James Dyson : I was told that styling had usurped engineering in the latter half of the 20th century. And that it went deeper than just a change of fashion.

My values of technology and manufacturing were old-fashioned, they said. And if our economy was to succeed, I had to realise something: "The future prosperity of developed nations, rested in the hands of stylists."

"Engineering belonged in the past."

Yet here I am. Someone whose recipe for success, has been to make things that people want to buy.

Not because they look better – although of course I hope they do – but because they work better.

I have spent 35 years making things in a country that often has little regard for its manufacturers. It has left me more convinced than ever that engineering is this country's future.

And that styling for its own sake is a lazy 20th century conceit. One that has passed its sell-by date.

Richard Dimbleby Lecture 2004