Dyson

Dyson is a useful lesson in how a country can keep the romance of invention while losing the ordinary dignity of making. James Dyson’s machines were developed through British engineering, testing and relentless improvement. That story has genuine substance. But a nation does not become richer simply because a product was imagined, sketched or engineered here. It becomes stronger when the machines are built here too, by people whose work is part of the local economy.

In 2002 Dyson moved production from Malmesbury in Wiltshire to Malaysia. Evidence given to the UK Parliament described Malaysia as the headquarters of nearly all Dyson manufacturing. The engineering story survived. The production jobs did not. That is the uncomfortable gap between “British engineering” and “made in Britain”.

There is nothing wrong with acknowledging excellent engineering wherever it happens. What is wrong is allowing the emotional force of British invention to do the work of a country-of-origin statement. A Dyson logo, a British founder and a familiar accent in an advert cannot tell you where the appliance was assembled, where its parts were made or which workforce earned the wages attached to it.

If the aim is to keep British making alive, consumers need to ask more exact questions. Who manufactures the product? Where is the final assembly? Is the claim about design, research or manufacture? The same discipline applies to every British-looking product: read the label, follow the evidence and support the independent firms that still employ British hands to make the thing they sell.