Skilled Peasants Ready for Export

The Government's famously happy relationship with information and computer technology is set to receive another shot in the dark from the Chancellor's visit to China. It appears that the Chinese economy is evolving in a slightly different direction from our own: according to Osborne, "Those who think it is just a low-wage, low-tech economy are making a mistake", and no doubt the Chancellor and his chums will have much useful advice to offer, not least because Osborne has done his prep for once and has learned the word tech for the occasion. Britain has also evolved a "skilled workforce and entrepreneurial environment", which will come as a pleasant surprise to the few million of us who are unemployed, underemployed or otherwise tarred with the lazy-brush.

A further purpose of the visit is to smoothe Beijing's ruffled feathers over Daveybloke's photo-opportunity with the Dalai Lama last year; presumably by reassuring our new Chinese chums that the whole business was entirely for show, the sort of irritating social occasion which is sometimes forced upon great men by the exigencies of pretend democracy, and that the British Government has no more interest in the human rights of Tibetans than it does in those of Britons below a certain income bracket.