For a short time in the late 1990s, passengers stepping off the train at Newcastle station were greeted with a bold slogan: “Fish Into Chips – From Mackerel Economy To Micro Technology. Invest In North Tyneside – Siemens Did.”
As globalisation marched ever onwards after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this painfully British pun spoke of a swagger on the world stage. It referred to a vast £1.1bn microchip factory that the German industrial giant had just opened in the Wallsend area of the city, in a deal greased by taxpayer funding and personally brokered by John Major.
