Friday, January 05, 2007

What really makes Britain rich?

Caught a bit of Peter Snow's programme What Makes Britain Rich on BBC2 last night. At first I thought this was a rare show of understanding from the BBC, but it missed the mark, partly because of the examples they used. I've worked in TV so I know how difficult it can be to get people to give up their time to be interviewed, but there was a gaping hole in the middle of the programme called Britain's entrepreneurs. While they did well to get people from Viyella talking about IP and industrial decline, the choice of millionaires were too obvious (Caudwell, Stelios, Felix Dennis). Using Chelsea FC as an example of the knowledge economy was poor. To then leap from a warehouse in the Midlands to hedge funds in Mayfair and City traders also failed to get across the pace of change in our economy. There are fortunes being made and they're not all in hedge funds.

1 comment:

Absolutely Confidential said...

I found myself writing about the same programme from a different angle in my blog, but I do agree that there wasn't nearly enough on the young start-ups that must drive wealth generation over the next decades. Who they are and what they're doing - that really would be useful to know!