Re: We could do it!
Over the years I have concluded that the British problem is not that things cost too much; it is that things are done on the cheap and the problems of rectification are what then costs all the money.
In places I've worked like Germany and the US, the money tends to get spent on doing things properly and it shows.
In the UK, corners get cut and then it turns out those corners were really, really necessary.*
During WW2 (sorry to hark back) we had to get things right and the Merlin programme and Bletchley were properly funded. Rolls-Royce is still a leader in aero engines and generators, possibly the result of the former, and we are quite good at things like cryptography. But the car industry and the computer industry were under-funded and the results are obvious. Thatcher notoriously refused to support ICL, for instance. The pattern is repeating itself. Failed businessman Dominic Cummings advises Johnson, and Johnson says "Fuck industry". It will not end well.
*(One small example I remember was a new build office building. The correct radiators and so on were put in for the central heating, but to save money the boiler installation was handed over to Futtwick Plumbing. By the time it was realised that they had not understood how a condensing boiler worked, when the winter started to get a bit colder, the boilers had flooded and had to be replaced.)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
