[martiuk]

The problem is that even if it is a giant PR exercise, it's still sucking talent away from the Midlands and the North.

There's a somewhat large group of startups here in Birmingham and there is a significant lack of talent (unless you want cookie cutter Microsoft technology developers) and investors. I started my own company to work on a project and I'm contracting at the moment to keep myself going and I still get asked if I want to join someone's startup as their first software engineer.