Ian Barber, Managing Director, Future Industries.
Welcome, then, Andy Burnham as he carries his boxes into Downing Street, armed with the mantra: "good growth in every postcode". If it hasn’t already, his desk will soon disappear beneath a small mountain of UK plc’s calling cards - our sector contributes £Y billion, supports Z jobs and requires these policy changes, immediately.
Most industries commission these reports. I worked on advertising's version (£6bn); the BBC's (£5bn) is a more recent addition. Nobody adds them up, which is fortunate, because the combined total would likely eclipse UK GDP. That isn't a criticism of the numbers, these reports are the start point for any serious policy conversation.
Which brings me to Farnborough Airshow, where Four is spending the week.
Farnborough is a beast. Many exhibitors and delegates have travelled a very long way to get there, but a few hours on site leaves you in no doubt that, in aerospace at least, Britain is particularly well placed for the kind of growth that politicians like talking about.
Walk through the vast exhibition halls and you begin to understand the connection between a wing designed in Filton and a pay packet earned in Rochdale - and what it must take to build a supply chain this deep, specialised and resilient.
Our client, the Aerospace Technology Institute, has the numbers. The UK’s aerospace opportunity runs well beyond $40bn by 2050. But back on that Downing Street desk, it risks becoming just another digit. People - including, I fear, some of those deciding where public money flows - have little sense of what sits behind it.
That’s been our job here this week. To help make that machinery (literally, in many cases) of growth more visible – to show how research and innovation are building new technologies, which themselves are forcing advances in manufacturing. And how all of it turns into export sales and well-paid jobs right across the country.
Farnborough is proof that UK aerospace possesses the best of all strategic advantages: its story is true. The manufacturers exist, the supply chains exist, the research infrastructure is there and the demand is coming. In the end, growth doesn't happen in econometric models, it happens in these places. And Farnborough is full of them.