The story goes that if Sir Winston Churchill hadn't ordered all the equipment and documents at Bletchley Park to be destroyed after the War, then IBM would have been a British company.

Given the long tradition of British technology firms to sell up - often to US rivals - before they reach any real scale, I remain somewhat skeptical about this theory.

I was interested, however, to see this BBC interview with Eric Schmidt in which he describes the UK e-commerce industry as ripe for incubating the next world leader.

Using the social media sector, as an example, and contrasting the fortunes of Facebook with the recent news that the once popular (and homegrown) Friends Reunited is finally being 'put down' - I am trying my best to remain optimistic...