It seems that Google does not think much of Blighty.  Its chairman just released a tirade against the nation which gave the world the steam engine, the Electric Light Bulb, the Telephone, discovered the Americas, gravity, the agricultural revolution, stamps, television.. [that's enough innovation, ed] Google chairman Eric Schmidt has said education in Britain is holding back the country's chances of success in the digital media economy.

Speaking at the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Schmidt said the UK needed to reignite children's passion for science, engineering and maths. Britain had invented many items but were no longer the world's leading exponents in these fields, he said.

Schmidt said: "If I may be so impolite, your track record isn't great. The UK is home of so many media-related inventions. You invented photography. You invented TV. You invented computers in both concept and practice. It's not widely known, but the world's first office computer was built in 1951 by Lyons' chain of tea shops. Yet today, none of the world's leading exponents in these fields are from the UK."

Schmidt was flabbergasted to learn that computer science was not taught as standard in UK schools these days. He said that was despite what he called the "fabulous initiative" in the 1980s when the BBC not only broadcast programmes for children about coding, but shipped over a million BBC Micro computers into schools and homes. That was in the days when it was fashionable to give the BBC money rather than allocate the money to subsidise BT broadband projects.