I was glad to hear Next boss Lord Simon Wolfson declare he is not a Luddite during a parliamentary debate about a planned rail link.It was an interesting statement for a man who has taken advantage of socio-economic and technological progress to make the Enderby fashion group one of the best performing UK businesses of the past few years.
The chief executive of Next made the comment yesterday during a meeting of the House of Commons Transport Committee.
He wanted to make it clear his opposition to the proposed £32 billion HS2 rail link from London to the North of England, via the East Midlands, had "nothing to do with ludditism or nimbyism", but was the result of reasoned economic argument.
The millionaire Tory peer is hardly the type of man to go around smashing up hi-tech knitting machines, as the Luddites famously did in Loughborough more than 150 years ago, forcing pioneering industrialist John Heathcoat to relocate his lace-making business to Devon.
Of course these days he'd have to travel a lot further afield (ie, southern and eastern Europe, the Far East and North Africa) if he wanted to find a significant number of knitwear machines to attack.
Given the bumper bonuses Next has paid its hundreds of head office staff after two years of record profits, most people living in and around Enderby will be glad the company is based in their back yard.
(Picture depicts Luddites attacking John Heathcoats' factory in Loughborough in 1816)
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