 given the state of present UK politics you can never be too sure. Liberal democracies are not immune to the occasional miscarriage of justice but a whole scale abandonment of the democratic process might be a step too far. The end does not always justify the means to the end. Collaborative initiatives that bring common interest countries together are one alternative, but recessions tend to increase national self-interest - the car industry being a present stark example. So we are forced back to seeing what we already have and whether we can make better use of what we have. Theoretically, the UK should have a legacy advantage. In radio communications for example, the UK was one of the first countries to implement digital mobile GSM networks, the first country in the world to implement digital broadcasting with the launch of DAB in 1995 and DVB-T in 1997, and one of the first countries to introduce digital two-way radio. The UK presently hosts the world's largest TETRA-based public safety network. The UK will be one of the first countries to implement DVB -T2 broadcasting and has a leadership role in LTE standardisation. A UK company directly supports nearly 300 million cellular subscribers internationally and has a track record of technology innovation that has delivered global com- petitive advantage. We have several UK companies that are world leaders, or at least potential world leaders, in radio and telecommunications silicon. The UK undertakes internationally acclaimed fibre optic research. The UK is surprisingly good at designing and making and occasionally launching low-cost satellites. Depressingly, this is probably not enough. It is remarkable how easily national technology resource, the engineering collateral of a nation, can be squandered as a result of political paralysis. Political inefficiency may be the price that we pay for living in a democracy and if SO we should just accept the fact that free will is not free but comes with a cost attached. Even discounting the direct and indirect 'cost of demo