Sure ting, Ed ...
/rant alert/
... while the UK government sings the entrepreneurial song, the realities are that I would be stupid to take my little startup and base it in the UK. Bizarrely, before you lot started tarting about with regulations and attempting to classify absolutely any income/profit generating activity as 'obviously a mechanism to evade tax', the startup climate in the UK was not all that bad. There were better startup environments in other countries, but the UK was still tolerable for those of us with European bases.
So here's the kicker - while my little digital startup will make not a gnat's ballhair's difference to the UK overall, it is currently being welcomed with open arms by an ex-colony. With tax breaks and a boatload of other incentives. Yep ... yep ...
Ed, I'd like to slam you for not having a clue ... but that'd be unfair. The problem is that none of you really have much of a clue (in Government, that is). The ones who do have a clue are sidelined or stored in dark rooms and fed on boiled boots. Or they leave for industry to avoid such a fate.
/rant over-ish/
Biting the hand that feeds IT
