Andrew Lee is quite right in his editorial ‘Innovators need joined-up thinking’ (Comment, 14 January) — particularly when he says civil servants are encouraged to avoid risk and stick with the known, the safe and the cheap.
What can we expect from a nation half of whose working population has one foot in the past, and the other both feet? ‘It won’t work,’ they chorus gleefully when faced with a new idea, then set about practising psychological sabotage to ensure it doesn’t.
No wonder other, forward-looking nations are beating us in every marketplace. Is it surprising that, frustrated by this attitude, our brightest young people are being driven abroad?
If I were a young scientist or engineer fresh out of university I wouldn’t stay here either.
Andrea Preston
Stafford
