Made in Britain by Evan Davis

Davis, a presenter on the Today programme, comes across as a soothing economic agony uncle in this engaging TV tie-in. Britain can still be a world player, he argues. We just need more confidence in ourselves. \"We made some colossal mistakes in the years running up to the financial crash,\" he admits, but our economy can bounce back. Sadly, his shining example of Britain\'s global manufacturing success is BAE Systems. \"Many, of course, feel uncomfortable that such a prominent manufacturer is in the defence sector, and that it has been the subject of a high-profile Serious Fraud Office corruption investigation. But whatever one feels about the sector … the company is at least an answer to the question, \'Do we make anything these days?\'. Yes, some very expensive things that foreigners want to buy.\" As well as selling military hardware to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, we should build on our strength in science and research, Davis says, and make more of our universities (the British export industry of which he is most proud). It\'s the knowledge economy, stupid.