Vince Cable opens hipster-friendly London tech creche

Business Secretary Vince Cable has launched the new Urban Innovation Centre, funded by his Department of Business, Innovation and Skills' Technology Strategy Board Innovate UK. The Urban Innovation Centre is intended as a space for "greater innovation and greater synthesis" for organisations operating in urban environments, …

[Joey M0usepad]

huh?

so its a whatnow?

[Lobrau]

Think every mention of 'cities' in the article could be replaced by the word 'city' as there seems to be only one in the UK, according to ministers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, no, there are two: the City of London and the City of Westminster.

Get your facts right ;-)

[John G Imrie]

Like Universities then. Oxford and Cambridge.

[The Crow From Below]

"Why, if the UK performed so consistently highly in innovation and research, are so many of our cities lagging behind the rest of the country in terms of growth?"

Because cities are full and "urban sprawl" from the cities into the surrounding towns means that you need to reclassify the city boundaries rather than spout bullshit claims to the press about how cities aren't growing?

[Naselus]

Not really. Loads of British cities aren't growing - anywhere in the North East or South West, for example. In fact, more or less anywhere other than London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow. Of course, that makes opening the 'catapult' in the middle of London a bit questionable...

[Anonymous Coward]

"greater innovation and greater synthesis"

Am I a bad person for wanting to hurt the person who came up with that tagline?

[BongoJoe]

Re: "greater innovation and greater synthesis"

It does rather sound as if the taglinee developed an improved version of LSD in their basement laboratory.

[Waspy]

vince cable is about as business savvy as gerald ratner

...ever since he sold the post office for less than...near enough a pack of postage stamps. Why is he still allowed to speak?

[Warm Braw]

Re: vince cable is about as business savvy as gerald ratner

I still think "Vince Cable" would have been a more business-credible brand name for NTL/Telewest than "Virgin Media".

[albaleo]

a uniquely British solution

"a uniquely British solution"

Otherwise known as a cock up.

[The Indomitable Gall]

Re: a uniquely British solution

The "uniquely British solution" for any problem is to make lots of disparaging jokes about the French, then realise that they own half your infrastructure.

Thus I conclude that Cable is suggesting privatising city councils, and selling them off to French-led consortiums.

[John G Imrie]

Re: a uniquely British solution

OCP here we come.

[Doctor Syntax]

"why...are so many of our cities lagging behind the rest of the country in terms of growth?"

Let me rephrase that: "Why is the rest of the country lagging behind London in terms of growth?" and the answer "because you keep putting all the money into London."

[batfastad]

Phew!

Thank god. More money for London will fix the rest of the country in no time!

[The last doughnut]

Seems like they believe the myth that the only thing we struggle with is converting cleverness into profit.