The playthings of our leaders

There is a big political row about the US drug company Pfizer’s bid to buy its British rival AstraZeneca. It is interesting that it is a row because for at least three decades it has been claimed in Britain, at least, that ownership does not matter and, as I discuss on pp. 106-7 of the book, there has been a wholesale sell-off of what were once British companies (other countries, including the US, have been somewhat more wary of seeing ownership drift offshore). We have thus had the bizarre di