ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the growing crisis in the domestic computer industry since 1979 with an examination of the financial collapse and ultimate takeover of International Computers Ltd. (ICL), the increasing trade imbalance. It also explores the domination of the British industry by foreign-owned firms through inward investment and acquisition activity. The chapter traces the growing crisis in a critique of technology policy since the mid-1960s. It describes that the overcommitment to defence and the lack of a comprehensive industrial policy has exacerbated rather than alleviated the crisis. The Government's shareholding in ICL passed into the hands of the National Enterprise Board during the period of the Wilson and Callaghan Labour Governments 1974-9. Trade statistics for the computer electronics industry are presented in Business Monitor PQ 366 by product headings. In October 1970, the incoming Conservative administration disbanded Mintech and absorbed most of its functions into the new Department of Trade and Industry.
