Evening Standard: "British business and what went horribly wrong"

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"The British class structure, reinforced by the educational establishment, channelled the brightest people into the professions and the City rather than engineering and industrial management.

"Once inside the companies, the brightest were unlikely to be those who got their hands dirty.

"Production and operations were in large part run by people who started on the shop floor and received almost no training when promoted to management even though they were in charge of the one area on which the company’s life depended.

"The class divide meant that those who understood the job had no voice in strategy and those who decided strategy had no understanding of the job.

Then, into this unholy mix, was injected an unwarranted respect for accountants."