As it happens, from what I have already discovered I believe there is much to learn for today's politicians and would-be entrepreneurs about this exciting but all too brief moment in British industrial history, which saw an explosion in computer use ahead of even the US, as companies such as Sinclair, Amstrad and Acorn brought affordable computers to market. And from Acorn emerged the technology upon which was built the mighty Arm, arguably one of just a handful of technological success stories the UK can boast.
One lesson I hope to learn in my research is why, with such a head start, Britain's microcomputer industry did not - with the exception of Arm - go on to lead the world. It is a particularly interesting question given our imminent exit from the EU. Conservative Brexit negotiators like Liam Fox have suggested small businesses should expand their horizons and export more, but little about how they will be supported in doing this - where, in short, the next Arm will come from. On this matter Labour's policies go further, with plans for a National Investment Bank to plug the lending gap to small, high-tech businesses - but that idea sounds very similar to the National Enterprise Board set up by Harold Wilson in 1975 and scrapped by Thatcher less than a decade later with little to show for its efforts. In other words, it didn't work - perhaps because creating businesses is hard against a backdrop of 52 per cent corporation tax. Indeed, the UK's subsequent economic recovery has coincided with a continued fall in this rate to the current 19 per cent.
Either way, discussion of how we create a better platform for business has been scant in this largely dismal and emotionally-charged election campaign, which has focused more on verbal slip-ups and screeching U-turns than any rational discussion of policy. In fact, one policy that I felt was rather sensible but was widely pilloried was the Conservative's social care manifesto proposal, and I speak from current family experience - if you can afford to pay for any later life care you require then you should, and there should be no automatic right to pass on unearned property wealth if someone else (the taxpayer) has to pick up the tab. Perhaps whoever wins the election might want to encourage better personal financial planning for such late-life rainy days - as IC readers already understand only too well.
