ABSTRACT
Whatever the reality behind the rhetoric on science parks, the new breed of scientists, technicians and engineers can certainly lay claim to high status within UK society. There are times indeed when they are given almost mythical significance as the class of the future. William Rees-Mogg (1987) calls them the new electronic class: “The new class is the electronic class, whose work is individualistic, often incentive-rewarded, personal rather than impersonal, and related to communications which span the world’. Michael Meacher suggests that ‘it is the technocratic class-the semiconductor “chip” designers, the computer operators, the industrial research scientists, the high-tech engineers-who hold the key to Britain’s future’ (1987).
