Jim Armitage: Tech exodus threat in Britain

Every day of impasse in the Brexit talks is another day when global capital drifts elsewhere.

With no certainty over immigration, export tariffs, open skies or passporting for financial services, investors are choosing other locations for their cash.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the tech industry. Software engineers and entrepreneurs are a young, international lot. If London, Cambridge and Oxford don’t seem welcoming, they will go elsewhere, fast.

So far, the number of leavers has been a trickle. But figures today, which show France beating Britain on tech fundraising, suggests a flood is on its way.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s olive branch in Florence couldn’t come soon enough.

Ouch. Yesterday I described Gama Aviation as one of our most secretive companies, and criticised it for keeping shareholders in the dark over litigation by its former part-owner.

Within a few hours of our publication, the private-jets manager went to a High Court judge and got an injunction on newspapers, forbidding us from reporting the names of its clients.

I said they liked secrets.

Gama’s lawyers, Carter Ruck, don’t come cheap.

If I were a shareholder, I’d be asking if this was a productive use of company money.