Well, there's something to be said about the inability to capitalize long term.

Britain has managed to be at the forefront of all those revolutionary technologies, but when the real break out happens somehow the Americans swoop in and buy the winners. That's shaky ground for future ingenuity.

ARM seems to have been very important to Cambridge at large, but it's not Silicon Valley. I can sort of understand why politicians would look back at things and ponder what could have been done differently.