Newsnight and ventilators.

Long since ceased to watch it.

Those Dyson employees are designers not production workers. The discussion is about Dyson's manufacturing capability in the UK for hospital ventilators.

Over a decade ago Dyson sacked his production workers to set up new factories in the Far East.

Dyson only designs in the UK. He manufactures in the Far East and his head office is now in Singapore which is where he lives. It's also where his company and he pay taxes.

Good point.

That's what Dyson claims. He set up a design campus and the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology at Malmesbury to train design engineers. His claim for employees is "across the UK", so he probably also counts students enrolled at the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial and there's also something called the James Dyson Foundation. Even so, the number seems high.

The Dyson company is secretive (the annual report I saw is really basic) which lets him to throw out uncheckable figures when he needs to qualify for various grants and subsidies. I am not even particularly sure James Dyson is a good engineer, but he's a good publicist and good at getting grants.

IIRC, they refused planning for exactly what he wanted. Dunno the details. He likely wanted something he knew would not get permission so he could blame them for moving abroad.

Are ventilators currently made in the public sector? If so, give details. Otherwise your comment is as irrelevant as most of your others.

Are you a government spokesman, then?

And the answer to just who is going to produce them in high volume?

Smiths Industries (who already make them), assisted by Rolls Royce, Airbus and others who can share production.

BBC4 Iplayer still has "Clive James - Postcard from Shanghai" first broadcast in 1990 (but ?filmed in 1988) if anyone is interested in seeing what the place looked like before Deng told the public to make better mousetraps.

That link does say that Dyson have over 4000 employees in the UK. Which IIRC is what Fred claimed.

Andy

Fred's site gave does not say Dyson has 4,000 MANUFACTURING jobs in the UK.

But most would probably be good in adapting to the production of a few thousand ventilators.

At least he's got off his arse and doing something. I'm not aware of you doing anything positive and you consistently strive to denigrate those who do work for our benefit.

I share your admiration for effective action. However it remains to be seen if Dyson delivers anything useful. Like Elon Musk at Tesla, James Dyson talks a lot but delivers less.

Elon Musk's gift of 1,000 ventilators for America turned out to be rebadged Chinese CPAP/BPAP machines. CPAP and BPAP machines are not ventilators but they make for good publicity.

That's a lot more than the nothing you deliver.

Snarky surly sneering ... as ever. :(

CPAP machines are extremely useful for this virus. They have already stated that many people struggling to breath will need lower end assistance with breathing and CPAP machines will therefore reduce the need for ventilators.

SteveW

CPAP is a very viable alternative to a ventilator, especially for the less ill with cornoavirus as ut keeps the airways open without requiring the sedation of a full ventilator but CPAP is not the ventilator which was promised.

Elon Musk has been taken to task for not providing a true ventilator and then rebadging a Chinese CPAP/BPAP machine. Also for calling it FDA approved.

It's a far cary from the headline, "SpaceX and Tesla are working on ventilators, Elon Musk says" and his tweets.