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Robert Shrimsley in his Notebook column in the FT today criticises the BBC for being too patriotic in its coverage of the Olympics. Then another article questions the real nationality of several of the sportspeople taking part.
As regular readers know I have made no secret of my support for UK tech. Indeed our ‘Little British Battlers’ campaign shows that patriotism goes beyond just me to the whole TMV team. But, just like the Olympics, who am I supporting as ‘UK tech’?
Another FT headline today was “Ailing HP takes $8bn write down over EDS”. EDS had its genesis in UK IT services companies like Systems Designers and SCICON. In 2000, EDS practically owned UK public sector outsourcing. They may well have been US-owned by that time, but they still felt very ‘British’ to me.
For a decade or more I used Autonomy as the watchword for what British software companies should aspire to be. Although even then Autonomy had much of its revenue and shareholding outside of the UK, their heart was surely here – or more precisely in Cambridge.
Now both EDS and Autonomy seem completely ‘non-British’ to me. Conversely, their owner – HP – really has made very considerable moves to be a good UK neighbour; as Nick Wilson (rightly) expounds to me every time we meet.
Your place of birth, just like your share ownership, don’t matter too much in deciding whether you can be a member of Team GB. What we need are more people and companies investing in the UK, creating jobs and opportunities in the UK, deciding to do their exciting R&D here, paying their fair share of their taxes in the UK and contributing to national life and culture. Maybe even being patriotically British – even though on many tests they might not strictly qualify.
