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When the Industrial Revolution started, the amount of carbon sitting underneath Britain in the form of coal was as big as the amount of carbon sitting under Saudi Arabia in the form of oil, and this carbon powered the Industrial Revolution, it put the 'Great' in Great Britain, and led to Britain's temporary world domination.

In the industrial revolution Britain led the world in advances that enabled mass production: trade exchanges, transportation, factory technology and new skills needed for the new industrialised world.

Britain is doing brilliant things around the world and that is why I described as a 'superpower on development.'

It's important to remember that Britain was the first country to industrialize, so I think there's a strong argument to say this is where my profession was founded.

There are the manufacturing multitudes of England; they must have work, and find markets for their work; if machines and the Black Country are ugly, famine would be uglier still.

England was the first true colonial power to use its dominion over a large part of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, North America, and many Caribbean islands, in the first half of the 20th century.

In the span of a human lifetime, and well within the collective memory, Britain went from a stable imperial power ruling an appreciable fraction of the Earth's surface to being a tumultuous patchwork which was at least superficially in decline.

There tends to be a jealousy in England towards countries that are successful.

Britain is not a country that is easily rocked by revolution... In Britain our institutions evolve. We are a Fabian Society writ large.

Britain is famous for being great at inventing and poor at commercializing.