In response to Chris McGovern: If this is success, what does failure look like?, rick hamilton wrote:
Recent Japanese newspaper reports cover the construction of the 500kph Maglev train to Nagoya, a space probe landing on an asteroid after a journey of 3.5 years, deep sea robotic mining for rare earths (essential for electric cars etc), research into advanced small-scale nuclear reactors and bringing 36 of the existing ones back on line, more deep sea mining for methane hydrate as fuel, launch of 5G TV services, a satellite launched to control drone positioning within an accuracy of 10cm, Japan’s entry into the Trans-Pacific trade agreement with 10 countries, and so on and on.
Meanwhile in a country far, far away and apparently stuck in the 20th century, the British political class cannot work out how to frustrate the wishes of 17.4m Brexit voters and the media are obsessed with such earth-shattering issues as transgender toilets. Greens are terrified of fracking, cannot abide HS2 and loathe the perfectly sensible proposal to build a bridge from Scotland to Northern Ireland.
Is the UK lacking something in its attempts to compete globally in the 21st century? Like technical education, the will to succeed and how the country is supposed to earn its living?
