholics and have therefore become divorced from the producers, he warned.
“Although service and creative industries have apparently replaced manufacturing, the rest of the world relies on manufacturing for its wealth,” said Dyson. “In order to maintain our position alongside other leading nations, we’ve got to join them.”
A shame that Mr Dyson has largely chosen to divorce his manufacturing operations from Britain. Little surprise then that we Britons are forgetting what engineering is about.