This tech giant up for sale is a homegrown miracle – it must be saved for Britain | Will Hutton

If the Tories truly want to reshape the country, they should help to buy Arm

So, Brexit Tories, let's see the colour of your money. So far, Brexit has meant billions spent on new, trade-inhibiting customs facilities, a proposed US trade deal that will necessarily compromise food standards to make us ill and a slump in inward investment. Not to mention deepening the crisis caused by Covid with the de facto no-deal Brexit. But now comes a chance to redeem yourselves, at least in part.

Weeks after the referendum vote, Britain lost its biggest and best technology company - Arm - to the predatory charms of the megalomaniac Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son's SoftBank. Son, who this year compared himself to Jesus, paid $32bn (24bn), the highest price ever for a European hi-tech company.